The Two Princesses of Bamarre

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> Step follows step.
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> Hope follows courage.
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> Set your face toward danger.
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> Set your heart on victory.
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> Lines from "*Drault*"

***The Two Princesses of Bamarre*** is a 2001 fantasy adventure novel by Gail Carson Levine. The story revolves around the lives of two sisters who are very close, but as different as night and day. When one of them falls victim to a deadly disease sweeping the kingdom, the other must find her inner strength and bravery to discover the cure, and save her elder sister.

## Blurb

*A kingdom beset by monsters*…

*A disease that weakens and destroys*…

*An epic poem and a hero of long ago*…

*A story of danger and desperation*.

The two princesses of Bamarre couldn't be more different. Princess Addie is fearful and shy. Her deepest wish is for safety. Princess Meryl is bold and brave. Her deepest wish is to save the kingdom of Bamarre. They are sisters, and they mean the world to each other.

Then disaster strikes, and Addie—terrified and unprepared—sets out on a perilous quest. In her path are the monsters of Bamarre: ogres, specters, gryphons, and dragons. Addie must battle them, but time is running out, and the sisters' lives—and Bamarre's fate—hang in the balance.

Gail Carson Levine left her mark on fantasy with her well-loved 1998 Newbery Honor book *Ella Enchanted*. Now she has created another shimmering and tapestried landscape of fantasy and fairies. Bamarre and the journeys of its two princesses will burn themselves into the minds of readers, and all will relish this moving saga about two sisters groping their way toward heroism.

– *Official Book Description*
## Dedication

*To Joan Abelove, my pal on this fine wild ride—a million thanks*.
—*G.C.L*

## Plot

Princess Adelina "Addie" is shy and timid, while her sister Princess Meryl is bold and brave. They live in the kingdom of Bamarre, which is plagued by a fatal disease called the Gray Death. Along with creatures such as specters, ogres, gryphons, and dragons, the kingdom has not yet found a cure. Fairies, who are believed to help them, have not been seen since Drualt, Bamarre's greatest hero and subject of myths.

The two princesses strike up a friendship with Rhys, the apprentice sorcerer helping their father, King Lionel. Soon after, Princess Meryl contracts the Gray Death. As the prophecy states by a specter:

*The Gray Death will be cured*
*When cowards find courage*
*And rain falls over all Bamarre*
The King, who is known to be cowardice and indecisive, consults *The Book of Homely Truths* for everything, and decides to journey with some of his men to find Elf Queen Seema for the cure, despite this being futile. He fails and returns back home. Addie realizes she must try to save her sister, and uses the magical items, seven-league boots and a spyglass (gifts from her deceased mother Queen Daria), a copy of *Drualt,* a camouflage cloak, a magic tablecloth from Rhys, some of Milton's moily herbs and Princess Meryl's sword Blood-Biter. She encounters a specter disguised as Rhys in the Mulee forest, and is nearly tricked before the real Rhys finds her. The specter reveals that a dragon will know the cure before vanishing. Rhys gives advice to "entertain" dragons, who are solitary creatures, though lonely.

When a flock of gryphons emerge and gorge themselves to death from her magical tablecloth, Addie is found by the dragon Vollys, who takes her to the lair. Addie uses her gift of embroidery to entertain, and learns that Vollys shows remorse upon killing each guest, and has a temper. Upon discovering that Vollys' mother was killed by Drualt and was the one who inflicted the Gray Death, she also discovers that it can be cured by the water of a waterfall that flows from Mount Ziriat, the fairies' invisible mountain. Addie witnesses through her spyglass that Meryl is getting sicker, in the last stage of the Gray Death. Eventually when Vollys leaves to hunt and returns back, Addie escapes with her boots and reunites with Rhys, returning to the castle.

She and Rhys use the seven-league boots to carry Meryl to the mountain and end up outside the same village that refused to help Drualt's sweetheart due to their cowardice. Upon questioning, the isolated villagers say that although they have heard of the Gray Death, no one in the village has ever had it. The three also learn that all the villagers drink from a waterfall that comes from a mountain so tall and shrouded in mist that no one has ever seen it. Realizing that they are talking about Mount Ziriat, and the villagers are never sick because they drink the water, Rhys and the Princesses manage to find a few villagers courageous enough and willing to show them the waterfall, which is a few hours away. While they walk, Rhys confesses his love to Addie, and she does the same. Just as they reach the waterfall, though, the party is attacked by ogres, gryphons and an enraged Vollys. The sky begins to lighten, and Addie tells Meryl, who is having the time of her life in battle, to run to the water and drink. While she is running, though, Addie is caught by an ogre unexpectedly and screams in pain. Meryl runs back to rescue her when the first rays of sunlight come, just as rain begins to fall. Addie is knocked unconscious, and Meryl falls to the ground.

