Once, a powerful king agreed to help a small, lost boy find his mother.

Since the boy described his mother as the most beautiful woman in the world, the king commanded all the beautiful women in the kingdom to come to the castle. 

From miles around, they came -- women with complexions of porcelain and hair of spun gold, with cheeks the color of apricots and eyes as dark as the raven's.

But none of them was the boy's mother.

When the last of the women had paraded before them, and the king and the boy had begun to despair, they heard a timid knock on the door.

 "Come in," the king said wearily.

In shuffled an old washer woman, her gray hair tied up in a kerchief, her hands rough and red, her dress coarse and patched.