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Page 73
The wood-wife could not resist, but she never put her foot across the
threshold of the new house. Meanwhile the old hovel was swept away as
fast as possible, and by the princess's wish a pretty summer-house was
built on the spot where it had stood, and there she and her court ladies
were wont to amuse themselves on warm summer evenings to their hearts'
content.
One evening the princess strolled out by herself into the forest. She
had been in several distinct rages; first with her court ladies,
secondly with her dressmaker, thirdly with the sky, which, in spite of
her wishes for fine weather, had become overcast with clouds.
[Illustration]
In this ill-humour nothing in all the beautiful green forest gave her
any satisfaction. She snarled at the birds because they sang so merrily.
The rustling of the green fir-tops in the evening breeze annoyed her:
"Why should pine-trees have needles instead of leaves?" she asked
angrily; and then she grumbled because there were no roses on the
juniper bushes. Still snarling, she wandered on, till she came to a spot
where she stood still and silent in sheer amazement.
In an open space there was a circle of grotesque-looking stones,
strangely linked together by creeping plants and ferns of curious
growth. And as the Snarling Princess looked at them, it seemed to her
that the stones took dwarf-like shapes, and glared about them with weird
elfin faces. The princess seemed rooted to the spot. An invisible power
appeared to draw her towards the group, and to attract her by a
beautiful flower, whose calyx opened at her approach. Unable to resist
the impulse, she stepped into the circle and plucked the flower.
No sooner had she done so than her feet took deep root in the earth, her
hair stiffened into fir-needles, and her arms became branches. She was
now firmly fixed in the centre of the group of stones, a slender,
swaying pine-tree, which creaked and croaked, and snapped and snarled
with every gust of wind, as the princess had hardly ever done in her
most ill-tempered moments. And as her limbs stiffened under their
magical transformation, the hideous figure of the wood-wife might have
been seen hovering round the charmed circle, her arms half changed into
bird's wings, and her hands into claws. And as the king's daughter
fairly turned into a pine-tree, the wood-wife took the form of an owl,
and for a moment rested triumphantly on her branches. Then with a shrill
"Tu-whit! tu-whoo!" it vanished into the forest.
When the princess did not return to the palace, and all search after her
proved utterly vain, the poor old king fell into a state of the deepest
melancholy, and spent most of his time in the summer-house, bewailing
the mysterious loss of his only child.
One day, many months afterwards, he wandered into the forest. A storm
was raging, of which he took no heed. But suddenly he stopped beneath a
pine-tree, and looked up--"How like my poor dear daughter's voice!" said
he; "especially when she was the least bit in the world--" He did not
like to finish the sentence, but sat down under the tree and wept
bitterly. And for every tear he shed, the pine-tree dropped a shower of
needles. For the Snarling Princess recognized her father, and heartily
lamented the pain he suffered now, and had so often suffered before on
her account.
"Tu-whit! tu-whoo!" said a voice, from a hole beneath the pine-tree.
"Who speaks?" said the king.
"It is I, cousin," said the owl, hopping into the daylight, and
gradually assuming the form and features of the fairy godmother. "You
did not know me as the Three-legged Wood-wife, whom you so unjustly
sacrificed to your daughter's caprices. But I have had a hand in her
education after all! For twelve months has she croaked and creaked,
snapped and snarled, beneath the summer heat, the winter snow, and the
storms of spring and autumn. Her punishment--and yours--is over."
As the fairy godmother spoke, the pine-tree became a princess once more,
and fell into her father's arms.
But the wood-wife took again the shape of an owl, and the enchanted
stones became bats, and they all disappeared into the shadows of the
forest.
And as the princess shortly afterwards married a very charming prince,
she no doubt changed her name.
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