The Enchanted Wreath - Park Six

Instead of entering the castle, the Prince went to the shore and he hid behind a rock. 

That was when he saw a girl come out of the sea. The girl stretched her arms towards his window. 

The prince caught her hand.

The girl was frightened and tried to reach for the water.

However the Prince held on fast. “You are my wife and I will never let you go.” 

The words were hardly out of his mouth when he saw that the girl changed into a hare. The hare changed into a fish and the fish changed into a bird. The bird finally changed into a snake. 

The Prince almost dropped the snake but held on by instinct. He drew his sword out with his other hand and cut off the head of the snake. 

With that the spell was broken. 

That was when the Prince saw his wife standing before him with the wreath upon her head and the birds singing for joy.

The next morning the stepmother was very happy as she raced back to the palace. The old witch had given her an ointment which had to be put on the daughter's tongue, which would break the dove’s spell. However, the only condition to this was only if the real princess was dead, the ointment would work. 

The stepmother was convinced that she had killed her stepdaughter and had no doubts that the ointment would work. 

So the stepmother traveled all night to get to the palace as soon as possible. 

She went straight to her daughter's room.

Though she triumphantly applied the ointment on her daughter's tongue nothing happened.

The daughter still repeated the same words again and again. 

That was when the Prince entered the room with his real wife.  “You both deserve to die.” The Prince told the stepmother and the other girl. “If it was left to me I would kill the two of you. But the princess has begged me to spare your life. So you will be put on a ship and carried off to a desert island. You will stay there till you die.” 

After this was carried out nothing more was heard of the stepmother and her daughter. 

The prince and his wife lived long and happily and ruled their people well.

Adapted from Scandinavian Folk Tales

The Enchanted Wreath- Part Five

 

When the Prince came back from his hunt he was sad to find his wife in great pain. He wanted to do something about it. 

“I cannot leave you like this.” The Prince continued unhappily. “I will summon all the court physicians to apply some soothing medication for your toothache.” Even as he said this the Prince sprang to his feet to go in search of the physicians. 

The false princess was terrified on hearing this because she was worried that the physicians would come near her and realize the trick that she had played on the princess.

She forgot her mother's advice about not speaking and nodded eagerly at the Prince willing to say something. But the words of the dove came true and all that she could say repeatedly was ‘Dirty Creatures.’ 

The Prince was unable to believe what he had heard. 

He came to the slow realization that probably his wife was in great pain and that was why she was talking like this. He decided to leave her alone so that she could get some rest. 

The Prince went to his own room but he could not sleep. 

That night was very hot and airless and the Prince idly sat on the bed and looked through the window. 

That was when he saw a woman with a wreath of roses on her head rise out of the sea. The Prince gasped because the woman looked like his wife. 

The Prince ran and went down to the waters, but when he went there, the woman had completely disappeared. 

The prince wondered whether his eyes had deceived him.

The next morning the Prince was about to go into the false princess’s room and that was when the maids of the palace told him that the princess would not speak or get up, but she ate everything that was kept before her. 

The Prince wondered how the princess was able to do that with her toothache.  

The Prince then decided that he had to solve the troubles aching the princess and he summoned all the court physicians and asked them to look into his wife. 

Unfortunately, when the physicians entered the chamber of the princess, the false princess was so enraged that she forgot about the curse of the doves and threatened ‘dirty creatures’ repeatedly at the physicians. 

The physicians were so offended by what they had heard that they left the room at once. 

The Prince tried to stop the physicians but they walked away from there.

The Prince was at a loss because he did not understand how the quiet gentle girl who had been so charming for the first few days of that marriage had become so rude and sulky and she could not even control her temper. 

However, the Prince realized one more thing. If the princess did not change her conduct very soon, he would have to send her away from the court.

Thinking all this in the evening his eyes went to the sea and he saw the same figure rise out of the waters. 

“Wait for me, wait for me!” He shouted and he ran towards the shore. 

But once the prince reached the shore there was nothing to be seen except the shadows cast by the moonlight.

The next day there was an important state ceremony taking place in a city further off from the castle. 

The Prince had to ride away at daybreak and he left without seeing his wife. He hoped that she would come to her senses by tomorrow or that he would have to send her back to her father's house until she learnt better manners.

It was nearly midnight when the Prince finished his duties at the neighbouring city and returned to the castle.

