Emily Wilde's Encyclopaedia of Faeries (Emily Wilde, #1)(35)
The whaler’s path into town ran through a forest inhabited by a great many Folk, who never gave him a lick of trouble. One day, though, as he neared the halfway point of his journey, he came upon a strange white wolf, larger than any he had ever seen, standing in his path. The wolf gave a howl, and more wolves appeared, each one larger than the last. Terrified, the whaler mounted his horse and fled back home. He was so afraid that he forgot all about his bargain with his fjolskylda and ran inside just as they were sitting down to dinner at his table. Instantly, the faeries vanished. From the shadows, a voice scolded him: “Never again will we dine here, and never again will you have our protection. You need not have run from the wolves, and thus you have betrayed us twice over—in distrusting our promise to you, and interrupting a fine banquet.”
The whaler cursed his mistake. He delayed his next visit into town, and delayed it again, until he had to choose between taking the forest path and starvation. So, he set off along the path, full of weariness and worry, and sure enough, as he neared the halfway point, he met the white wolves again. This time, they chased him into the forest along a faerie path until they came to a huge tree. Its bark was as white as the wolves, and it was fat with blossoms and green leaves, though it was then nearing the start of winter.
The whaler gave a cry. Hanging from the branches was a gruesome assembly of corpses—the skeletons of other travellers, as well as animals and birds. The wolves threw off their wolf skins, revealing themselves as Folk, and commanded the whaler to bring them the bones of his next catch.
The whaler went away weeping. He knew that the faeries must have some terrible reason for what they were doing, but without his fjolskylda, he was powerless to deny them.
The next month, he brought them the bones of three whales. The faeries strung them up in the tree beside the other bones. The whaler noticed that the faeries hung the bones on one side of the tree only. When the whale bones had been hung, the tree gave a tremendous groan and leaned a little to the north. The faeries ordered the whaler to bring them the bones of his next catch.
The next month, the whaler brought the faeries the bones of four whales. These they hung from the tree, and when they did, the tree gave another groan, and leaned farther to the north. The whaler grew afraid. He realized that this tree must be the gaol of the faerie king, who had gone mad many years ago and been locked away by his subjects. The faeries ordered the whaler to bring them the bones of his next catch.
The whaler begged his fjolskylda for help, but none would heed him—none except the most elderly among them, a faerie woman whose head came up only to the whaler’s belt, who had grizzled hair so long it trailed behind her and gathered all manner of leaves and mud. The faerie promised to help him only if he agreed to marry her. The whaler shuddered in disgust, but he gave his word nevertheless, for he feared the mad faerie king above all else, and knew there would be great woe throughout Ljosland if he were allowed to escape.
The faerie took the whaler to her family graveyard, where they dug up the bones of the dead. Then they snuck through the forest to the white tree and buried the bones under the boughs. The next month, the whaler brought the faeries the bones of seven whales. As before, they hung them from the white tree, but this time, the tree gave no groan, nor did it move. Furious, the faeries ordered the whaler to bring them the bones of his next catch, as well as the bones of the whaler’s horse.
The next month, the whaler brought them the bones of ten whales, as well as the bones of one of the faerie horses buried in the graveyard. The faeries hung them from the tree, but again, the tree neither moved nor spoke. The faeries turned on the whaler, convinced that trickery was afoot, but before they could reach him, the bones of the dead horse gave a whinny. The skeletal hands of the dead faeries rose up out of the dirt and strangled the servants of the wicked king. They had been holding on to the roots of the white tree, preventing it from falling over and releasing the king from his prison. The whaler, much relieved, hung the dead bodies of the king’s servants from the south side of the tree.
The whaler married his faerie bride, and though she remained as shrivelled and unlovely as ever, the whaler never broke his vow to his wife, and she rewarded him with three strong children who drew whales out of the deeps with their beautiful singing. And the whaler died an old, rich man, quite content.
The Ivory Tree
(NB: I include this particular story in part because it falls outside the usual patterns. I hypothesize that it has either been purposely truncated or is so new that it has not yet been worn and smoothed into a more pleasing shape.)
There was once a young girl of such surpassing beauty that all her neighbours whispered she had faerie ancestry. Her golden hair turned white when the winter sun touched it, and she sang so sweetly that even the wind upon the mountaintops quieted its howls to listen. Her mother had been just as lovely, and when she died in childbirth, the midwife swore that half her body had simply melted away, leaving only the skeleton behind. And so she must have been half fae through her father, for his identity was unknown.
The girl wished to marry a carpenter, a handsome young man much respected in the village, but he was afraid of her. The young man was also afraid of offending her, given her faerie ancestry, and so he gave her an excuse, saying that his wife must have a sizeable dowry. He knew that the girl, an orphan dependent on her uncle’s charity, was penniless.
The girl was a friend to all the simple Folk, and often ran with them in the woods, particularly after fresh snow had fallen, for her feet left no prints in fresh snow, only that which had breathed the air of the mortal world. One day, she came across a faerie she had never seen before. He had no body, only two black eyes and a swirl of frost where his cloak should have been. The other Folk warned her not to speak to him, but the girl did not heed them. The bodiless faerie led her deep into the woods, where they came upon a beautiful white tree with bark smooth as bone. The faerie told her that such a dowry would greatly please her beloved, who could surely hew wondrous treasures from bole and bough alike.