The Emperor's New Clothes
This tale begins with an Emperor, who is vain and obsessed with clothing. Two swindlers come to town and learn of the Emperor's vanity and fondness for clothing, so they hatch a plan. The two swindlers spread a rumor that they can weave the most beautiful and magical cloth, and that the cloth is invisible to anyone who is stupid or unworthy of their position. The Emperor soon hears of this wonderful new cloth and insists on having an outfit made of the cloth. So he sends the two swindlers along with fine thread and a large amount of money.
The two swindlers set up shop, but instead of weaving with the fine threads, they pretend to be weaving on the loom, and working for days and moving the loom along as though they were very busy weaving. After awhile the Emperor becomes anxious to see how his cloth is coming along, but he was a bit nervous that he would be unable to see the magic cloth, and be deemed stupid and unfit for his position. So, instead of going himself, the Emperor sent his faithful Prime Minister to look at the cloth.
When the Prime Minister arrives, the swindlers lead him to their loom, and pretend to show him their fine cloth. The Prime Minister, of course, cannot see the cloth, and begins to worry that he will loose his job, so he pretends to see the cloth. When he returns to the King, the Prime Minister tells him how beautiful and wonderful the cloth is. After hearing this, the Emperor decides to go and see it for himself, along with some of his trusted men.
Of course when the Emperor and his men arrive they cannot see the cloth either, the swindlers pretend to show them the cloth, and everyone, too afraid to be thought stupid and unworthy, praise the cloth, and talk of its beauty. So the Emperor asks the men to make him a new suit of clothing, and that he will wear it in the parade.
The swindlers pretend to make the Emperor his new outfit, and bring it to the castle, and pretend to dress the Emperor in his fine and magical new clothing. All of the Emperor's men, too afraid to admit they can see nothing, tell the Emperor how wonderful he looks. The Emperor proceeds to march along in his parade in his new clothing. The people who came to watch the Emperor's parade knew of the new cloth, and everyone not wanting to be thought stupid or unworthy, also pretended to see the clothing, and talked of its beauty.
Then a voice was heard over the others, it was the voice of a young boy who hadn't heard the stories about the cloth, and whose father had always taught him to be truthful. He shouted " The Emperor Has No Clothes On!!"
Someone else in the crowd laughed, and admitted he too saw no clothing on the Emperor, soon everyone was saying it. The Emperor was feeling cold, and realized he wasn't wearing anything, but he held his head up and finished the parade, his face blushing red with embarrassment.
He sent his guards after the two swindlers, but of course they were long gone with the Kings money. From that day on the King paid less attention to his clothing, and more attention to more important matters.
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This tale is full of wonderful lessons in vanity and about truthfulness, I always enjoyed it as a child, and I really enjoyed that is was a child who told the truth. This is a wonderful story to share.
I was busy with more paper cutting this week, it was one of the only ways I could think of crafting for this tale. Here is how it turned out. I chose the parade scene with the boy pointing out the truth about the King.
I will be sharing another paper cutting I did this week as well as Week #39's Fairy Tale Post later this Evening. A Tale that I was looking forward to sharing for Halloween but didn't finish the crafting in time- A Grimm's tale called The Youth Who Could Not Shudder.
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