I
A long time ago, in a village at the edge of the Harz mountains,
lived a stone-cutter and his wife, with their children, Eldwald and
Rose-Marie.
The children were left much alone at home in the little stone cot on
the outskirts of the town, for their father was away all day at the
quarry, and their mother sewed at the burgomaster’s house almost all
the year round, leaving them each morning when breakfast was over.
After setting out their luncheon of black bread and cheese, she would
kiss them and say:
“Eat when you are hungry, my children, and _do not go near the woods_.”
Now, there were no fearful beasts or poisonous snakes in the wood. It
was a lovely place, with long aisles of green trees carpeted with moss,
where all manner of pretty, harmless, woodland creatures loved to
play, and all manner of bright flowers and berries grew among the tall
ferns and brambles.
Lovers walked the wood unafraid, and the elders of the village were
wont to stroll about its edge on sunny Sabbath afternoons.
But still the sweet, green wood held danger for the little ones, and
many a home had been bereft because of it. For in the very heart of the
wood lived a wicked witch, sometimes seen in the dark, flitting here
and there like a shadow. They called her the “Witch o’ Woods,” and more
than one brave hunter kept a silver bullet in his box for her. For you
must know that only a _silver_ bullet will kill a witch. And though no
one had ever been close enough to get a shot at the dreadful creature,
the whole village hated and feared her, with just cause, as you shall
see.
Whenever a child who was disobedient or naughty strayed into the wood,
she changed it into a pretty little rabbit, and hippety-hop it went
through a little tunnel which led straight into her den. And as the
years went by and every now and then a child would disappear, the
villagers would cry, “The Witch o’ Woods!” In time there came to be a
song about it, which mothers sang to their babies to a sad, sad tune:
“Stay out of the wood
If you know what’s good.”
This song Rose-Marie knew well, as she did the story of the witch, and
she never ventured across the great green meadow lying between their
house and the wood, where the geese fed and squawked all day, and where
she sometimes must venture for her mother’s five geese when Fritz, the
gooseherd, who was old and forgetful, failed to drive them home.
One bright summer morning, Rose-Marie and Eldwald played in front of
their home, and all at once a great butterfly flew over their heads,
with wings of purple and gold. For a moment it hovered above them, and
then settled on a rose-bush not far away. With a cry of joy, Eldwald
ran toward it, but it sailed in circles just above his reach, leading
him out across the meadow toward the wood.
Despite Rose-Marie’s cries, the boy followed it, and though she ran
after him as fast as she could, she reached the edge of the wood to
see the bit of purple and gold flitting far down its dim aisles, with
Eldwald running after it.
Poor Rose-Marie called and searched for him vainly for some hours, and
when it was noon and he had not returned, she hurried to the village
and sobbingly broke the news to her mother.
Soon the stone-cutter and a crowd of his neighbors were searching the
underbrush of the forest. But though they searched until sunset, and
all night torches flared among the trees, no trace of the lost boy
could they find.
Now all was changed in Rose-Marie’s home. The mother sat all day at the
window gazing with tear-stained eyes at the wood that had swallowed
up her child. The father came and went, white and silent, and poor
Rose-Marie’s little heart ached and ached for their sorrow, and grieved
over her lost playmate. Night after night, she lay awake on her little
bed in the loft, thinking of Eldwald and trying to plan some way
to find her brother; for she would not believe, as did many of the
villagers, that Eldwald was dead, but felt sure that the Witch o’ Woods
had turned him into a rabbit, and that he was a prisoner far within the
heart of the forest.
As she lay one night watching the stars through her open window, the
night wind whispered among the leaves of the vine which wreathed it,
and the moon, rising like a great golden shield over the tower of the
church, seemed to smile down upon her. A nightingale trilled faintly
from the wood.
It was as if some far-away voice called her, and springing up, she
slipped on her gown, and, taking her shoes in her hand, stole softly
down the ladder and across the stone floor of the kitchen. She could
hear her parents’ heavy breathing from the cupboard bed in the corner,
and trembled as she took down her father’s knapsack from behind the
door, and in the darkness felt for bread and cheese on the shelf
nearby. Putting these, with a cup, into the knapsack, she opened the
door carefully and stole out into the moonlight.
The flowers slept, drenched in dew, faintly sweet about her. The trees
stirred in the soft air, and a bird twittered drowsily in its dream.
Far away, a dog barked and an owl hooted. The crickets chirped so
loudly in the grasses as she passed that her heart stood still for
fear they should waken her mother. They seemed to say, “Whist, whist!
Rose-Marie runs away!” And in the meadow pond the frogs took up the
cry: “Croak, croak! Rose-Marie runs away!”
Eldwald’s pet cock stirred in his sleep and cried shrill and high,
“Cock-a-doodle-doo! Rose-Marie runs away!” And this woke the doves in
the house eaves, who murmured peevishly, “Coo-hoo! Who runs away?”
Yet, despite all these alarums, little Rose-Marie ran swiftly on across
the meadow, and at last came to the edge of the wood. Turning to look
back at the little stone house sleeping so peacefully in the moonlight,
the tears stood in her eyes, and stretching her hands out to it, poor
Rose-Marie cried, “O, good-by, dear home! Good-by! Good-by!” And thus
saying, she pushed on into the darkness of the wood.