Once more the Votaresses assembled on Share-spoil to discuss what was to
be done about Primrose. They saw that they were weaker than he.
Moreover, they were getting tired of flying to Share-spoil and back and
conferring about Primrose, and so they were very angry.
“Well, we will poison the child. Neither spells nor cunning shall help
him now,” they resolved. And straightaway one of them took a wooden
platter and hurried off to a certain meadow in the Mountain to gather
poison berries.
But Primrose, never dreaming that anybody should be talking about him or
worrying their brains about him, walked gaily over the Mountain, cooing
softly to himself like a little dove.
Presently he came to the poison meadow. The path led through the middle
of it. On one side of the path the meadow was covered with red berries
and on the other side with black. Both were poisonous, and whoever ate
of either the one or the other was sure to die.
But how was Primrose to know that there was such a thing as poison in
the world, when he had never known any food but what his mother gave
him?
Primrose was hungry, and he liked the look of the red berries in the
meadow. But he saw someone over there in front of him on the red side
picking berries and seemingly in a great hurry, for she never raised her
head. It was the Votaress, and she was gathering red berries to poison
Primrose.
“That is her side,” thought Primrose, and went over to the black
berries, because he had never been taught to take what belonged to
another. So he sat down among the black berries and began to eat; and
the Fairy wandered far away among the red berries and never noticed that
Primrose had already come up and was eating black ones.
When Primrose had eaten enough he got up to go on. But, oh dear! a mist
rose before his eyes; his head began to ache most dreadfully, and the
earth seemed to rock beneath his feet.
That was because of the black poison.
Poor little Primrose! indeed you know neither spells nor cunning, and
how are you going to save yourself from this new danger?
But Primrose struggled on all the same, because he thought it was
nothing that a mist should rise before his eyes and the ground rock
beneath his feet!
And so he came up with the Fairy where she was picking berries. The
Votaress caught sight of Primrose, and at once she ran on to the path in
front of him with her plateful of red berries. She laid down the platter
before him and invited him by signs to eat.
The Votaress did not know that Primrose had already eaten of the black
berries; and if she had known, she would never have offered him red
ones, but would have let him die of the black poison.
Primrose did not care for any more berries, because his head ached
cruelly; but his mother used to say to him: “Eat, darling, when I offer
you something, and don’t grieve your mother.”
Now this was neither spell nor cunning what Primrose had been taught by
his mother. But it was in a good hour that Primrose did as his mother
had taught him.
He took the plate and ate of the red berries; and as he ate, the mist
cleared before his eyes, his head and his heart stopped aching, and the
ground no longer rocked beneath his feet.
The red poison killed the black in Primrose’s veins. He merrily clapped
his hands and went on his way as sound as a bell and as happy as a grig.
And now he could see the top of the Mountain ahead of him, and Primrose
thought:
“This is the end of the world. There is nothing beyond the top. There I
shall find Lavender.”