“He did not know she was a fairy – so the story goes. The young prince saw an old woman, and he liked to surround himself only with beautiful things. He was aware that not all were created equal – like the rose beside the dandelion. Yes, one a lovely blossom, the other considered no more than a weed. Both were flowers, but a rose…

“A single petal, a breath of fragrance, could put a garden full of other blossoms to shame.

“So it was that it exceptionally pained him to be made ugly; to be made into a beast. So it was that it was agony to sustain this new, cursed life, an agony of existence for which there was no relief.

“‘Devour the roses’, she had said to him. ‘Devour the most beautiful rose, again and again, since you care for what is beautiful more than for human life!’

“Because he did not know she was a fairy, only thought her an old woman – and he had turned her away, and it was a cold and rainy night.”