The Tale of the Bunny-Breeding Girl

Once upon a time, in a village in the North, a young girl was fending for herself.

She was all alone and living in a dilapidated cottage that was draughty in winter and damp and unpleasant in the summer.

The villagers paid no heed to her, and they didn’t help her because they all considered that, as an adult, she had to find a way to make a living.

She liked to walk, and one day, in the late spring, she found young bunnies that had recently been orphaned. She took them with her and brought the little ones to her home.

The young girl found a good place for the little ones, and she gave them good food, and she brushed them with care (they all had very long hair).

The bunnies were either white or grey, and they were very, very friendly, and incredibly cute. They somehow behaved like kittens. They followed their saviour everywhere and grew to be unusual pets.

In the winter, it was a bit difficult for the young girl to find enough food for her and her bunnies. At one point, she asked a few villagers if they wanted to adopt a few of her pets, but they laughed at her, saying that she was silly to care for balls of fur, and that she’d better eat them. The young girl was horrified, and she kept taking care of her extraordinary bunnies.

The following year, several things happened that changed her life forever.

First, her bunnies had baby bunnies, who were even cuter and tamer and more affectionate than their parents, and it meant that she had to try to find people to take care of them.

In consequence, she walked to the closest town with a bunny on each shoulder and one in her arms.

As it happened, one of the Royal Princesses of the realm, the favourite daughter of the King, was in that town, and from her carriage, the young Princess immediately spotted the young girl.

The Princess loved bunnies, and the ones who were with the young girl were so adorable that the Princess adopted the three instantly, which quite relieved the young girl.

The Princess didn’t buy the bunnies, per se, but she gave the young girl enough gold to feed herself and the remaining bunnies for a few years.

The Princess invited the young girl in her carriage and drove her back to the cottage, where the Princess was introduced to the other bunnies.

The animals felt that the new human being on their territory was very good and profoundly kind, and they welcomed the Princess warmly.

The Princess’s chaperone pointed out that they had to head back to the capital, but she hinted that the King probably wouldn’t object to other visits. The Princess and the young girl, when they bade each other goodbye, knew that they’d meet again.

The young girl was relieved to be able to care for her bunnies and to no longer have to worry about the immediate future.

Once she was back to the capital, the Princess gave one of the bunnies to her mother and another to her best friend. When she saw that her youngest sister was sad to not have a fluffy, affectionate bunny, the Princess gave her the third one.

The other Royal children longed for such bunnies, and since the King saw that his favourite daughter felt terrible for not thinking of providing bunnies to all her siblings, he sent a young knight to go fetch more bunnies from the young girl.

The knight was very efficient. He was so efficient that the King allowed him to go back to the North immediately to help the young girl restore her cottage.

From then on, the knight would always be found with the young girl.

When the courtesans saw how well-behaved and nice the bunnies were, most of them wished to have one. For a few of them, it was a fad, but for most, it was a real love for the charming creatures that came to their hearts or that came back to them after years secluded in the capital, away from the country and its marvels.

The courtesans sent envoys to the young girl, who started allowing her bunnies to breed freely in order to be able to have enough bunnies for those who wanted them.

The courtesans all gave fair compensation, and the young girl felt that she could marry her knight without being ashamed of her situation in life. The King, the Queen, and all their children (and all the bunnies) came to the wedding, which took place in the tiny church of the village.

By then, most of the villagers were trying to be friends with the young girl, but she kept to herself, and her husband could make sure that no one would bother them.

In the following years, the entire realm, and the neighbouring ones, discovered the young girl’s bunnies, and they all wished to have some.

Breeding couples even had to be sent abroad, and each new generation was nicer than the one before.

Now that the young girl was as rich as the richest Duchess of the realm (and that the King was considering making her an actual Duchess for contributing to the realm’s economy and renown), the villagers were sorry that they hadn’t been nicer to her in the past. By then, most of them ignored their feelings, a few were even a bit happy for her, but a small minority was outright jealous.

The jealous ones turned bitter. They said that the young girl’s bunnies were nasty creatures that should be ignored. A few even circulated recipes to cook the poor creatures (this remained only a threat and was never done to any of the bunnies).

The jealous villagers, as well as the people who didn’t know the young girl but were jealous of her good fortune, had only sour words and ill thoughts for all her achievements.

The young girl had a nice life, a good companion, good friends in the Royal family and abroad; her bunnies were loved, which was all she wanted, and she could take care of her bunnies in her nicely restored cottage. Life was good for her, at last.

Years went by, but the young girl’s reputation as one of the best bunny-breeders of her generation was still strong.

She was still going for walks into the woods, and one day, she found orphaned black bunnies, and she rescued them. The admirers of her white and grey bunnies encouraged her to breed the black ones, and she agreed to give it a try, even though they were rather different.

Even before she delivered the first ones to the world, all the jealous people started spewing bile, saying that she’d never be able to repeat the so-called (in their mind) miracle that she’d made years before. Their words were hideous and unkind: because they were incapable of doing what she’d done, but they wanted to believe that they could all do the same overnight.

The jealous ones could keep dreaming because they didn’t have an ounce of the young girl’s talent for loving and breeding her bunnies, and even in a millennium, they’d never be able to come up with what she’d managed to do all alone.

The young girl was about to give black bunnies to the world, and they’d be different, but they’d come with her love and skills, which guaranteed that they’d be awesome little creatures worth knowing.