At this point John pauses reading to take a drink of water, and Percy's mother gives her low opinion of fairy tales in general because they are so unspiritual. To this John quotes an obscure poem in another language that I think defends the reputation of fairy tales, and continues with his story:
One day the king and queen and the princess go out in a boat on the beautiful lake near the castle. Somehow as the king is trying to help the princess into another boat, he slips and falls, pushing her in the direction of the water. The princess continues in this trajectory and lands in the lake. This results in the discovery that when the princess is in the lake, she has a measure of gravity, and is also slightly more serious. From this time on, the princess goes swimming in the lake every day.
So now there is this prince who gets lost in the woods and finds himself at the lake. He sees something white in the water and hears what he thinks to be screaming, but which is actually the princess laughing. He jumps into the water and swims out to save the princess, who he thinks is drowning. He pulls her to the shore and heaves her up onto the bank, only to see her go floating up into the treetops.
Thankfully she grabs onto a tree branch before floating off too far, and is able to climb back down the tree. By this time the prince can see that this must be the famous princess without any gravity who likes to swim. She is upset with him now because he took her out of the water and she can't get back in without help, so the prince valiantly picks her up and jumps with her into the lake.
The prince falls in love with the princess and goes every night to the lake where they swim and jump off cliffs together. When the prince tells the princess he loves her, she looks at him with her most close to serious expression.
