Stephen Fry

Because almost every one of the fables he writes is about a glorious, happy, luxurious thing having to learn that actually life is suffering.

And whether it's the statue of the young king who sees that every piece, who sees the poverty, although the young king is about to be

crowned, if you remember, and he has a series of dreams before his coronation.

He's so looking forward to his tissue of gold cloak and his amazing crown.

He's going to be so beautiful.

He's going to be the most stunning picture anyone has ever seen of riches and luxury.

But in his dream,

He sees the old woman sewing, trying to make his tissue, and her children are dying around her.

She's hardly got enough light.

She's going blind.

And then another dream happens and he sees a boy being sent down from a boat to pluck pearls from an oyster.

And he comes up with the best pearl, but blood streaming from his ears because of the pressure.

And the boys push back into the water to die.

But the pearl will be perfect.

for the young king's coronation.

And so when he finally wakes up having had these dreams in which he sees the provenance of beauty, the beauty is carved from hillsides by emerald miners whose lives are held at nothing.

He sees this, he has this vision.

And so he tells his Chamberlain and everyone else that he doesn't want the tissue of gold.

He doesn't want the crown.

He just wears a peasant's hessian and a ruffled straw for his hat.