Adapted from Scandinavian Folk Tales

The Enchanted Wreath - Part Four

The witch in the village of the stepmother had a magic mirror. The magic mirror showed the princess walking in her gardens. Seeing the face of the princess, who was easily able to create a mask which looked like the princess.

However, the witch warned the stepmother that it would be better if the girl pretended to have a toothache and covered her face with a veil so that the mask would not be easily visible. 

The stepmother thanked the witch, paid the witch and returned to her hut carrying the mask under her cloak. 

Back to the palace, the prince had a great hunt coming up. 

So the Prince had to leave his wife alone in the palace and go to the forest for a few days. 

It was during this time that the stepmother and her daughter together went to the palace of the princess. 

The princess was kind and forgiving and she easily forgave her stepmother and the other girl for all that they had done to her and welcomed them inside her home.

The princess showed her home to the stepmother and the other daughter. 

It was at this time that the princess also took the other two to see a pleasure boat that the prince had made for her.

The three of them were at the shores looking at the boat. 

While they were standing on a huge rock the stepmother pushed the princess into the deep water. 

Then the stepmother did not even turn back and she fastened the mask on her daughter and arranged for a lace veil over the head of the false princess.

The stepmother warned her own daughter not to talk to anyone and pretend as if she had a toothache.

The stepmother decided to go back to the witch and ask the witch if the witch could remove the spell that the birds had put on her own daughter.

Adapted from Scandinavian Folk Tales

The Enchanted Wreath - Part Three

 

A few weeks later, a Prince came riding through the forest. The Prince was enchanted by the sweet singing of the birds that he heard. He tied his horse to a tree and followed the sound. That was where he saw a beautiful girl chopping wood and the girl wore a wreath of pink rose buds on her head.  

He studied her for some time and then went up to talk to her. “Who are you? How did you get the wreath of singing roses?” 

“I live on the edge of the forest.” She told him and she blushed because she had never spoken to a Prince before.  “I got this wreath as a gift from some doves whom I fed.” 

The Prince was delighted with this answer because he was sure that doves would have helped the girl only if she was kind and good.

The Prince also realized that he loved this beautiful girl for her kindness and beauty. 

So the Prince went back to his castle and told the king that he wanted to marry the daughter of the woodcutter from the forests. 

The king was disappointed with his son's choice because he wanted his son to marry another princess of the neighbouring kingdom.  

However the prince was used to doing what he wanted. And so the king did not say anything. 

After that, the Prince organized a feast and went to the woodcutter and woodcutter and told him that he wished to marry his daughter. 

The day had been set for the marriage and it was conducted with great pomp and show. 

The stepmother and her daughter were filled with envy and became almost ill. 

However, nobody missed the two of them during the wedding and it went on beautifully.  

The Prince and the girl were married. 

However, the stepmother invented a plan so that she could take away everything that the other girl had with her because of her enchanted wreath.

The plan was very simple. 

The town where the stepmother lived before her marriage was a town where there lived an old witch who was well versed in magic. 

The stepmother decided to go to this witch so that the witch could make a mask with the face of her stepdaughter, which the stepmother had intended to place on her own daughter’s face. She advised her daughter not to say anything because she wanted her own daughter to live the life of the stepdaughter.

Adapted from Scandinavian Folk Tales

The Enchanted Wreath - Part Two

 

“Why are you wearing such an absurd wreath on a rainy night like this?” The stepmother remarked angrily, and she pulled off the wreath from the head of the girl in her envy. 

She put the wreath on her own daughter's head. When she did that the roses of the wreath became withered and brown and the singing birds flew out of the window.

The stepmother longed for her own daughter to have a wreath and she was very angry with the other daughter for getting something like this.

It so happened that another evening the father who had been working alone in the forest came back without his axe. This time the stepmother gladly sent her own daughter. 

However, this time when the other daughter was sent into the woods she was very unhappy that her mother had sent her out at night. When she saw the axe in the middle of the forest, she saw three little doves, which were hungry and sad and sitting on the handle of the axe. 

“You dirty creatures!” She cried at the birds. “Get away or I will throw stones at you.” 

The doves spread their wings and flew on the top of the tree.

“She is so rude,” the first dove remarked angrily. “We need to punish her for ill treating us!”

"All she will be able to say is ‘dirty creatures’ after this,” the second dove said looking even more angry.

