Fair Maria Wood
Wood dress


Vera: Alice, why don't you just date him? He is nice, sweet, and everything you want. Just because he doesn't look the way you want him to doesn't mean anything.

Alice: Yeah, well, I don't know. He's just not my type.

Vera: How is he not your type? If you were blind, you would like him.

Alice: You are so stubborn. You don't know anything about relationships.

Serafina: Actually, she might not be as experienced as you are, Alice, but she does have a very good point. You shouldn't judge somebody by the way they look. They might have a beautiful dress under all that wood.

Alice: You are talking like a crazy person! Is this another one of your crazy stories to teach us a lesson?

Vera: Wait, I don't want to be the start of another one of these stupid stories. I don't want to hear it.

Serafina: You don't have to listen, since obviously you don't have this problem. It's not crazy. But it is a story, and hopefully it will teach you something.

Lauren: Well, Alice needs some teaching, so go on with your story.

Alice: Hey, who said you needed to interject your opinion?

Serafina: OK, why don't we all just listen to the story and then we can discuss our opinions. There was this girl, named Maria, and her mother had died. Her father had decided that he wanted to marry his daughter. Maria did not want this at all, so she asked him for four beautiful dresses and another dress made out of wood. She put on all the dresses and put the one made out of wood over the top of them, and threw herself in a river and floated down it.

Vera: This is so stupid. Why are we listening to her? This really couldn't happen.

Lauren: Vera, how many times do I have to tell you to just shut up and listen? I don't care if it's not that realistic. I want to hear it.

Serafina: OK then. She floated on down the river and then she approached a bank where she saw a man. His name was Martino. They talked and she asked him if he would take her home with him to be a servant in his house. She said she could do anything he asked her to. Her took her home to his house where she became a servant after his mother had approved. The man who had brought her home regularly attended balls. Maria wanted to go so badly, but Martino's mother would not let her go. She was convinced she would immediately be driven away because of her crazy clothes. After he left to go to the ball and his mother was asleep, Maria took off her dress of wood and put on one of her beautiful dresses and she left and went to the ball. She was the most beautiful girl there. She and Martino danced together all night long. He asked where she was from but she did not tell him that she was his servant. She suddenly disappeared and put on her dress of wood. When Martino got home, he could not stop talking about this amazing girl that he met.

Lauren: This is sweet. It's kinda like Cinderella.

Serafina: It gets better. Martino wanted to go to a ball the next night to see if she would show up. When Maria asked him if she could come, he beat her. She once again changed clothes to sneak out of the house and go to the ball and dance with him again. He still did not know who the beautiful woman was and he went home disappointed that he did not know who she was. His mother gave him a diamond ring and told him to give it to her next time, and that if she accepted it, she loved him. Maria accepted the ring, but still did not tell him who she was. This time when he came home he was more than disappointed. He got very, very sick. He said he would die if he did not see her again.

Vera: That is so stupid. You can't get sick just because you like somebody and want to see them again.

Lauren: I don't want to hear it, Vera.

Serafina: Well, he was very sick. And Maria did not want to see him like that, so she took the ring he gave her and dropped it in the broth he was supposed to eat and when he saw it, he realized she was near. Maria went and took off her wooden dress and put on one of her beautiful dresses again, and went to him. She finally told him who she was. They were soon married and lived happily ever after.

Lauren: Aww, that's sweet.

Vera: That's stupid. What is that supposed to teach us?

Alice: I get it. It's supposed to teach us that we shouldn't judge people by the way they look or dress. Sometimes there is something good right under our nose and we just don't notice because we are too shallow and look right past them.

Serafina: That's exactly right. Maybe you should consider that in your choices.


Author's Note: For this story, I used to story of Fair Maria Wood. I left out some details at the beginning about how it came to be that Maria's father wanted to marry her. Before Maria's mother died, she had told her husband that when she died, he should marry someone who could fit their finger into her wedding ring. The ring fit on Maria's finger so her father wanted to marry her. She actually consented to the wedding, and one the day of the wedding he asked her what she wanted. That is when she told him she wanted the beautiful dresses and the wood dress and then she floated down the river. Other than that, I tried to keep the story pretty much the same. I had to leave out some of the details from the original story to keep it somewhat short, but I tried to keep the important details in and still make it easy and fast to read. My goal for the story was to get the point across to Alice, the new character, that looks don't really matter and that we should look closer at the people around us to see what we might be missing out on.



"Fair Maria Wood"; Italian Popular Tales;Thomas Crane, 1885.

Image Information: Dress Made Out of Wood
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