Fairylynne

Once, long ago and far away, in a little ivy covered cottage at the edge of a dense forest, lived a poor woodcutter, his wife and their little daughter whose name was Fairylynne.

And Fairylynne was the happiest soul you could ever imagine; always laughing and dancing and singing in spite of the fact that she was very poor and so kind to all the birds and animals of the forest and everyone she met.

Then, when she was very young, Fairylynne started to have the strangest sort of dreams every time she went to sleep.

She would always dream that she was in a royal palace and that a little boy, called John, who lived in the palace and said that he was a prince, would play games with her, running about in a sunlit garden and dancing with her in a ballroom as big as her cottage while a string quartet played.

But, whenever she told her mother and father about the dreams, they would always say, “Oh, Fairylynne. They’re just dreams. If you forget about them, then they will soon forget about you”.

So, Fairylynne tried to forget about the dreams but they would not go away.

In fact, they became even more vivid and the little boy John even gave her a golden angel brooch that, when she awoke, she found pinned to her nightgown but, odder still, as Fairylynne got older the boy in her dreams got older as well.

And then, upon Fairylynnes eighteenth birthday, he told her that he had fallen in love with her and would like to marry her and her heart leapt because she felt that she had fallen in love with him too.

Unfortunately, he also told her, his parents had arranged for him to marry someone else; a Queen from a foreign land.

“But I will never marry her. I will tell my parents that I refuse to.”, he vowed , “Because the only person that I love is you”.

Sadly for Fairylynne and the Prince, the woman that he was supposed to marry was actually an evil Witch called Thandora and when she heard that the Prince was in love with a girl that he saw in his dreams, she was outraged and very jealous.

And, turning herself into a big, black raven, Thandora flew to the bed chamber of the prince and, perched upon his window sill, listened while he talked in his sleep and heard him calling out,
“Fairylynne, it is you that I love and no one else”.

“So her name is Fairylynne, is it?”, the witch thought as she listened, “Then Fairylynne shall be my sworn ememy; my one true hate and I shall not rest till Fairylynne sleeps forever”.

And saying this, Thandora flew back to her black palace and, summoning four of her henchmen, she turned them into wolves and ordered them, “Go, search the East, the North, the South and West until you find Fairylynne and, when you find her, kill her”.

And heading out in four different directions, the wolves ran at immense speed searching every part of the kingdom until, one day, while it was wandering through a forest, the wolf who had gone west heard the sound of a girl singing and, approaching her, asked, “Do you know of a girl named Fairylynne?”.

And the girl, with a friendly smile, replied, “Yes, my name is Fairylynne”.

But then, to her shock and surprise, the wolf growled, “If your name is Fairylynne then you are the one I must kill”.

Terrified, Fairylynne turned and fled into the forest, pursued by the wolf but then, suddenly, she heard a startled cry from behind her and, looking back over her shoulder, saw that the wolf had been caught in a hunter’s snare.

“Help me, please”, the Wolf cried out to her.

Taking pity upon the Wolf, Fairylynne said that she would free him from the snare on the condition that he would not try to kill her.

Impressed by her kindness, the Wolf agreed not to kill her and, when Fairylynne set it free, the Wolf thanked her and, killing a rabbit so that it had blood upon its lips, it turned around and ran back to the evil witch and told her that the blood on its lips was Fairylynne’s blood.

Hearing this, the witch queen was filled with an evil glee but then, turning herself into a raven she flew to the bedchamber of the sleeping prince and heard him call out in his sleep, “Oh, Fairylynne, how happy I am to see you again”.

“So, Fairylynne still lives”, the queen thought as she listened and then, flying back to her black palace, she summoned the henchman who had lied to her and, turning him into a black stallion,
put a magical reign upon him and climbed up on his back, saying, “Now, lying traitor, take me to where you found Fairylynne or I’ll have your head upon my wall”.

So, reluctantly, the henchman, galloping at immense speed, took the queen to where he had met Fairylynne and, nearby, the Queen found an ivy covered cottage with a beautiful, young maiden singing outside its door.

“That’s her. That’s Fairylynne but I’ll have no part in killing her for I gave her a promise”, said the henchman before galloping away into the forest.

The evil witch had no need of his help, however, for she had all the powers of darkness to call upon and, working a wicked spell, transformed herself into a blood red rose of irresistible beauty and, seeing the rose, Fairylynne bent down to pick it but instead pricked one of her fingers upon its poisonous thorns and fell into a deep death like sleep.

And she lay upon the ground for at least an hour before her mother, coming out to fetch her in for supper, discovered her and, calling to her husband, they both carried her into the cottage.

Though she was not dead, it was impossible to rouse her from her magical slumber and both her parents worried that she might never wake again.

But, that night, while the prince slept, he dreamed of Fairylynne and saw her crying and when he asked her why she was so sad, she replied,

“I am lost. I am lost. Some evil thing has been done to me and I cannot wake up”.

The prince didn’t know what to do but he held her to console her and then, their lips meeting
accidentally, they began to kiss.

Suddenly, the prince was no longer in his palace but in Fairylynne’s cottage, standing beside her bed and looking down on her.

And, opening her eyes, Fairylynne looked up at him and her eyes widened with joyful amazement.

“It’s you”, she said, smiling, “You’re really here”.

“I prayed to be near you”, he replied, “Love must have heard and answered my prayers”.

Then they kissed again but this time it was not a dream kiss but a real, intensely passionate kiss.

Now, the Prince announced to both Fairylynnes parents and his own that he wanted to marry Fairylynne and, seeing the love in the young couples eyes whenever they looked at each other, they happily agreed.

And there was a great wedding inside the royal palace and the Prince showed Fairylynne all of the rooms in the palace and it looked just as it had in her dreams.

But then, as they were speaking their vows before a priest, suddenly a strange wind blew open the doors of the palace chapel and the evil witch, Thandora, entered dressed like a widow, all in black.

“Fairylynne shall not have you”, yelled the witch to the prince, raising a magic wand, ready to cast some terrible spell upon them.

But then the golden angel brooch that the prince had given to Fairylynne years ago and that she always wore close to her heart, suddenly transformed itself into a real angel and, standing infront of the Prince and Fairylynne said, “Begone, witch. It is destiny that these two lovers be united and no power in the world may come between them”.

And, as soon as the Angel said these words, Thandora was turned into a flock of starlings
that flew away out of the chapel door and she
was never seen or heard of again.

Then, when the marriage ceremony was completed and as the happy couple kissed, the angel looked on, smiling and said, “Love has conquered all”.