This is Episode 7: The Red Flower

In a certain kingdom, in a certain land, there lived a rich merchant, a well-known man. This merchant had three daughters. One day, he had to leave on a long journey by sea, and so he called his daughters to himself and said, “My dear daughters, my wonderful daughters, I am going by sea beyond the thrice-nine lands to the thrice-tenth kingdom. And if you live in peace and harmony without me, I will bring you whatever presents you desire. I give you three days to think about it, and then you will tell me what sorts of presents you would like.”

The girls thought about it for three days and three nights, and then they came to their father. The eldest bowed deeply before him and said, “My dear father, bring me a golden crown covered in precious jewels and make sure that the jewels shine as brightly as the full moon, as the red sun.”

The middle daughter bowed deeply before him and said, “My dear father, bring me a mirror made out of eastern crystal, all in a single piece, so that when I look at it, I will see all of the beauty of the world. And when I see my reflection, it will never grow old, and my youthful beauty will only increase.”

Then the youngest daughter came up and bowed deeply before him. “My dear father, please, bring me a red flower, the most beautiful red flower in the entire world.”

Her father sat for a time, deeply in thought, and then answered her, “Well, you’ve given me an assignment a bit more difficult than your sisters’. I will try, but I do not promise to bring it.”

And so the well-known merchant traveled through many different foreign lands beyond the sea. He found his eldest daughter’s desired present, and he also found what the middle daughter asked for, but no matter how hard he tried, he could not find the present for his youngest. Oh, he found many beautiful red flowers in many gorgeous gardens, but no one could give him proof that this flower was the most beautiful in the whole world, and he himself always doubted it as well.

And so it was time to go home, when suddenly he was attacked by highway robbers. The merchant was forced to leave behind all of his riches, and he ran into the dark forest to save himself. For a long time, he wandered through the forest, but the farther he went, the better his road became. Finally, he came out into a wide clearing and in the middle of that clearing stood a palace, as though lit up in flames and silver and gold light, and all around the palace were the most beautiful and fruitful gardens and orchards he had ever seen, covered in birds-of-paradise that he had never even imagined, and between the trees fountains constantly jetted into the air in elaborate patterns.

The merchant walked through the gardens in wonder, not knowing what to look at next. His eyes rushed hither and thither without his will, and suddenly he saw a flower, red in color, of unheard of and indescribable beauty, and he spoke aloud in joy, “There it is! There’s the red flower for my youngest!” And he picked it.

At that very moment, lightning flashed, thunder boomed, and right before him, as though growing up from the ground, a terrifying creature appeared, man-like and yet not man-like, animal-like and yet not animal-like, terrifying, covered in fur. And this creature began to growl at him in a wild voice, “What have you done!? How dare you come into my garden and pick my favorite flower!? Now hear your terrible fate! You must die for what you have done!” And an uncounted multitude of voices echoed from all sides: “You must die for what you have done!”

The merchant was so terrified, his teeth began to chatter in his mouth. He fell onto his knees before the terrifying beast, and he said in a pitiful voice, “Hail, honored master, I beg you, do not destroy the soul of this Christian man. Allow me to say just one word in my defense.” And he told him of the desires of his three daughters, and especially the request of his youngest: to find the most beautiful red flower in all the world.

Then the terrifying beast said to the merchant, “There is one chance for your salvation. I will allow you to go home without harm. I will even give you the red flower as a gift—but only if you give me your word that you will send, instead of yourself, one of your daughters. It is difficult for me to live alone. I crave human companionship.”

The merchant fell on his face in utter terror, his eyes filling with bitter tears, and he said in a pitiful voice, “But what will happen to me if none of my daughters agree to take my place? And how will I find my way back to you?”

And the beast answered, “I do not want anyone to come against her will. If your daughter loves you, comes because of that love, let her come. But if your daughters will not come of their own will, then you must come yourself, and then I will command that you be killed! As for how to come here again, do not worry: I will give you a ring from my own finger. Whoever puts it on his right little finger will immediately appear wherever he wants to in a single moment. I give you three days and three nights to be with your family.”

