There lived a prince who was an idiot, with no passion but pottery. His wares were unremarkable, and he was content. By his twentieth year, his collection filled his rooms, and he slept in a cauldron. When pots appeared in the queen’s dressing room, the king acted. He was not a bad man, but was not a good one, and saw no wrong in banishing the prince to the hills, where pots would not interfere. The young prince saw no wrong either--the stream was full of clay. The queen fainted out of obligation.
The prince’s cottage was furnished with a potter’s wheel. Guards brought food. The cottage filled as his bedroom had, forcing the prince to store pots outside. Only the potter prince could dance atop his pots or he became violent, protecting pots with the passion he sculpted with. He attacked a guard who bumped a vase handing him bread. Fortunately, a pot was ready to leave the kiln, so the prince stopped braining the guard long enough for him to escape.
Then fear visited--a giant was coming. Everyone thought to warn the potter, but the guard with bread said the prince was mad, and the family feared the giant surprising them on the hillside.
At fifteen feet tall, it was a small giant, but because of this insecurity he raided for pleasure. His first step over the hill crunched pots. Shards of hardened clay sliced between bones. The crunch, coupled with the giant’s shouts drew the prince’s attention. The prince’s wail chilled the giant’s screams and the potter beat him to death.
When the screams died, the guards galloped to the plain’s edge. Hearing horses, the prince scrambled to save his pots. The guards saw his bloodied hands and fled to the palace. An hour later, the family arrived to honor him.
“Get out. And take that slug, it damages me.” The prince’s eyes misted. “Besides, it stinks.”
A visiting princess fell in love with the prince’s “sensitivity.” Her father spoke to the king. The girl coming from a stronger kingdom, the king promised her his idiot son. When the son heard, he growled.
“She’d want me to look at her.” The potter held up a vase. “Why would I look at her when I could look at this?”
The king knew this meant war from his kingdom so he had his son murdered in the night, blaming bandits. The princess cried.
When the prince died, his pots vanished. Unable to explain it, the guards invented a god of vanishing pots and moved on, until the brother of the dead giant came and flattened the palace.
A single unsatisfied village remained. After they were left alone, they stopped complaining, having no one to complain to.
Despite sacrifices to the god of vanishing pots, whenever a potter took the wheel, he found his hands possessed by some unearthly force. No matter how hard he tried, he could only make an unremarkable vase or an unremarkable pot.
Copyright 2014 M. Kehl
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