fairytale: Foxes heart

Once upon a time, in a kingdom far, far away, there was a small village on the edge of a large forest. This village flourished because it was often visited by noblemen, who stayed there to hunt in the forest and spend a lot of money during their stay. But on the day that our story begins, this normally peaceful village was in an uproar. All residents ran through the streets singing and the children jumped around that morning, because a messenger had come with great news. The eldest son of the king, the crown prince, would come to the village in a week to come hunting with a group of fellow noblemen. Such a royal visit was a great honour and therefore the villagers wanted to please the prince as much as possible by decorating the whole village, preparing the best food and get the best wine out of the attic. The girls of the village were also very excited, not because of the honour and prosperity it brought to their village, but because of the prince. Throughout the country were stories about his great archery, sword fighting, horse riding and especially on his handsome face. And the girls hoped he would fall in love with one of them and take her to his castle to become his queen.

Two of the girls from the village saw the prince first that day, the two friends were up early, hoping to catch a glimpse of the noble company. The first to come over the hill was the most handsome, young man they had ever seen, he sat proud on his horse and galloped ahead of the others. Which rippled his shiny hair in the wind. The girls suddenly paused to look admiringly, at what had to be the prince, but then quickly ran back to the village to let them know they were coming. One of the friends had wavy red hair that seemed on fire when the sun was shining. The prince saw the fiery speck running away from him. He knew that his arrival in the village would not go unnoticed.

That night there was a big party to celebrate the arrival of the prince and both girlfriends had offered to serve wine to the hunting party hoping to get noticed by the prince. The prince really enjoyed that night, everyone was smiling, the food was delicious and when the light of the lanterns above their head fell on the hair of one of the wine carriers he saw the same flames that he had seen that morning. He had devised a plan to talk with this special girl. Every time he threw his empty cup of wine in his friends, so she had to come back to serve him. She laughed at his jokes and answered all his questions shyly but always with a smile. The prince and the village girl both found it unfortunate that the evening had to end, but the friend of the prince had become ill from all the extra wine that the prince had given him secretly. And the prince and the rest of the party had to carry him to the inn.

The best friend of the girl did not mind that the prince could not spend more time talking and laughing with her. She was terribly jealous because the prince gave all the attention to her best friend and not her. When she fell asleep crying that night, she dreamed the strangest dream she had ever had. She walked through the forest but it was further than she had ever been, there was almost no light through the canopy and the trees gave eerie shadows. She wanted to walk back to the village but her legs did not listen. She stopped in the darkest patch of the forest where a large tree stump rose from the ground. She sat down on it and tapped her heels against the trunk until it split open and she was going through. She fell on a hard stone floor of a cave and looked straight into the face of a creepy woman who looked just like the trees in this part of the forest. But her voice was so soft and melodic as the song of a bird. She helped her to stand up and said she knew how much pain she had and she wanted to help her. “You just wake up sweetheart and come find me.” That morning she got up early while the rest of the village still slept since the night before had lasted into the wee hours. She followed the same path as in her dream, came to the stump and tapped against it with her heels. She fell through, but she had taken a pillow so she would not fall so hard this time, she was not stupid. "I'm glad you found me." Said the same woman with that melodious voice. She gave her a drink without further explanation that billowed, bubbling and smoking, without their being any reason. "Drink and all your problems will resolve themselves.” The girl hesitated, but her love for the prince was so great that all doubts disappeared. Because he would love her because of this drink. She took a big gulp, it was as if her mouth was on fire and the fire moved through her body.

She woke up in her own bed and realized that it all had been a dream. She began to cry until she heard a strange scratching at her window again. She went there ant to her surprise saw a fox with a shiny red coat that when the sun was shining seemed to be on fire. When she looked into the eyes of the fox she was sure, this was her best friend. She opened her window and the fox jumped in and on the bed. Waves of guilt went through the girl, she had her best friend turned into a fox because she had been jealous of her. Immediately she began to cry as she stroked the head of her best friend. “I’m so sorry!” She sobbed again and she told the fox was everything happened that night. The fox looked at her, she was so hurt by what her best friend had done that she could not bear the pain. The shock when she woke up that morning as a fox was nothing compared to the shock that her best friend was the person responsible. She turned her head away from her and jumped out the window, towards the forest to see if she could find the witch.