When Addie wakes up, she learns from Meryl that they were rescued by fairies and taken to the top of Mount Ziriat. The rain had fallen everywhere, curing all with the Gray Death except those who were too close to death to save. When Addie gained the courage to save her sister, and when the cowardly villagers redeemed themselves by helping Meryl and Addie, the fairies made water from their enchanted waterfall rain over all Bamarre. Meryl tells Addie that she, too, was one of those on the brink of death when the rain came, so the fairies could not truly save her. However, they offered to transform her into a fairy and join them in an endless battle against fearsome, monstrous creatures, the outcome of which affects the world below. Meryl accepted the offer, and is now a fairy, unable to return with Addie. Addie also learns from Meryl that Drualt was also transformed into a fairy after leaving Bamarre, and that he had been the presence Addie felt in her darkest hours, saving her on several occasions. Rhys and Addie marry, with Meryl as Fairy Godmother to their children and grandchildren, the first after hundreds of years. The book concludes with stanzas that recount the adventures of the two Princesses of Bamarre.

## Characters

* Princess Adelina
* Princess Meryl
* Drualt
* Rhys
* Milton
* Bella
* Trina
* King Lionel
* Queen Daria
* Queen Seema
* Vollys
* Gavin
* King Willard

## Trivia

* Initially Levine began basing the story off of the fairytale, "The Twelve Dancing Princesses," though the versions changed from many sisters to two, and the prince became a sorcerer. She said in her blog: "My worst beginnings nightmare was in *The Two Princesses of Bamarre*. I needed to start the story and also to introduce an epic poem that runs through the book, but the epic poem has a different story line from the main one. I rewrote the beginning umpteen times. It took me so long to figure out that the book went into bound galleys with a messed-up beginning, which hurt it in reviews."
* In an interview before its publication, she shared, "I have a new novel coming out in the spring, an original fairy tale novel called THE PRINCESSES OF BAMARRE. This one is aimed at somewhat older kids than my other books, probably ten and up, and HarperCollins is hoping to get some adult crossover readers as well. The book is about the kingdom of Bamarre and about two sisters who love each other very much. One sister is brave and the other is fearful. Bamarre is beset by five evils. Four of them are monsters — ogres, gryphons, specters, and dragons. The fifth evil is a disease called the Gray Death, which is always fatal. One sister catches the disease and the other sets out on a quest for the cure. Woven through the story is an epic poem about a hero named Drualt."
	+ Regarding the depiction of fairies, she mentioned, "they're whorls of light." Another contrast is the ogres in *Ella Enchanted* are "sneaky and crafty;" in The *Two Princesses of Bamarre* they're "brutish and doltish."
	+ In a blog, she mentioned her plotting process: "In my notes, I often write about what my story looks like if I shape it as a quest based on either what my MC wants or needs or what terrible circumstance she's landed in. [...] I had intended to write a novelization of "The Twelve Dancing Princesses," but there were mysteries baked into the fairy tale that I couldn't figure out, like why the dancing princes were enchanted. From somewhere along the way of attempting to write the story, I introduced a terrible disease. Eventually—it didn't happen instantly—I realized that a quest for its cure could be the heart of the story, which would be an original fairy tale, and I was able to write it."
	+ For Addie's characterization, Levine said: "[I]s very shy, and there's nothing in her past to explain it. I did have trouble with her because, although I'm only moderately extroverted, I still am. At the beginning I wrote Addie as so paralyzed by her shyness that she was almost catatonic. I went to my shy critique buddy, Joan, for advice, and she helped me dial back the paralysis. So outside help from someone who is more like your character than you are may be helpful."
	+ She mentioned: "When I wrote the book, I could have let Meryl live. But that ending seemed flat. I believed the reader would think, Oh, okay. Ho hum, what should I read next? And I didn't want to completely kill Meryl off, either. Yes, other citizens of Bamarre would benefit from the cure, but Addie would have failed in her personal quest, so I found a middle ground that came to feel inevitable. However, at one time the prospects were good (not any more) for a Two Princesses movie, and a script was written. The producer opposed my ending, so it came out completely happily. The screenwriter did a good job, and it worked. But I still prefer my way.

## References

1. ↑ "Curtain up!" (blog post). November 3, 2010.
2. ↑ "Interview: Children's Author Gail Carson Levine". April 30, 2015.
3. ↑ "Interview with the One and Only, Gail Carson Levine!". September 22, 2011.
4. ↑ "Villainy" (blog post). May 2, 2012.
5. ↑ "The PP" (blog post). October 20, 2021.
6. ↑ "You shout tomayto, I'm too shy to whisper tomahto, let's call the whole story off" (blog post). September 16, 2015.
7. ↑ "When Bad Things Happen to Good Characters" (blog post). September 17, 2014.

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