Inspiration for "The Princess and the Handmaid"
Today I’m talking about the inspiration behind The Princess and the Handmaid, my retelling of The Goose Girl. If you’re not familiar with the original fairytale, it’s right here (warning for gore).
I've read a few retellings of The Goose Girl and they're told from the perspective of either the princess or her maidservant. If it's the princess, the story follows the original fairytale; if it's the maidservant, the princess usually forces her to take her place.
That got me thinking: what if the princess and the maid changed places voluntarily, and if they did, why would they do that? It hit me: there was an assassin on the loose and they swapped for the princess's protection.
One of the problems with the original story is that the princess is a passive character. She’s completely powerless against her servant and when the truth does come out, it’s because the king decides to investigate this mysterious girl. Adele is helpless as well, but she notices the “living thing” loophole and if she hadn’t, everything would have ended very badly for everyone.
If Olivia was going to fool the assassin, she needed to behave like royalty. I decided to make her a handmaid rather than a chambermaid – basically, an unmarried lady-in-waiting who was familiar enough with the way royalty acted and how they were supposed to treat others. Of course, she wasn’t going to be perfect (and there needed to be tension), which is where Kieron came in.
The inspiration for Kieron’s character came from the Irish myth of Cú Chulainn. As he’s learning the arts of war from the warrior woman Scáthach, he meets a young man named Ferdiad and they become fast friends and battle brothers. Kieron is the kind of person Prince Stefan would want at his side at court and in battle…which is not good news for Olivia, as his glimpse of her real nature makes him suspect that there’s more to Stefan’s future bride than meets the eye. Is she a threat, or not?
Have you ever read a retelling of The Goose Girl? What did you think?