No sooner did the merchant put on the ring on his little finger than he found himself at the gates of his own house. His daughters immediately ran out to meet him and began to kiss him and hug him. By that evening, the house was full of guests, and they all remained together at table talking until midnight. The following morning, the merchant called his eldest to himself, told her everything that had happened to him and asked, “Do you want to save your father from a terrifying death, and will you go to live with the beast?”

The eldest daughter answered, “Let that daughter who asked for the red flower be the one to save her father!” And so said the middle daughter also.

And so the merchant called his youngest to himself, and he told her everything. But he did not even manage to finish his story when she fell on her knees before him and said, of her own free will, “Bless me, my dear father, I will go to the beast. I will live with him instead of you.”

The merchant wept bitter tears, and he said, “My dear daughter, my good daughter, my beautiful daughter, may my parental blessing be upon you, because you have saved your own father from a terrible death.”

Three days and three nights passed, and it was time for the merchant to part with his favorite daughter. He kissed her, he hugged her, weeping bitter tears all the while. Then he pulled out the ring of the beast, and he put it on the right little finger of his favorite daughter, and in that very moment, she and all her things disappeared.

She found herself inside the palace of the terrifying, horrible beast. The palace had tall stone ceilings, one room more beautiful than the next. She went into the gardens, and all the birds began to sing their songs to her. And then all the trees, all the bushes, all the flowers seemed to bow to her. The fountains jetted higher, and the rivers burbled even louder. She was amazed at all these miracles, and she went back into the rooms of the palace.

In one of these rooms she found a wall that was entirely made of mirrors, another wall that was entirely of gold, a third that was entirely of silver, and a fourth that was entirely made of marble, and on this marble wall fiery words appeared: “I am your humble slave, not your master. You are my mistress. Everything your heart desires I will fulfill with joy.” She read those fiery words, and they disappeared as though they had never been.

Some time passed then, and the youngest daughter started to get used to her new life. It was pleasant, although a bit dull, and whether she willed it or not, she began to love her merciful lord, and she decided that she wanted to speak with him. She asked him, but the beast feared to frighten her with his voice. However, he could not go against her will, so he wrote on the marble wall the following words in flame: “Come today into the garden, into your favorite gazebo, and say the following words: Come and speak with me, my faithful slave!”

Some time passed. The daughter of the merchant came into the garden, sat down in her favorite gazebo, and instead said the following words: “Come, speak with me, my dear friend!” And she heard a sound as though somebody was breathing in, and then out came a voice so terrifying, so wild, so frightening to hear that she shouted at first, and only managed to contain herself after a moment not to show that she was terrified. But then she grew used to it, and from that moment the two of them began to speak often, sometimes for an entire day.

And then some more time passed and the daughter of the merchant wanted to see the beast with her own two eyes. For a long, long time, the beast did not listen to her request, but he could not reject her, and finally he said, “Come into the garden in the evening and say the following words: Appear, my faithful slave. And I will show you my horrifying face. But if you can no longer stay here after seeing me as I am, I will not keep you here against your will. You will find in your bedroom my golden ring. All you must do is put it on your little finger and you will find yourself once again in the home of your father, and never again will you hear another word from me.”

But the young daughter of the merchant was not afraid, and she went out into the garden in twilight and said, “Appear before me, my faithful friend!” And from a great distance she saw the terrifying beast, and she could not handle the sight. She fell there, right on the road, unconscious, for the beast was truly frightening: His arms were crooked; his hands were tipped with beastly nails; he had the legs of a horse; in front and in back he was all covered in matted fur; his nose was crooked, and he had the eyes of an owl. The young girl lay there for some time. Then she came back to herself, and immediately she felt ashamed and sorry for the terrifying beast. And she spoke aloud with a firm voice, “No, no! Do not fear, my kind and gentle friend! I will no longer be afraid of your terrifying face. Show yourself to me again.” And he did. And then they began to walk together in the garden, day after day, and soon she no longer noticed his terrifying ugliness, but only the gentleness of his true self.

