IV ROSE-MARIE AND THE WITCH O’ WOODS

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.

II

On and on went Rose-Marie, over moss and fern, stopping now and then in the darkness to loosen a bramble from her gown. But save for a stumble and a lash from some low-hanging bough, nothing happened to frighten her.

At last, as her feet began to falter, it seemed as if tiny lights gleamed here and there through the thickets, and when she sank at length upon a mossy knoll at the foot of a great oak-tree, a faint humming came to her ears, like the far-away singing of gnats, and finally, as she was dropping asleep, the sound seemed to change into a kind of chant.

And so, to the chime of faint fairy bells, Rose-Marie fell softly asleep and dreamed of little Eldwald and their home.

When she awoke, the sun was high, though but few of his rays could pierce the green gloom about her. At her side lay a large leaf heaped high with bright berries. Springing up, she vainly sought for the giver of this gift, but heard nothing save the trickling of a tiny rill nearby, and saw nothing but a flash of crimson as a redbird flew before her.

After a little prayer of thankfulness, she ran to wash her face in the little stream, and ate a hearty breakfast from her store of food, finishing with the fairies’ berries, for she decided it must be those little people who had gathered them, for fairies always stand ready to help good children, and when once you start to do a good thing, though it seems hard, hundreds of little helpers spring up unseen on every side to aid the task.

Cheered and refreshed, Rose-Marie went on her way until, at evening she came to a barren, rocky opening in the woods. Through the trees, a long red beam of light seemed pointing like a fiery finger at a dark pool which lay there, dull and slimy, amid blasted trees and withered rushes, which seemed to shrink back from the dead, dark water.

High above it towered a cliff, rough with boulders and dark with dusky pine, and at its base, just beyond the margin of the pool, she could see a dark opening, or cave, which seemed very narrow and deep.

It was a sad place at all times; but to a little girl alone at nightfall, it seemed a frightful place. As she paused, shivering, a chant of tiny voices buzzed in her ear:

Darkness fell suddenly, strange noises sounded about her, and from the cave in the cliff came a faint whimpering sound like the noise of many little animals crying weakly. With a sinking heart, Rose-Marie knew that this place must be the place she had come so far to seek. This was the den of the Witch o’ Woods.

III

Gathering courage, Rose-Marie at last ventured into the dark opening before her. The way led downward; it was slippery, and now and then drops of water fell upon her. At last she came into a small square chamber. In one corner was a stone fireplace, wherein a few logs smoldered. Wood was piled on each side. Dried herbs and bones hung from the rafters, and one or two rude shelves were crowded with utensils and strange objects whose names she did not know. A low, rough bedstead filled another corner, and one or two heavy benches were pushed against the walls. Rose-Marie was so busy in staring about her that she did not notice a little person who sat on a low stool by the fire, until a malicious chuckle startled her, and looking closely, she could just make out in the dim light a little old lady in a dull brown garb, with high pointed cap pulled well down over a dark little face. Two very bright eyes peeped at her, and the witch’s nose went down as her thin mouth turned up in a shrill laugh, that echoed through the cavern and was answered by a whimper from somewhere beneath her feet.

Rose-Marie’s heart stood still. But she set her lips firmly and made a little courtesy and said, “Good evening, mother!”

The Witch o’ Woods jumped up with a startled look on her face.

“Hoity-toity! Here is the first mortal that ever spoke to me. Come hither, girl, and let me see the only being in the Harzberg who does not fear the Witch o’ Woods.”

As she stood there leaning on her tall cane, Rose-Marie thought she looked like a figure carved out of brown wood, and so she did, all but her eyes, which were piercing, though they did not look unkind now.

“But I am afraid, ma’am,” said Rose-Marie. “But I had to come for my brother Eldwald; and O madam, if you have changed little Eldwald into a rabbit, I beg that you will release him, for my mother weeps all day, and my father cannot work for sighing. I will serve you faithfully and well if you will only let him go.”

“What is your name?” said the witch, though she knew it already, being a witch.

“I am Rose-Marie, the daughter of Hans, the stone-cutter,” answered the girl, with another courtesy.

“Go to the corner cupboard, Rose-Marie, and take down some supper on a platter you will find there, and then we shall see what we shall see.”

In the cupboard was a nice plump cake, all iced, with a knife lying by, and it said, “Eat me!” On a shelf above stood a finely baked capon in a silver dish, and it cried, “Eat me!” And by its side stood a handsome bottle of wine, which gurgled, “Drink me!” And down on the lowest shelf of all stood a little brown loaf and an earthen cup of milk, which said nothing at all; these Rose-Marie took and placed on the platter as she had been told, and going to a bench near the fire, began to eat with good appetite.

“Hum,” said the witch, “not greedy. Why did you not take the good things in the cupboard, stone-cutter’s daughter?”

