The suitor who happened to present himself was a powerful chief of some nomadic tribe. He was not exactly a handsome man, for he was shock-headed, short and squat, with sturdy, muscular limbs, big, broad hands and square feet. As for his face, it was quite flat, with a pug nose, thick lips and sharp teeth. As for his ears, they were canine in their shape, large and hairy.
Though he was not exactly a monster, still the girl refused him, horrified. The man, gloating upon her, said, with a leer, that a time might come when she would lick her chops to have him. Nay, he grinned and showed his dog-like teeth as he uttered this very low expression, rendering it ever so much the more obnoxious by emitting a low canine laugh, something between a whine and a merry bark. The poor Princess shuddered with horror and said she would as lief be wedded to one of her father's curs.
The father now got into a towering passion and asked the Princess why she would not marry, and the damsel, melting into tears, and almost fainting with grief and shame, confessed that she was in love with him--her own father.
He had been bored the whole of his life by all the women, not only of his Court, but of his whole kingdom, who were madly in love with him. Wherever he went there was always a crowd of young girls and old dames, married women and widows, gazing at him as if he had been the moon; grey eyes and green eyes, black eyes and blue eyes, were always staring, ogling or leering at him; and, amidst deep-drawn sighs, he always heard the same words: "Ah! how handsome he is!" His fatal beauty made more ravages amongst the fair sex even than the plague or the small-pox; the cemeteries and lunatic asylums were peopled with his victims. His dreams were haunted by the sighs and cries of these love-sick females. At last he had decided to live in a remote castle, in the midst of a forest, where he would see and be seen by as few women as possible; but even here he could not find rest, his own daughter had not escaped the infection. That was too much for the poor King. He at once banished the Princess, not only from his sight--from his castle--but even from his kingdom. He wished thereby to strike the rest of womankind with terror.