“You are no other than the Wild Huntsman!” she cried out, “woe worth the day that I met you!” Then it was that she remembered how all evil spirits stand in great fear of iron, and knew too late that had she but kept firm hold of the horse-shoe, he could have done her no harm.
Over the tree-tops they soared, and on through the air like a whirlwind, away and away over forest and field and morass, till they came to the mountain fastness where the Wild Huntsman had his home. Bleak and grim was his castle, and it stood amidst sombre, impenetrable forests. Here he held Carey a captive, but whenever he rode forth in the night he would take her with him, and set her before him on his mighty, coal-black steed. Then when the storm blast shrieked overhead, the forest folk would cower together in their huts, and say trembling one to the other; “The Wild Huntsman passes on his way. Hark to the baying of his hounds!”
But on midsummer’s eve Carey saw from the battlements that there were beacon fires burning on all the hill tops far and near, and she rejoiced to think that he could not venture forth that night, for the fires one and all were lit to keep evil spirits at a distance.
Wearily, wearily, the nights and days wore away, and Carey soon lost all count of time. The trees grew leafless and the winds more blustering, and the Wild Huntsman rode abroad more often. Only one day as Carey sat by her casement, she saw a long procession of gnomes, bent and brown and wrinkled, filing through a cleft in a rock, and disappearing one by one. By that she knew that it must be Martinmas already, when the dwarfs bid farewell to the bleak upper world, and retreat to their warm winter quarters in the heart of the earth.
Drearily, drearily, the days and nights wore on, and when Carey rode forth with the Wild Huntsman, she could see nothing below her but pathless wastes of snow, and forest trees groaning beneath a grievous burden of icicles. Then she called to mind the cheery winter evenings in her father’s hut, and she would have wept save that all her tears seemed frozen, even as the world.
At the last came Yuletide. Carey sat alone in the great hall of the castle, and the Yule log sputtered on the hearth.
“Ah me, how bitter cold it is,” chirruped a cricket, breaking silence, and Carey, rousing herself from her sad musings, remembered an old wife’s tale that birds and beasts and even stocks and stones gain speech on Christmas Eve.
“If you are cold, friend cricket,” quoth the Yule log in a crackling voice, “I pray you draw a little nearer to my blaze.” And he burst asunder into such a lively flame, that it would have done any heart good to see it, and warmed even the sad heart of Carey.
“This is no proper house for the keeping of Yule,” muttered the hearthstone morosely, “never so much as a sprig of yew or holly, let alone a goodly show of mistletoe, with tankards of brown ale and a boar’s head all a-smoking.”
“It is indeed a desolate hearth, my friends,” said Carey sorrowfully, “and I have greater reason for complaint than you all.”