A Christmas Fairytale

Once upon a time a Princess finely dressed in scarlet and ermine lived by herself in an enchanted castle by the sea. North along that coast there was a thick forest where every day at the edge of the woods a gift appeared, whatever her heart desired. The women of the little village around the castle would go every day and bring that day’s gift to her. Finely wrapped in silver and gold, with bows of red and white, she would open them to find her gift. It could be chocolates and dried fruits from distant lands, or little mechanical toys that sang and danced, horns that blew clear notes like starlight, beautifully lettered books in a language no one could read, or any other manner of good things.

Sometimes the princess went to the edge of the woods herself to see her gift of the day. But she never went in. The trees along the edge stood thick and vast and gnarled and leafless, always leafless, and appeared like nothing more than grim, fierce men. When she got too close, their limbs would start to move threateningly and the whisper of the wind in the trees would deepen into a howl. None of her villagers would go into the woods either, for foreboding of the trees.

One bright day there was no gift. The princess leaned on a balcony looking past the white rollers of the sea that came padding up to the stone headlands, to the dark line of the forest and even to the hazy hint of green beyond that, and she wondered at this prodigy. It was then that she something flash in the sun and she saw drawing near her beating frantically through the air a tiny bird. It landed on her outstretched hand. It was no bigger than her hand, and its feathers were bright silver and bright gold. But blood dripped down over the feathers from a wound.

In its claws were clutched a small, rolled paper. It reached out a leg as if handing it to her and died.

The roll of paper was sealed along the edge by what could have been a tiny, tiny seal of wax or perhaps a drop of the bird’s blood. The Princess felt a strange trepidation at opening the note and so she did not, but all that day she went with it clutched in her hands.

The next day there was no gift also. She looked and looked at the dark line of the woods to the north, nothing came, and finally she opened the note.

The note was simple. It said only, “come to me, your mother,” and there was a drawing of a flower done in simple ink. The Princess had just such another drawing that she always wore in a locket around her neck. She knew by this and by the scent of the note that it was indeed her mother. It was the same scent as came with the gifts, the toys and the sweets and the nougats and the playthings, but somehow a fuller and more living scent.

Now it was the one sorrow of the princess’ heart that she did not know her mot her. The princess set out without delay.

Her confidence waned the closer she got to the trees but to raise her flagging spirits she hummed a little lullaby that the walls of her magic castle had sometimes sung to her, and when she did two of the gold and silver sparrows came flying out to her, one bearing mistletoe in its mouth, and the other a holly berry. The trees then moved aside and as she passed through them she could see tiny buds of green appearing.

Past the first belt of trees she found herself in a forest that grew colder and more wintery with every step. She shivered with the cold, but even more when she heard the howling of wolves. Still she continued to follow the two birds in their flight further into what was now winter.

When the howls had become very loud and she expected to see the wolves at any moment that would devour her, she suddenly stepped out of the winter forest into a green meadow. In the meadow was an enormous tree, thicker at its base than any tree she had ever seen, and towering into the sky. The tree was dead. Its base was hollow and flocks of silver and gold birds flew in and out of openings there. The hollow had been built into, it was part hollow and part little house. Slumped in a wicker chair in front of the house in the tree hollow was a woman. The birds leading the princess flew directly to the woman. She followed, and when she got closer she instantly knew the woman to be her mother though she had no memory of how her mother looked. The woman’s eyes opened, and the woman smiled faintly.

After they wept for joy in each other’s arms, Her mother told the princess she was held captive in the meadow by a witch who every day stole the mother’s magic to heap up possessions and power, but that the mother still managed to divert a bit of what the witch drew from her each day to send the princess a present using her trusty servants the gold-and-silver birds. But now the witch had drawn too much, the princess’ mother was dying, and she had sent for the princess to see her one more time before she died.

