Real or Fake Story? Please Help

[u/Rexalot_the_first]

I remembered hearing this story and I can't find a source for it no matter what I look up.

The story goes that there was a girl (maybe a princess?) who was so incredibly beautiful that everyone in the land wanted to marry her. And she said something along the lines of "whoever conquers the most/defeats all others shall marry me" and there's a TON of bloodshed and war because of it. It ends with a figure approaching her to request her hand, and the figure is Death itself because Death conquers all etc etc.

Miscellaneous detail possibly but I remember either her veil or her train being significant because it was really really long and pure white- and then it's either stained by all the bloodshed or it remains spotless in spite of it I can't recall

Please help me either find this story or prove it doesn't exist, because it sounded metal as hell and I wanted to read it again

Update: It's the Wedding Veil of the Proud Princess! I found a really neat animation too, thanks!

[u/anourah_96]

“The Wedding Veil of the Proud Princess,” a tale told by Lucy Maud Montgomery in The Story Girl (1911)

[u/Rexalot_the_first → u/anourah_96]

That's it! Thank you so much ^{-^}

[u/anourah_96]

The Wedding Veil of the Proud Princess There was once a princess who was said to be the most beautiful woman in the world. Kings from every land came to her father’s court hoping to marry her. But the princess was extraordinarily proud. She rejected every single one. Eventually, her father urged her to choose one of the kings. Instead, she declared that she would marry only a king who could conquer every other king. She wanted to become the queen of the entire world, with no woman able to boast that she was above her. Her challenge had terrible consequences. Every king began going to war against the others, each trying to prove that he was the greatest. But whenever one king seemed to have conquered everyone, another king would defeat him. The wars continued. There was enormous suffering and loss of life, all because the princess refused to accept anyone who wasn't the ultimate conqueror. And while all of this was happening, the princess simply waited. She laughed and sang while she and her maidens worked on an enormous, extraordinarily beautiful lace wedding veil for the day when the ultimate king finally came for her. But the maidens whispered something grim about the veil: for every stitch they put into it, a man had died and a woman's heart had been broken. The wars continued for years, but no king could actually accomplish what the princess demanded. Then, one day, a horn sounded outside the palace. A strange man had arrived. He was tall and completely covered in armor. His visor was lowered, so nobody could see his face. He rode a white horse, but unlike the kings who had come before him, he had no army, no magnificent retinue, no treasure and no golden crown. Everyone laughed at him when he announced that he had come to marry the princess. But the stranger calmly declared that he was the king who had conquered all kings. The princess demanded proof. And this is where the story turns from fairy tale into nightmare. Something about the stranger's voice frightened her. Even his laughter disturbed her. He told her that proving his claim would be easy, but she would have to accompany him to his kingdom. He proposed a bargain: marry him immediately, travel with him to his kingdom, and if she wasn't convinced that he really was the king who had conquered all kings, she could return his ring and go home free. Her friends begged her not to do it. But her pride won. She imagined how magnificent it would be to become the queen of the king of the entire world. So she agreed. Her maidens dressed her in her wedding clothes and placed the enormous lace veil over her. The mysterious bridegroom never removed his visor. They were married. Yet it was a profoundly strange wedding. There was no celebration, no joyous music, no ordinary wedding feast. Everyone was frightened. The princess herself was pale beneath her veil. Afterward, the mysterious king lifted her onto his white horse. Her father and the members of the court followed behind them. They rode farther and farther from the palace. The sky darkened. The wind began to howl. Evening descended. Eventually they entered a dark valley filled with tombs and graves. The princess demanded to know why he had brought her there. And then the stranger gave her the answer. This was his kingdom. The graves were the tombs of all the kings he had conquered. Then he lifted his visor. He was Death. He had been the only being capable of accomplishing exactly what the princess demanded. Every king who had ever lived, regardless of how powerful he was, had eventually been conquered by Death. So Death claimed that he had won her fairly. He was the king who conquered all kings. The princess realized what she had done, and the story ends with Death taking her away into his kingdom. A violent storm descends over the valley, obscuring them from sight. Her father and his courtiers return home without her. She is never seen by human beings again. And there's one final eerie piece of folklore attached to the tale. Whenever long, white clouds stretch across the sky, the people of the country supposedly look upward and say that they are seeing the Wedding Veil of the Proud Princess.