The third dove accepted that this was the right thing, and all the three of them flew away from there.

The other daughter slowly took the axe and reached her own home.

“Did you get the wreath?” The mother asked her own daughter eagerly.

“Dirty creatures!” the daughter said.

The stepmother was shocked because she realized that her daughter could say nothing else other than this word.

The woman became very angry with her step daughter and after this she started ill treating the other daughter no sooner than the man had left the hut.

This was made worse because the doves came and placed the wreath back in the other daughter's head.

Adapted from Scandinavian Folk Tales

The Enchanted Wreath - Part One

A husband and wife lived in a hut near a forest. They had two daughters. One of the girls was the husband's daughter whereas the other girl was the wife's daughter.

The man once took his own daughter to the forest and there both of them cut the wood. They worked all day and it had been raining very heavily. So when they returned home at night the father and daughter were completely wet and cold. That was when the husband unhappily remembered that he had left his axe behind in the forest. If he left his axe there in the night, it would become rusty and useless. So he had to bring it back home. 

He turned to his wife. “I have dropped my axe in the forest. Can you please get your daughter to go and bring it?” My daughter has worked all day in the forest and she is very tired.” 

The wife was annoyed and shook her head “You should send your daughter to bring the axe. She is already wet and cold. A little more rain would not do any harm to the girl. If my daughter went out she would surely catch a cold.” 

The man realized that it was useless to argue with his wife and he sent his own girl to the forest to bring the axe back.

The man's daughter was brave and beautiful. She did not shy away from this task and she walked on in the forest. The path was dark and difficult, and her dress was torn by the twigs of the trees but that did not stop her. She reached the spot where she and her father had been working and there she found the axe. 

To her surprise, three little doves were sitting on the handle of the axe. The three doves looked very sad. The girl realized that it was because the doves were hungry.

The girl pulled out some bread, which she had saved from her own dinner and offered it to the three birds. 

After the three birds started pecking the bread she took the axe. “I must take the axe back to my house. Or my stepmother would scold me.” 

She waved at the three doves, which were now smiling at her after having eaten to their fill. “Goodbye!”

The doves looked at each other. “That is a good girl.” One of the doves said, “I was very weak before. But now I would like to show her how grateful I am.” 

“Let us give her a wreath of flowers that would never fade as long as she wears them.” The second dove said. 

“Let there be tiny singing birds sitting in the flowers of the wreath,” said the third bird. 

The first dove was very happy with what the other two doves had said. 

As soon as this happened, the words of the three doves came to pass. 

When the girl stepped inside her own cottage, a wreath of rose buds appeared on her head and a crowd of little birds were singing around her. 

Everyone in the cottage saw her and they all realized that the kind girl looked even more lovely. 

However, the stepmother and the other girl became wild with envy on seeing this.

Adapted from Scandinavian Folk Tales

The Story of the Two Sisters and the Casket - Part Four

The stepmother decided that because she could not steal the black box and its contents she would try to get another one like it, probably even a richer one. 

So she had her daughter sit on the edge of the well and she threw her daughter into the water as exactly as she had done to her stepdaughter. This time her own daughter fell into the flowery meadow.

The stepsister walked on the same path as the other girl but things were not the same this time.

When the Fence prayed her not to hurt it the girl laughed rudely and tore some part of the fence to get over it more easily.

The oven offered her free food too. But this time, the girl scattered the loaves of bread on the ground and was careless. 

After she milked the cow, she threw the rest of the milk on the grass and threw the bucket away.

She met the old woman but was rude to the woman and ignored her. When the old woman asked her to comb her hair the girl rudely refused to do so.

The girl arrived at the farm all by herself and she, like her stepsister, was engaged to look after the cows and sift the corn.

But she did work at the farmhouse only when someone was watching, and she kept the cow house dirty and she was also not kind to any of the animals there. Further she chased the cats away. The girl did not give the sparrows any spare corn either. She threw her shoes at the birds and they flew in towards the woods and took shelter among the trees.

The farmer's wife finally called her. "All you have done here is wrong. Neither can you care for the cows nor do you handle the corn well, still I will give you a chance." The farmer's wife gave the sieve to the girl. "Take the sieve to the well and fill it with water."

The girl tried two or three times but she did not receive any help and she came back to the farmhouse without completing the task given to her.

