Fairy Tales From All Nations

by Anthony R. Montalba

He rode almost every day in the forest and on the plain, and returned safely home. In this manner many years glided away; and the warning given by the late countess almost ceased to be dwelt upon, and the enjoined precautions were observed rather from old habit than from any immediate sense of their importance.

One day the youth, with his attendants, rode across the fields to a wood, where his father frequently took the diversion of hunting. The path led to a rivulet, the borders of which were overgrown with bushes. The riders crossed it; when suddenly a hare, startled by the tramp of the horses, sprang from the bush and fled through the wood. The young count pursued, and had almost overtaken it, when the saddle-girth of his horse broke; saddle and rider rolled together on the ground, and at the same moment he vanished from the sight of his terrified attendants, leaving no trace behind.

All search or enquiry was vain; and they recognised in the misfortune the power of the evil fairy, against whom the countess had uttered her dying warning. The old count was deeply afflicted; but as he could do nothing to effect the deliverance of his son, he resigned himself to fate, and lived patiently and solitary, in the hope that a more favourable destiny might yet one day rescue the youth from the hands of his enemy.

The young count had scarcely touched the earth before he was seized by the invisible fairy, and carried off by her. He seemed now transported to quite a new world, and without a hope of ever being released from it. A strangely-built castle, surrounded by a spacious lake, was the fairy's residence. A floating bridge, which rested only on clouds, afforded a passage across it. On the other side were only forests and mountains, which were constantly wrapped in a dense fog, and in which no human voice, nor even that of any other living creature was ever heard. All around him was awful, mysterious, and gloomy; and only on the eastern side of the castle, where a little promontory stretched out into the lake, a narrow path wound through a valley in the rocks, behind which a river glistened.

As soon as the fairy with her captive arrived on her territory, she commanded him fiercely to execute all her behests with the extremest precision, at the risk of being punished severely for disobedience and delay.

She then gave him a glass hatchet, bidding him cross the bridge of clouds and go into the forest, where she expected him to cut down all the timber before sun-set. At the same time she warned him, on pain of her severest displeasure, not to speak to the dark maiden whom in all probability he would meet in the forest.

The young count listened respectfully to her orders, and betook himself with his glass hatchet to the appointed place. The bridge of clouds seemed at each step he took to sink beneath him; but fear would not admit of his delaying; and so he soon arrived, although much fatigued by his mode of passage, at the wood, where he immediately began his work.

But he had no sooner made his first stroke at a tree, than the glass hatchet flew into a thousand splinters. The youth was so distressed he knew not what to do, so much did he fear the chastisement that the cruel fairy would inflict on him. He wandered hither and thither, and at length, quite exhausted by anxiety and fatigue, he sank on the ground and slept.

After a time something roused him; when upon opening his eyes, he beheld the black maiden standing before him. Remembering the prohibition he did not venture to address her. But she greeted him kindly, and inquired if he did not belong to the owner of the domain. The young count made a sign in the affirmative. The maiden then related that she was in like manner bound to obey the fairy who had by magic transformed her and forced her to wander in that ugly form, until some youth should take pity on her and conduct her over that river beyond which the domain of the fairy and her power did not extend. On the further side of the river she was powerless to harm any one who, by swimming through the waves, should reach the other shore.

These words inspired the young count with so much courage, that he revealed to the black maiden the whole of his destiny, and asked her counsel how he might escape punishment, since the wood was not cut down, and the hatchet was broken.