One day the young daughter of the merchant saw a dream. In that dream, her father lay in bed, terribly sick, and she fell into a deep despair. When the beast asked her, she told him that she had had a nightmare, and then she asked his permission to see her dear father, but the beast answered, “Why do you need my permission? After all, the golden ring lies in your room. Put it on your little finger, and you will find yourself in the home of your dear father. Stay there as long as you like, but remember that in exactly three days and three nights, if you do not return, do not expect to see me again on this earth.”

She promised him that she would return exactly after three days and three nights. She parted from her friend with kind words. Then she put on the golden ring and immediately she stood before the gates of her dear father’s house. And it turned out her father was indeed very ill, for he constantly thought of her day and night, crying bitter tears all the time. When he saw her, he could hardly contain himself for the joy, seeing his favorite, kind, beautiful daughter. They embraced for a long, long time, finding comfort in gentle words.

One day passed as though it were a single hour. A second day passed as though it were a single minute. And on the third day, her sisters began to insist that she not return to the palace of the terrifying beast. However, the youngest daughter’s heart could not bear it, and without waiting another minute longer than her promised time, she parted from her father, put on the golden ring, and found herself in the palace of the terrifying beast. But no one met her there. She began to call out with a loud voice, “Where are you, my dear friend, my faithful friend?” She heard neither answer nor greeting.

Her heart began to sense something amiss. She ran into the gardens, right next to the small hillock next to her favorite gazebo, and there she saw him, the terrifying beast, lying on the ground, embracing the red flower with his horrifying paws. He lay without breath in his body. Her eyes filled with tears. She fell on her knees. She embraced the ugly head, and she cried out with a loud voice, “Get up! Awake, O friend of my heart!” No sooner did she say those words than lightning flashed, the earth shook from great thunder, and she fell into a deep sleep.

She lay there for who knows how long, but then when she awoke, she found herself sitting on a golden throne, and on her head was a kingly crown. Before her stood her father and her sisters, and she was being embraced by a prince, a young, handsome, and gorgeous prince! And the young prince told her, “An evil witch became angry at by dearly departed father, who was a great and mighty king, and she stole me while I was yet a baby. Then she turned me into a terrifying beast, and she cursed me to live in such a form until a beautiful young woman would come to love me in this terrifying form. Then the curse would cease, and still I lived in such a form for three hundred years. You alone came to love me, a terrifying beast, for my kindness and for my care, for my good heart. And so you will become the wife of a king, a queen in a mighty kingdom.”

Then everyone was amazed, and they all bowed to the ground before the young daughter of the merchant. Her father gave his parental blessing, and without waiting a moment longer, they were married, and they lived happily ever after.

I don’t think it’s an exaggeration to say that the way you look at the concept of the human person will determine how you relate to the world, to others, to yourself, and to society as a whole. This became especially obvious to me during a recent and rather disturbing news story about a 35-year-old elementary school teacher in France. He complained that he was fired from his job teaching kindergarten because one of the students started to have nightmares about his tattoos. Now, at first this seems a rather banal story, not worthy of receiving international attention. That is, until you actually see this young man. He has spent over 70,000 Euros covering every square inch of his body with tattoos, but that wasn’t enough. He then decided to have special surgery to blacken the whites of his eyes. Yes, he paid money, lots of money, to make himself look as ugly and terrifying as the beast in today’s fairy tale.

But in complaining about his treatment, the young man demonstrated something very interesting in his understanding of the human person. First, he insisted that the tattoos were not ugly, but beautiful. That is, they were what he considered to be the best expression of himself, his personhood, and so were beautiful to him. And second he insisted that the children would get used to him, and his frightful appearance wouldn’t bother them any more. In fact, he said that he had no issues at all in teaching students aged 6-11.

But is this how we want our children to relate to images of ugliness? Is it how we want ourselves to relate to ugliness? To examine that, we need to be honest about what ugliness and beauty are in the first place. Today’s fairy tale helps us do that. First of all, what is ugliness? In a wonderful lecture to the Catholic University of America, recently departed philosopher, Sir Roger Scruton expressed it all very succinctly. I’m not going to quote from him directly here, but everything that I say from hereon out about ugliness and beauty is a retelling of this lecture.

