Tattercoats

Quick Answer

Why This Story Works for Bedtime

It’s dramatic but ultimately comforting: a child who’s ignored is finally valued. The ending brings warmth and belonging—excellent for bedtime reassurance.

Story Synopsis

A princess is born, but her mother dies and her father’s grief hardens into distance. The king turns away from the child, and she is sent to be raised in a lonely castle with a bitter old nurse. Without love or proper care, the girl grows up in tattered clothes, known only as Tattercoats. Her only friend is a young gooseherd who stays kind to her. They roam together, and the gooseherd’s gentleness becomes the warmth she lacks at home. When news comes that a grand ball will be held at court, Tattercoats longs to go—not for wealth, but to be seen and to feel she belongs somewhere. The old nurse refuses, mocking her rags. But help arrives in a strange, magical way. With a bit of enchantment and courage, Tattercoats and the gooseherd travel to the ball. Even in her rough clothes, she has a presence that draws attention. At the court, something shifts. The king and the nobles are forced to look at the child they forgot. The truth of her identity and worth becomes impossible to ignore. The story resolves with recognition: Tattercoats is honored, her dignity is restored, and love returns to the place that had been cold. Tattercoats is a fairy tale about being overlooked and still remaining yourself—and about how kindness can escort you into the room where you finally belong.

Story Excerpt

In a great palace by the sea lived a very rich old lord. He had no wife, and no children living—only one little granddaughter. But the old lord had never once looked at the child’s face. When she was born, his dearest daughter—her mother—was gone from him. The grief in his heart turned hard and sharp, like a knot that would not loosen. When the old nurse carried the baby to him, he said, in a voice that shook like a cold wind, that the child might live as she pleased, but he would never look upon her face. So he sat with his back to the nursery and his eyes to the sea. Day after day, he stayed by one tall window, staring out at the waves. He wept so long that his white hair and beard grew very, very long. They fell over his shoulders, curled around his chair, and even slipped down into the cracks of the stone floor, as if they, too, had grown tired of moving on. His tears dripped onto the window-ledge until they wore a little channel in the stone, and the water ran away in a tiny stream toward the great sea. Meanwhile, the granddaughter grew up in the same palace, but with no one to care for her properly. The servants did not dress her in fine clothes. They did not lead her by the hand through bright rooms.

In One Glance