What she did not know was that the prince and his hunting party were also in the forest. The sunlight fell through the leaves of the trees and made her fur light up the same way her hair had done when she was a human. When the prince saw the flames, it reminded him of the pretty girl of the village and he knew he had to have the fox.  She saw him coming through the trees, first she was happy to see him, but when he tightened his bow she knew she would have to flee for her life. Three days and nights the prince chased after her, he seemed tireless and she began to get desperate. When she came to a clearing surrounded by dense bushes she knew it was done with her. She decided to look him straight in the eyes for her final moments, she turned and sat down in the middle of the clearing and waited for her fate. One moment the prince hesitated but his trembling hands let the arrow lose from fatigue, and it hit her right in her heart.

Once the arrow pierced her heart, it caught on fire. The fire of the arrow to hit on her body and was bigger and heavier until the prince had to turn his face from the heat and the light off. When the fire had burned there was the girl with fiery hair he had met in the village and with whom he had fallen in love. He ran and took her limp body in his arms. She did not respond to his or his hands but she was not dead. The arrow had foxes or her heart pierced but not her human heart that beat still. The prince hoisted her on his horse and rode back to the village, when the people saw that one of their girls no longer wanted to be awake, they were all very worried. When the story of what happened on that open spot in the round went people knew that magic had to sit behind. The prince felt so guilty about what had happened that he took her to his castle and all the doctors from across the country had come to try to heal. But none of them had the faintest idea how to cure this strange curse.

The village tried to recover from this tragedy, the people wondered who or what was responsible for the curse. There was only one person in the village who knew and that night she went back to the stump, hoping to cure her friend. But no matter how long she tapped her heels against the stump, it did not open and the strange tree-woman did not appear. She sat there all night and then a whole day before she gave up and went back to the village. When she did she saw her best friends family crying and she knew it was all her fault and that she would do anything to make it right. That night she told her parents that she was going to take care of her friend at the castle but she didn’t tell them that it was her fault. She was too much ashamed to admit that.

The prince was very happy that someone had come to take care of the girl, because by know he love the  girl with fiery red hair so much, that he loved everyone who was good for her. Every day she kept to her friend, she combed her hair and washed her face. And while she was doing this she told her time and again that it was all her fault, how much she regretted it and that she would always stay with her. At first she still thought of ways to cure her friend, she drank jugs full of ice water as an antidote to the burning drink. She set the bow, which the prince had fired the arrow with, on fire. But it was not long before she couldn’t think of anything anymore. After a few months the counsellors of the prince found that he had been waiting for this peasant girl much too long. He would soon be king and before that he had to be married first. Soon parties were given at the castle again, where many girls were present in the hope that the prince would choose them. But the prince didn’t want to know about it, he and her best friend were only concerned with curing his beloved. Every night he read a poem to her, they all told about love and every night before he went to his own quarters he kissed her hands.

Three years it took for the prince be persuaded, but he wanted nothing to do with the finely-dressed ladies and the fussy young women who were forced upon him. He decided to marry the best friend of his unconscious lover, he appreciated how good and kind she had been to her best friend and how she had never wavered. She would make a good wife for him and a good and dear Queen for his subjects. And she would, as no other girl could ever understand, his love for the unconscious girl. Because she so loved her. The Proposal overwhelmed the girl, this was all she ever wanted. The love of the prince and to be queen, the strange woman in the forest had spoken the truth after all. But when she looked at the face of her friend she knew she could never say yes, instead she told the prince that it was all her fault. She talked about her jealousy, the dream, the drink and how her best friend had changed into a fox. While she all finally confessed there were tears on her cheeks, tears that billowed, roared and smoked as the drink had and as soon as she had finished the last words of her confession her friend sat up. She beamed and her flaming hair seemed more fervent than ever before.

She told how she had listened to her dear friend and the love declarations of the prince for years. She had already forgiven her friend the first day and loved the prince as much as he loves her. She married the prince and reigned many years with him, nationals loved their queen with the hair of fire. Her best friend now permanently moved to the castle and married one of the younger brothers of the king, who in the three years she had cared for her friend on her had become immensely in love with her.