Betty then looked at the basket in her hands. She removed the spindle and the unspun flax to see the birch wood leaves that she had left in the basket.
Both Betty and her mother were stunned because the remaining birch leaves had turned to gold!
Betty studied her mother. “She asked me not to look now and look after I had reached home.” Betty was unhappy. “I was hasty and I looked at the forest and found that they were only birch leaves and threw them away.”
The next day Betty went to the woods to look for the birch leaves that she had thrown away from her basket, but there was nothing in the forest but fresh birch leaves.
But the riches that Betty brought from the few golden leaves were sufficient for Betty and her mother.
Betty’s mother bought an estate and they had many cattle. Betty had pretty clothes and she did not need to take her goats to the woods everyday.
Betty tried to be as cheerful as always but still nothing gave her as much joy as remembering her dance with the Wood Lady.
But Betty never saw the beautiful maiden ever again.
Adapted from Slavonic Folktales
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