The next day Betty drove her goats to the forest and today she sang to herself happily. She sat under the tree and started spinning. She sang as she spun the flax and soon it was mid-day.
Betty gave a morsel of bread to the goats and this time went deeper and found some strawberries in the forest and ate her food.
“I must not dance today.” Betty told herself and her goats and she sighed and placed her left-over bread crumbs on the nearby stone for the birds.
“Why not?” A voice came from beside Betty.
Betty was afraid and she did not answer the maiden who had appeared before her.
Betty closed her eyes wishing that the maiden disappeared. But the maiden repeated her question.
Betty slowly opened her eyes and studied the maiden. “I cannot dance with you, because then again I would fail my task of spinning. Then my mother would scold me.” Betty nodded unhappily. “I must make up for what I left undone yesterday.”
The maiden smiled mysteriously at Betty. “Come and dance. By sun down, some help will be found for you.”
The maiden tucked her dress and took Betty round the waist and today too the two dancers began to twirl around.
Today the maiden danced even more enchantingly and today too Betty could not take her eyes off the maiden and she forgot her goats and her task.
At last in the evening, the dancers stopped and the sun was on the verge of setting.
Betty then looked at the unspun flax and began to cry.
Adapted from Slavonic Folktales
No comments:
Post a Comment