Once upon a time there was a beautiful young princess. Her mother died, and her father paid little attention to her. She was a very lonely princess. Her father, the king, wanted his beautiful daughter to marry a horrible man who was an Ogre. The Ogre agreed to give the king fifty wagons of silver in return for the beautiful princess. This made the princess very unhappy.

The princess did not want to marry the Ogre, so she had a very clever plan. "Before I marry," she said, "I must have three bridal gifts: One dress as golden as the sun, another as silvery as the moon, and a third as glittering as the stars. In addition, I shall need a coat made of a thousand different kinds of fur, one piece from every animal in your kingdom."

She thought that her father never would be able to meet these demands. However, her father got the best weavers in the land to make the dresses and got his hunters to kill a thousand different kinds of animals. When all the gifts were ready, the king told her that she would marry tomorrow.
The princess got up during the night and packed each of her dresses in a walnut shell. She also got three things that belonged to her mother: a gold ring, a gold thimble, and a gold spinning wheel, and put them in a second walnut shell. In the third walnut shell, she put her favorite seasoning for the soup the cook had taught her to make. She put on the coat made of a thousand pieces of fur, and ran away into the dark with her treasures hidden in the walnut shells.

She became very tired after walking through the snowy forest. She found a hollow in a tree, curled up, and went to sleep. Soon she was fast asleep making zzzzzzzzz sounds. Hunters from another kingdom found the princess sleeping, tied her up, and took her to their kingdom. The hunters called her Furball because of her fur coat. The hunters took her back to the king's castle where she worked as a servant to the king's servants. She had to do the chores like wash the dishes and empty the ashes.

One day Furball heard that there was going to be a ball. Furball asked permission to go to the ball, and the cook said that she could go for a half an hour. She washed the soot and ashes from her face and undid her hair. She put on her dress that was golden as the sun. At the ball, she danced with the king who thought she was the most beautiful person he had ever seen. But in thirty minutes, she vanished from the ball, went back to the shed, dressed in her fur coat, and put soot on her face. When she got to the kitchen, the cook told Furball to make the soup for the king. When she cooked the soup, she dropped the golden ring into the soup.

The king thought that the soup was eXtra delicious. When he found the gold ring in the bottom of the bowl, he asked to see the cook. The king knew that the cook had not made the soup, and he asked to see the person who had made the soup. Furball confessed that she had made the soup, but she would tell the king nothing else, so he sent her away.

Sometime later there was another ball at the castle. Furball was allowed to go to the second ball but could only stay for 30 minutes. She dressed in her dress as silvery as the moon that was in the walnut shell and went to the ball. The king was waiting for her and danced with her every dance. But just as the thirty minutes were up, she disappeared again. Once again she turned herself into the sooty little furball, and she went to the kitchen to make the king's soup. After making the soup, she dropped the tiny gold thimble into the soup. The king ate the soup, found the gold thimble, and sent for the cook. The cook said that he had not made the soup, and Furball was sent to the king. But Furball would tell him nothing about the thimble.

At the king's third ball Furball again was allowed to go for thirty minutes. This time Furball dressed in her dress that glittered like the stars, combed her hair, and washed her face. The king knew that he had fallen in love with Furball, and while they were dancing, the king asked her to marry him. He slipped the golden ring onto the princess's hand. As soon as the music stopped, Furball disappeared again like a shooting star.

This time, Furball had overstayed her time, and when she returned to the kitchen to make the soup, she still had her dress on under the fur coat. She slipped the spinning wheel into the soup, and when the king found it, he sent for Furball. She still had on the small gold ring that she had not had the time to take off. This identified her to the king.
The king saw her dress under her fur coat when he caught her hand to look at the ring. He took off her coat and her golden hair fell to her shoulders. There she stood as the most radiant Princess on earth. The king told the princess that he loved her and wanted to marry her. "You have the beauty of the sun, the moon, and the stars. I cannot live without you."

Then the princess told the king her story, and he loved her even more than before. The next day the king and the princess were married. Everyone came, and the cook, who made better pastries than soup, did a better job making