Who Is The Princess In The Tower?

There are many versions of this story, which has echoes of the Sleeping Beauty. In one popular version, the Princess Maya is brought up in a tower by her parents, who have been told that she will be the unluckiest of the unlucky until she is twenty years old. With her ladies in waiting, she makes a peephole in the tower so she can look out. When she is almost twenty, her parents arrange a marriage for her with a foreign prince, who sends an ambassador to meet her. Maya has never seen a young man before; she sees Fanfarinet, the ambassador, through her peephole, instantly falls in love with him and soon marries to run away with him. They escape to an island where Fanfarinet turns out to be thoroughly selfish and treacherous. Maya receives magical help to find food, and he devours it all, complaining all the time. Later he actually decides to eat her, but at that moment her twentieth birthday arrives, a rescue party comes and Fanfarinet is imprisoned. Maya then meets the prince, and as he is both handsomer and kinder than her first love, she marries him willingly.