He begins by insisting that there is a natural urge in all humanity towards order and beauty, expressed in even such a seemingly banal thing as how we decorate a room, because when we do, we all immediately start thinking of two things: its inherent harmony—how the things inside the room look—but then we think of something else: we think of how other people might view it, our room, either critically or with approbation. The fact that everyone does this without even thinking suggests that seeking after beauty is inherent to being human. On the flip side, the opposite is also true; it is simply not natural to pursue or to praise ugliness.

However, in defiance of this natural human instinct, the modern world has been engaged in a process of uglification for a long time. This uglification, seen everywhere from modern art—which sometimes is nothing more than fecal matter spread out on white canvas—to modern architecture—you know, boxes instead of buildings—to fashion, has two aspects to it. First of all, this uglification is consumerist in nature. At its heart is a question: What’s in it for me? As a result, it has to be brash and attention-seeking, because it doesn’t care about what others think. It is supremely the satisfaction of one’s own base wants and desires.

Now, the second aspect of this uglification is that it simply refuses to accept judgment or criticism, going so far as to suggest that criticism itself is wrong, that taste can only ever be subjective, never objective. And then it goes so far as to cast the critic as an enemy, or even a heretic. Central to this is the next logical step: the deconsecration of sacred things. So we have churches that look like spaceships, even Orthodox churches that look like spaceships; and iconography that disgusts rather than attracts. But the strange thing, or perhaps the natural thing, about all this is that no one is happy: not the deconsecrator, not those forced to endure the ugly and the deconsecrated. And so, instead of this happy ending of this wonderful tale of “The Red Flower,” we are forced to sit through an ever-repeating loop of the disharmonious and disappointing ending of Shrek.

We see all stages of uglification in this poor, young French man’s story. There is brashness, there is attention-seeking, there is a denial that criticism is even valid. There is ultimately an assertion that the beauty of the human form is a construct, that children must learn to redefine. They must accept his version of the human person, and only then, he says, will there be harmony. Except no such deconsecration can ever end in the natural end of beauty, which is consolation, which is peace, harmony. And the children will never cease to have nightmares, and if they do, then that is actually something to fear, because then they will have forgotten or perhaps they will have never learned that most elementary lesson that all fairy tales tell you, and it’s this: When you see a dragon, you must draw your sword! Not sit down and drink tea with it.

But then again, are we not supposed to, by our own faith, judge not by appearances? Shouldn’t Christians be able to see the good underneath the ugly, as seems to be the implication of the fairy tale? Aren’t we supposed to go to the depths of things and see the beauty hidden inside the broken? And what about the famous phrase, “All that glistens or that glitters is not gold”? Yes, all of this is true, but it misses the basic point. We do strive toward beauty, and we strive naturally towards beauty expressed in external appearances, not only in internal meaning. And so we have to ask and answer the question: What is beauty?

Well, we can start with this: It’s not a tool; it’s not a means towards something else. It’s something that is appreciated for itself because it is an object worthy of simple contemplation, of simply being in its presence. That’s why, in this wonderful story, the red flower is such a perfect symbol, and why the story, especially in the Russian version, is such a wonderful story, because it says something profound about this, about our need for beauty, about our relation to beauty, and how we can come to embody beauty in our person.

First of all, the youngest daughter is right in her desire to receive the present of the most beautiful red flower in the world. She understands that this is a physical manifestation of abstract beauty itself. But she makes a critical error, as does her father, because the father is beautiful as itself, as a flower, as a growing, living thing. To pick it is to commit an act of deconsecration. That’s why the beast acts as violently as he does to the father. On this point I need to explain a little bit more.

You see, the beast is cursed, right? But in his curse there is a hidden blessing, and how do we know that? It’s because of what the external reveals—not himself, not the way he looks, but everything around him. He is forced into a solitude, an utter and complete solitude of contemplation of reality. We don’t know—not from the story—how he spends his time. All we know is that the palace is absolutely gorgeous and that the gardens are actual manifestations of beauty; they are the most perfect garden you can imagine. And so the beast, in his solitude, in his contemplation, what does he do? He creates beautiful things; he gardens. He begins to manifest, after a long time, externally, what his internal reality has become.