With her last breaths she warned the princess to flee before the witch could arrive but if the rincess could not, she told the princess to sing the lullaby tune and she taught the princess the words to it, words that the Princess had never known. “Many years ago I forgot that tune” the princess’ mother said sadly, “and that was when I fell into the witch’s power, but when I heard it faintly on the wind I knew you had come to the forest and sent my birds with tokens to open the way for you.” The mother smiled again then died.

The princess cried by her mother’s side for a night and a day while the birds swirled around but then bethought herself of her mother’s advice and went to flee. But it was too late. As she rose to go, out whirling from the trees came the witch who was singing in her own queer way

Just such a one

Just such a one

Her mother’s baking

Her mother’s bun

Her power I’ll take

before I’m done

Then she cackled and winked and told the Princess it was rude of her mother to leave the witch with so little notice but at least the woman had recruited a fine candidate to replace her and the witch pinched the princess’ arm cruel hard.

The Princess cried and when she did the witch leered with pleasure. “Already, dearie?” the witch said. “At this rate you’ll meet your quota.”

The witch gestured and chanted

Cold and hard

sang the bard

Come to me

said the decree

When she did the power that was in the tears went out to the witch and the tears themselves turned to diamonds. It would be hard to say which one the witch took more greedily. The witch scrabbled in the dirt for the diamonds as they fell.

But soon the tears fell stronger than the witch’s magic. They no longer turned to diamonds. They fell to the ground as real tears, and where they did a fountain sprung up of sweet water that burned the witch where it touched her. The witch shrieked in anger and pulled the princess’ hair. The witch chanted

The bell is rung

the thread is spun

I drink it up

each sip and sup

When she did, each hair turned to gold and the power went out from the hair into the witch. The witch chortled and plucked hair after hair. “Handfuls of gold,” she cackled, “handfuls of gold!” But soon the hair was too strong for the witch’s magic. It remained hair. And when the witch shrieked and threw it in the air it gleamed and sent little dapples of sunlight all over the dark places in the glade and in the surrounding trees and the silver and gold sparrows that were in the place flew up into the air with it.

The witch drew out a knife.

What made flesh from mud?

the witch said.

Wherein lies life’s flood?

the witch said.

The power is in the blood,

the witch said.

And with that the wicked witch lunged at the princess to kill her. Just then the princess remembered what her mother said and started to sing the tune with the words her mother had taught here. When she did, the witch choked and slowed and all the witch accomplished with her lunge was to nick from the Princess one single drop of blood.

The Princess sang on and the drop of blood fell into the little streamlet that ran from the fountain her tears had made. Now there was in all the winter trees surrounding the glade, the firs and spruce and pine and leafless oaks and ash, a supple holly tree. The streamlet had run to the holly and had already melted the snow around it. When the blood touched the water, the holly straightened, and shook and turned into a Prince, who shouted with joy to be released from the spell from the witch had put him into.

But choking and growling, the witch shouted at the prince, “the sons of Adam, unclothed, are in my power” and fighting the effects of the princess’ lullaby moved to cast some horrible spell on him. But before she could, the birds flew to the prince and draped a cloak on him they had spun in the air from the princess’ golden hair. When the witch finally finished her spell a horrid green snake flew out of her mouth to the prince and bit down on him but only was able to bite the hair. The prince was unharmed and came bounding up the streamlet and slew the witch with his hands. He kissed the princess under mistletoe held by a bird.

They buried the princess’ mother under the lintel of the house in the hollow and the witch they buried under the mother, and in that same doorway they were wed. All that land, the forests and the village and the castle and the sea became one and the forests returned to their proper seasons, and many trees that had been in the winter forest and along the edge became men.

In the years to come, when the princess was a Queen and had children of her own of the great magic that was in her, she would sometimes use that same magic to make toys and wonders for her children, and silver and gold wrappings from a bird, and when the present was opened and the toy greeted with cries of delight the paper would turn back into a bird and go flying around the children’s heads and the toy too would in time come to life.