The Prince Who Knew His Fate by Lise Manniche, 1981.

This picture book is a retelling of an Ancient Egyptian story (sometimes called The Tale of the Doomed Prince) about a prince and a prediction regarding his death with an unknown ending. The only known original version of the story is incomplete. For this book, the author has given the story an ending.

An Egyptian king wishes for a child, but when his son is born, the seven Hathor goddesses offer a prophecy for the prince’s fate. They say that, “He is destined to be killed by a crocodile or a snake or a dog.”

The king is distressed by this prediction for his son’s fate, and he decides to protect him from it as best he can. He has a special house built for the prince, where he grows up, attended by servants and given all sorts of good things to keep him happy. The king wants his son to stay in this house, where he will be safe. 

However, as the prince gets older, he becomes more interested in the outside world. One day, he sees a man passing the house with a dog, and the prince wants a dog of his own. The king relents and allows his son to have a dog, in spite of the prophecy.

The prince further demands that his father allow him to leave the house and travel. After all, he says, if his fate is already determined, it won’t matter if his father tries to protect him from it. He says that, if he must die eventually, he might as well live his life to the fullest while he can. The king allows his son to have a chariot and to hunt and travel the Nile. Everywhere the prince goes, he brings his dog with him.

Eventually, he comes to the country of the Chief of Naharin, who only has one daughter. The chief keeps his daughter in a special house with a single window, high off the ground. He says that he will allow his daughter to marry the man who can jump up to that window. The prince manages to make the jump, and he marries the chief’s daughter.

After they are married, the prince explains to his wife the prophecy about his fate. His wife wants to kill the prince’s dog, but he refuses to allow it because he’s had the dog since it was a puppy. His wife begins to watch over him, to try to prevent him from being killed. She manages to kill the snake that comes for the prince, and the prince manages to make a deal with the crocodile, but can he truly escape his fate?

There is a section at the back of the book that explains more about the original story, which was written over 3000 years ago and is “one of the oldest fairy tales known today.” There is also some information about Ancient Egypt and the carvings that were the inspiration for the illustrations in the story.

My Reaction

I always enjoy folklore, and this story is fascinating because the original ending is unknown. The author of this book, Dr. Lise Manniche, who was a Danish Egyptologist, translated the story from the original hieroglyphics and added an ending to the story. I thought that the ending fit well enough, and I was pleased that it was a happy ending, even though it holds to the idea that the fate must be fulfilled. I also enjoyed the illustrations, based on Ancient Egyptian carvings from around the time that the story was created, and the addition of the hieroglyphs of the original story along the bottom of the pages.

I first heard about the folktale in this book in a mystery book for adults called The Snake, the Crocodile, and the Dog by Elizabeth Peters. It is part of the Amelia Peabody mystery series, about a Victorian era woman who is married to an archaeologist. Elizabeth Peters is a pen name for Barbara Mertz, who was an Egyptologist herself. Because this folktale featured prominently in that mystery novel, I was thrilled to find this version of it!