The Farmer's wife was angry and realized that the girl was completely useless. However, the farmer's wife thought that at least after the incident the girl would have learnt her lesson. 

However her work after this incident was also not any better than before.

The farmer's wife gave her the same two tasks that she gave the girl's stepsister. This time, the stepsister could not fulfill any of this. 

The girl had spent a year on the farm, and the girl wanted to go home. The farmer's wife happily wanted to let her go away. But because she had lived here the farmer's wife offered the girl the same choice - she could go to the loft and pick one of the caskets there.

This is what the girl wanted and without stopping to thank the farmer's wife, she ran to the loft as fast as she could.

This time, too, there was a small black casket on the side. 

However, the girl chose the big red casket and realized that this would hold far too many jewels, than that small black one. 

She snatched the casket and went away from the farmhouse without bidding farewell to the farmer's wife.

Mother and daughter opened the casket.

But this time hot flames came out of the casket and they spread around the house very fast. The cottage and its surroundings were burnt up far too quickly even before the neighbours could come. 

The mother and daughter vanished, never to be seen after the fire.

It was only the outhouse which survived the fire.

There the step daughter lived happily with her riches till the end of her days.

Adapted from Scandinavian Fairy Tales

The Story of the Two Sisters and the Caskets - Part Three

Even as the girl was sad, a procession of cats came inside the room. "What is the matter?" The cats asked the girl. 

"The farmer's wife has given me a job and I cannot seem to weave this into a cloth. She has asked me to finish this job by sundown. I am afraid that I have not even started it." The girl told the cats in utter despair.

"Is that all?" The cats asked. "We will do it for you."

The cats jumped on the loom and they wove the yarn. The cats worked very well and in a very short time the cloth was ready and was as fine as could be. 

The girl was so delighted that she kissed every cat on its forehead. 

The farmer's wife was stunned to see the yarn. “Who has taught you to do this?” 

The girl this time too only smiled, and she did not reply.  

After that, the farmer's wife sent for her maid and told her that she was free to return home. But for her year of service, the farmer's wife was willing to offer her anything more. The farmer’s wife even offered the girl to stay here with her forever. 

The girl however shook her head. “I have been happy here and I thank you for what you have done for me. However, I have left a stepsister and a stepmother behind and I have to be with them.” 

The farmer's wife studied the girl. “I want to give you a reward. Go to the loft above the storehouse. There you will find many caskets. Choose the one which you want.  Take one of the caskets to your home, but do not open it till you come to your home."

The girl went to the loft. The cats followed her in a procession. There, she saw that the loft was filled with caskets of all sizes, shapes and colours. She did not know what to choose. 

That is when she heard the voice of the cats behind her. "Take the black." 

The girl looked around the loft but she could not find a black casket. 

Finally, she found a black casket beneath all the other caskets and it was very small.

But the girl trusted the cats and she took the black casket to the farmer's wife. “This is what I would like to take from the loft.” 

The farmer's wife smiled and bade her to go her way.  

After that, the girl walked away bidding farewell to the cows, the cats, and the sparrows who were very sad to see her go. 

She finally reached the flowery meadow into which she had fallen in this place. She could not believe it because immediately from there she found herself in the wall of the well into which her stepmother had pushed her into, which had started the whole thing.  

The stepmother and the stepsister stared at the girl, unable to believe what they were seeing. They could not believe how the girl had made it back alive.

The girl told the stepmother of how she had gotten a job in the other world, and she had gotten her wages and the small casket at the end of her work. 

The stepmother grabbed the money from the girl and looked angrily at her. “Take that ugly box to the outhouse.” 

The outhouse was very dirty because nobody had been there since the girl had fallen down the well. 

But the girl scrubbed and cleaned everything and made it beautiful again. 

She decided that this was going to be her home, and she opened the casket there.  

When the girl opened, the light struck from the black box dazzled everyone around the place. The black box held beautiful and precious things like crowns and necklaces, all made of gold and wonderful stones. The jewelry shone with such brightness that all the people around came running to see if the outhouse was on fire.

On seeing this the stepmother was very greedy. She would have definitely taken all the jewels for herself. However, the neighbours had also seen the jewels and they knew that the jewels belonged to the girl, and that was the reason that the stepmother could not take it and claim that it was her own.

Adapted from Scandinavian Fairy Tales