Once upon a time there lived a queen whose husband had been dead for many years. She had a beautiful daughter, whom she loved dearly. when the princess grew up, it was arranged that she should marry a prince who lived in a distant country. It nearly broke the queen's heart to think that the princess would be living so far away, but she knew that the prince was a good person and would make her daughter happy. So the queen gave her a talking horse dressed in gold & white cloak like her as a goodbye gift, called as Falada. She and the princess said a tearful goodbye. Then the princess and her maid mounted their horses and galloped away down the road.

    After the princess had ridden for a while, she felt very thirsty. She asked her maid to go to a nearby stream and fetch her water in her golden cup. "Get it yourself!" said the girl rudely. So the princess leapt down from her horse and went to the stream to reach the water to drink. When the princess returned to her horse, she found the maid sitting in the saddle. "I will ride Falada - you can ride my nag," she said, so the princess had to ride the maid's bony old pony. Worse was to come. That evening, the maid forced the princess to swap her royal clothes for the maid's own shabby outfit and told her to tell no one - or the maid would kill her.

    So they went on with their journey - but with the maid wearing the princess's clothes and riding her fine horse, the princess following on behind as the maid. At last, the travellers reached the palace. All the court rejoiced when they arrived and the prince dashed out to welcome his new bride. He lifted the maid down from Falada and escorted her indoors, thinking she was the princess. Meanwhile, the old king looked out of the window and saw the real princess standing in the courtyard. He thought she was beautiful and graceful, and hurried to ask the prince's bride who she was. "Oh she's just a maid." the wicked maid replied. "Give her some hard work to do around here."

    The king didn't like the idea of the lovely girl doing hard tasks, so he sent her to help a young boy called Conrad to look after the royal geese. On the other side, when the prince was showing the maid around the palace, he felt a very strange aura. Anyway, he continued to show around the palace to the fake princess. The next day, the maid asked the prince, "I beg you to do a favour for me..." The prince asked, "What is it my dear?" Then she said, "I hate the horse that I drove today. Can you kill it for me?" The prince was shocked to hear it and said okay but he instead hid the horse. The maid of course did it because she feared Falada would tell the truth to everyone and get her into trouble.