The Turnip Princess and Other Newly Discovered Fairy Tales (Penguin Classics) by Franz Xaver von Schonwerth

Author:Franz Xaver von Schonwerth
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group
Published: 2015-02-24T08:00:00+00:00

THE HOWLING OF THE WIND

A woodsman had a son. After he died, the son was out of work, and the boy went out in the world to seek his fortune. He got lost in the woods. All he had left was a crust of bread, which he ate. Overcome by thirst, he looked around for a stream and discovered a footpath. By following it, he reached a well and saw a wondrously beautiful woman drawing water from it. She offered him some water, and he drank it. She asked where he was heading. He replied: “Out into the world to find work.”

“You can work for me, if you want,” she said. She was beautiful, and there was no reason not to follow her to her house near the well.

The two fell in love before long and celebrated their engagement. But there was one condition placed on their marriage, namely, that he must never ask about her on a Thursday. They lived happily together for fourteen years, and they had seven boys together. The husband started to become curious about his wife’s secret. The fourteenth year had not yet come to an end when he peeked through a keyhole into her room, saw her sitting in a tub, and noticed that she had a fish tail.

The next day the woodsman shoved his wife away when she came over to whisper in his ear. He didn’t want to live with a dragon. She began weeping bitter tears. If he had just been able to wait seven years times two, the curse placed on her by her own mother would have been lifted. Now she was going to have to fly around until Judgment Day. “The howling of the wind will be my voice; swirls of dust will be my food, and I will drink my tears,” she lamented. Her husband wanted to prevent her from leaving, but she escaped and began flying around the outside of the house. A boy was seated at each of the seven windows in the house. She wept as she flew toward them to bid each one farewell. They all began sobbing for their mother and were drawn out the window to her. The fine, melancholy sounds of the wind are their voices.

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