I think we can assume, and in other versions of the story, particularly in the French one, he’s cursed because of his father’s sin but because of his own sin, and in the movie, of course, The Beauty and the Beast, this is quite beautifully manifested in that he is a product of an ugly society, the prince initially, and so he must become ugly to reflect his internal reality. We don’t see that in the Russian tale; all we see is the product of the long years of contemplation and then bringing into action of that contemplation, of that descent into solitude.

The beast yearns to share this beauty, because he understands at this point, after having manifested it, that beauty and the experience of it is a communal thing. In it, individualism always fades away. True beauty can only be experienced with others. And this is also why the Russian version, I think, is so much better than the French. The French version, or at least some versions of the French original, do sometimes suffer from a bit of Stockholm syndrome, and I do have a version of this translated into Russian that I have read to my children with a little bit of discomfort.

In that version, the beast insists that the young woman come so that she may marry him, and there is this constant push, every single day in fact. He manifests himself to her quite early in the process in the French version, which is interesting. He shows up, expecting that she’s going to be disgusted, but he has to, because there’s a ticking clock, and the ticking clock can only be stopped if she agrees to marry him, and so every day he insists, “Will you marry me?” at the end of the day. She enjoys his company, she realizes that there’s much more to this beast than meets the eye, and yet he insists, and yet he pushes, and yet he says, “Please, will you marry me?” There’s something profoundly uncomfortable in that reality. Certainly if I was in her place, I would not come to love the internal beauty of the beast, because it is manifested in disharmony.

But in the Russian version, what do we see? At first, he doesn’t even speak to her; he only writes on the wall, because he recognizes that the speech is ugly. And so it takes a long time for him to be convinced to so much as to speak to her, and then it takes even more time for him to be convinced to show himself in some form. And he only shows himself initially from a long distance away, because he recognizes that his external form is terrifying, and there is nothing to be gained by insisting that this is his natural way of appearing. There is nothing to be gained; it is in no way an expression of his natural beauty to say to her, “This is how I am. Please accept me as I am.” No, he’s afraid! He’s afraid not because he expects her to be disgusted by him; he knows that’s going to happen. He’s afraid of ruining her experience of the beauty that he has created around himself, which he wants to share with her, and he’s afraid that if he shows himself to her as he is she will no longer have the experience of beauty—a very valid fear, I might add.

And so it is an act of virtue, of courage, a positive act, not simply a passive reality that the young lady has to embody in order to fall in love with him. So why is it that the young lady falls in love with him? Is it because he is beautiful? Well, yes, but his external ugliness still matters. Her initial reaction is natural, and her forcing herself to overcome her own natural revulsion is an act of courage, an act of virtue, a manifestation of her own growth into a more virtuous human being, but it is not, at the same time, a denial of his ugliness, because he cannot remain in this state; it would be impossible. No one so beautiful in his heart can remain a beast forever on the surface.

And so, when the young woman comes to understand that the red flower can only be appreciated in its own proper place, when she recognizes that she loves the man not the beast, when she sacrifices her own well-being for the good of the other, only then can the union of love and beauty be complete. The beast then becomes who he is. His personhood is whole, both inner and outer, and of course he is beautiful, within and without.

Compare that to the young man who willingly expresses his personhood as ugliness, his disharmony as insistence that others accept him as something that he is not. How can the ending to such a story be good? And yet, I do not judge him. I cannot imagine what must be going on inside him for such things to be manifested on the outside. All I am doing is simply stating a fact, and that is that consolation, peace, and meaning is impossible without beauty. And beauty is only ever truly beauty when both the external appearance and the internal reality are fully and truly beautiful.

Thank you for listening. If you’d like to find out more about the exciting and dangerous world of Slavic fairy tales, you might like to check out The Raven’s Son epic fantasy series, which is inspired by these stories. If you sign up for my mailing list, you will receive book one, The Song of the Sirin, for free. Just visit nicholaskotar.com to find out more. You might also be interested in my monthly “Good Books for Great Lives” book club and other exclusive content available at patreon.com/nicholaskotar. This show was edited and its beautiful music is originally composed by Natalie Wilson at nwcomposing.com. In a Certain Kingdom is a listener-supported presentation of Ancient Faith Radio.