“Why, they did not seem suitable for me, ma’am, and I thought that, had you intended such grand provisions for my eating, you would have mentioned it.”

“Had you eaten them, you would now be a hare with the others,” growled the witch, very much disappointed.

When Rose-Marie had eaten and set away the platter and cup, the witch showed her a pallet where she might sleep. And after a little prayer, the tired girl lay down and slept as peacefully as if she had been in her own little bed.

The Witch o’ Woods sat mumbling by the fire all night long, trying to change Rose-Marie into a rabbit; but try as she could, all her magic failed. For when we send up a thought of thankfulness and ask help of the Love that is ever near, a beam of light comes down like a lovely angel and guards us from all harm. So at dawn the Witch o’ Woods sat cold and cross by her dead fire, and wondered to find a power greater than her own.

Then she roused Rose-Marie, who hustled about busily, and soon had the chamber bright with a crackling fire, clean as a good sweeping could make it, and a hot breakfast smoking before the old witch, who for the first time in years found herself comfortable.

When they had eaten, she took up her staff and a great sack of grain, which she spilled over the whole room until it fell into every crack and crevice.

“Now,” said she, “I shall try you. If you serve me well three days and do the tasks I set you, you shall go free with little Eldwald; but if you fail, he will remain a little hare and you shall be my slave forever, and never again see the sun. By the time I return to-night, this spilled grain must be back in its sack, and, mind you, not one kernel must be lost!”

And with that she went out, and slammed the heavy door behind her, bolting it fast.

Rose-Marie’s heart sank; but she glanced at the rush-broom in the corner, and crying, “At least I can try,” set to work. But though she persevered until noontime, only a small part of the grain had been gathered.

Resolved, however, not to despair, she sat down to eat the bread and cheese the witch had left out for her, when she heard the whimpering that had frightened her the night before, and seeking for the sound, she opened a trap-door in the floor, to find there a cage filled with all kinds of rabbits. These were the poor little children the Witch o’ Woods had caught, and there was a snow-white one that reached his little paws through the cage and cried more piteously than the rest, with tears in his little round eyes. And this, she knew, must be little Eldwald.

Breaking up her food, she divided it among them, and watered them in a bowl from a huge piggin of water that stood behind the door. Then she swept and cleaned their cage as well as she could through the bars, put straw in it from her pallet, and after caressing and reassuring little Eldwald, she shut them up again for fear the witch would come.

Then she went back to her task, but began to despair as the afternoon wore away and she had made so little progress. At last she sat down by the hearth to weep, and her tears fell into the cold ashes; when far above her head she heard a soft “Cooee-cooee,” and found by stepping inside, she could look up the chimney, on the rim of which sat six pretty wood-doves, cooing and preening their feathers.

“Cooee, Rose-Marie,” they called; for the fairies had told her story, and all the little woodland creatures were ready to help her. “Why do you weep?”

Then Rose-Marie explained her plight, and down flew the six wood-doves. In a jiffy their sharp beaks “pecked, pecked,” here and there, their keen eyes spying out every grain, and by the time the sun went down, they had filled the sack and left not one kernel outside. Then, with a soft “Cooee,” they disappeared up the chimney, and Rose-Marie, much relieved, set about getting supper, which the witch found smoking hot when she came in at dark.

She gasped when she saw the great sack of grain standing in a corner, but, poke and pry as she might, she could not discover one kernel left out. So she was forced to sit down to her nice supper, and, looking at her as they sat eating, Rose-Marie thought she was not so brown nor so wrinkled as she had been.

At bedtime, after her usual prayer was said, Rose-Marie lay down on her hard bed and was soon fast asleep, leaving the witch staring into the fire, and there she sat all night, as before; and, as before, her magic failed. In the morning she awoke Rose-Marie, and when they had breakfasted, she emptied a great jar of peas into the ashes, and repeating her commands, she hobbled away. And Rose-Marie thought she was taller and straighter than she had been.

Rose-Marie picked up peas and put them into the jar, but gained little headway; and at noon she fed and tended the little captives under the floor.

And when, some hours later, she gave up in despair, declaring that the peas seemed to grow more rather than less, she heard a “scratch—scratching” at the door, then a “gnawing—gnawing,” and finally, through a tiny hole they had gnawed at the door’s bottom, came a mole, a squirrel, and a chipmunk; and, bowing low before the weeping girl, they cried:

“We will help you, Rose-Marie!”

My, how sharp claws and teeth did fly! How furry coats did flash to and fro over the floor, here and there and everywhere, until every pea was safe in the jar, and they whisked out of the hole in the door just as the witch’s steps sounded in the passage outside.

She came in to find Rose-Marie dishing up supper by the bright fireside, and had to confess that every pea was in the jar and the supper the best she had ever eaten, for Rose-Marie had baked little cakes in the warm ashes, and set out a pot of honey and one of fresh butter which she had found in the cupboard.

