Once upon a time there lived a majestic king and queen. They had twelve children, but all of them were boys. They both longed for a sweet daughter, and believed with all their hearts that their next child would finally be the girl they had wished for, for so long.
Please, please be a little girl we can dote on, they thought to themselves. We will give her sweets and treats and lovely little dresses and trinkets!
One day, the king announced: “If our thirteenth child is a girl, I will banish her twelve brothers and we will all forget them forever. The whole kingdom will then belong to our only daughter.”
It was a strong and thoughtless thing to say about the boys.
The queen was extremely upset by the king’s heartless plan. For a week, she cried in her chamber and didn’t smile, she only sobbed and sobbed.
Of course her sons knew nothing about it and when one of them asked her, she told the truth: "I love each and every one of you, but your father wants you banished."
The queen, who wanted to protect her sons at all costs, begged them to run away from the kingdom as soon as possible. She gave them the fastest ponies and gave them enough gold for their journey and bade them a very tearful goodbye.
"Keep an eye for a flag flying from the tower. If it's white, it's a boy. If it's red, it's a girl. I'll have a man take you to a cave to hide until a flag flies."
The cave was high, up inside a rocky mountain, and when they had finally found it, they climbed up. It was hand over hand, and they used a flax fibre rope, helping each…
