Sadly, it emerged later that what the public had been led to believe was an exquisite example of true romance actually wasn't any kind of love story. The beautiful princess was not the object of her prince's undying - or quite possibly any other kind of - love.
So it is cheering to discover that there really can be fairytale princesses:
And, even though, as you can read here, (a free ebook that also contains a lovely piece of writing by my younger daughter), I have been brought up in the belief (feeble, laughable and ridiculous) that my family should in fact be occupying the royal palaces of Denmark, given how delightful the current occupants of the royal roles are, I am especially happy that we are not.
In fact, given the wife of Denmark's crown prince was Australian when they married, could Australia please not become a republic but simply swap royal families after the current British queen's death, taking the Danish Queen or King as our head of state in future? Wouldn't that be rather nice?