And that night it was the same as before: after her prayers were said, little Rose-Marie slept safely and well, and the magic of the Witch o’ Woods failed.

Therefore, on the third morning she awoke the girl with a rough shake, and when ready to go away, she took two great pails of water and emptied them over the stone floor of the cavern, where the water stood high enough to run over Rose-Marie’s wooden shoes. And bidding the girl see to it that the pails were full when she returned, the Witch o’ Woods went out, chuckling with glee, for well she knew that no power on earth could gather spilled water.

When she was gone, poor Rose-Marie climbed on a bench to be out of the wet, and cried and cried and cried, and all the little captives under the floor cried with her.

It was nearly noon, when down the chimney flew a sleek, pretty swallow, with so merry a chirp that Rose-Marie smiled before her tears were dried.

When he had heard her troubles, he sat for a moment on the mantel-shelf with bowed head, for this, indeed, seemed a task too hard for any bird or beast. At last he broke into an excited trill.

“I know,” he chirped. “Far, far away to the north, over the icy plains of Norway into the ever-frozen fastness of the Arctic night, dwells the north wind. He alone can help us. If I can find my friend the gull, and he can carry the news, and north wind will come, you are saved. Cheep—cheep.” And off he flew, like a rocket.

But Rose-Marie was not a whit comforted by his words, for there were so many “ifs” in the way. And who knew, if the gull found north wind, whether or not he would leave his beloved ice-floes, where he herds his giant flocks of white polar bears, as farmers herd sheep, or drives the seals far out to sea, as he blows great gusts over the bergs upon the poor ships that flounder at their base.

Who could believe that so great a king would come far south to aid a poor little peasant maid? And Rose-Marie’s tears began to flow afresh, when a little song which her mother had taught her seemed to ring in her ears:

“If God is All-in-all, His children cannot fear.”

Over and over she hummed the comforting words all the long afternoon, while the little rabbits whimpered for food, as she could not open their pen for the water.

But the world is full of charity for them that follow Love’s way. And the swallow found the gull, the gull found the north wind, and when he heard the story of Rose-Marie and the Witch o’ Woods, he laughed long and loud, until great icebergs splintered about him; and, wrapping his glittering white mantle about him, he flew southward, cooling the air as he went, until, for forty years afterward, all Germany talked of the “cold summer.”

Down, down he flew, until it was nearly sunset when the forest on the Harzberg came in sight. Down, down to the top of the chimney of the witch’s den, and with one kind “Halloo” to Rose-Marie, he blew an icy blast down the chimney, which froze the water on the witch’s floor, and, cracking it with her broom handle, Rose-Marie soon had it all in the pails again, and by the time the Witch o’ Woods came, the nice, hot fire had melted the ice until the great pails stood brimming with water and the floor was dry and clean.

And then there was a great ado! The Witch o’ Woods shrieked and raged. She shook her enchanted staff at Rose-Marie, and in vain tried to utter words of magic. Failing to do this, she turned, in turn, into a bear, a wolf, and a great black eagle. But Rose-Marie stood firm by the fireplace, and, having now learned that evil had no real power, she did not feel afraid.

Finally, after some moments of such goings-on, the Witch o’ Woods began slowly to change back into her own shape. And yet it was not she who at last stood there, slender and straight, with shining golden hair falling from a green, leafy crown, but a beautiful fairy, who smiled at Rose-Marie as if she enjoyed her surprise.

For love and goodness can change even ugly witches into fairies, and that is what they had done. And the Witch o’ Woods was gone forever, and in her place was a lovely fairy of the woods, who loved and cherished every woodland creature ever afterward.

Then the fairy, still smiling kindly, opened the door of the little cage under the floor, and out trooped a lot of little children, among them little Eldwald, whom you may be sure was clasped in Rose-Marie’s arms.

Then said the wood fairy:

“Come, let us leave this dark place and go out into the greenwood and sunshine. But before I go, you shall all be recompensed.” And, going to the side of the cavern, she drew forth the great treasure of the Witch o’ Woods—gold and jewels, diamonds, pearls, and rubies—and divided it among them.

But to Rose-Marie she gave the most beautiful of all—a great pink-hearted pearl, set round with blazing diamonds. “This,” said the wood fairy, “is small pay for the service you have done me; but you have love, the pearl of great price, in your heart, dear, and that no money can buy, and nothing can take it away. But this jewel shall some day crown the diadem of a princess, and Rose-Marie, the stone-cutter’s daughter, shall wear it.”

Which proved all too true; for years afterward, when Rose was grown up, a handsome prince came riding over the Harzberg—But that is another story, for another time.

And the wood fairy, with Rose-Marie and the other children, danced out of the black cavern into the bright sunshine. And how the birds sang above them in the green boughs! And how the perfume of the flowers came from the thickets! And the way opened broad and smooth before them as, with filled hands and joyous hearts, Rose-Marie and the other children went home.