The Mare-Maid's Treasure

One warm, summer’s day, a long time ago, a young man named Jerwin was gathering firewood in the forest near to his house when he happened to spy a Mare-Maid all alone by the edge of a lake.

 

Mare-maids, it is said, are magical beings; fairy women who turn into wild white horses at a touch of their enchanted pony-tails but it is very rare for a mortal to see one because mare-maid herds usually hide away deep in the forest.

 

If you do see one, however, as Jerwin well knew, and can climb onto her back and hold on long enough, she must take you to where her fairy-treasure is hidden, high up on the green hills.

 

And as he watched, Jerwin started to think of a plan to climb upon the mare-maids back.

 

He didn’t want to startle her for he knew that, if he did, she would gallop off as fast as the four-winds combined and no mortal man would be able to catch her.

 

He needed to find, some way, he thought, to stop her from running away quickly.

 

Then he had a brilliant idea.

 

Tearing a sheet of parchment from a book he folded it into a flower and floated it on the lake and, as it drifted out towards the centre of the lake it caught the attention of the mare-maid.

 

Mare-maids like pretty things and this mare-maid, seeing the paper flower wanted to have it and so, transforming into her horse form she waded into the lake.

 

When she was deep in the lake, however, and just as she was about to pick the flower up in her mouth; Jerwin came out from where he’d been hiding behind a bush and wading as quickly as he could into the lake, Jerwin climbed onto her back.

 

Of course the mare-maid was startled and very angry but it was too late to run away, Jerwin had his arms around her neck and was holding on tightly.

 

“Get off me”, she said, in a whinnying voice.

 

“Not until you take me to your treasure!”, he replied.

 

Fiercelely, the mare maid reared up onto her hind legs and started to buck, running round in circles; trying to throw off her rider but Jerwin held on determinedly.

 

Then, thinking that she might drown him, the mare-maid rode deeper into the lake but Jerwin held his breath and, when he could hold it no more, he unfastened the brooch which held his cloak in place and jabbed the mare-maid with the pin of the brooch making her cry out and open her mouth so that she was forced to return to the surface.

 

But even though she had failed to drown him, the Mare-Maid was not ready to give up and now, struggling from the lake onto the bank she broke into a sudden gallop and, heading towards the forest, she pulled her rider through the undergrowth, through thick branches and thorny shrubs but, though he was scratched painfully by the thorns and would have had his head knocked off by a few of the branches had he not kept it low, still Jerwin hung on with all his might.

 

“Let go!”, the mare-maid cried.

 

“I will not”, said Jerwin, determinedly, “Not till you have taken me to your treasure”.

 

So now the mare-maid galloped to where she knew there were fields with fences and stonewalls put up by farmers and she leapt over dozens of them, hoping that bumpiness of the ride might cause Jerwin to fall off.

 

But Jerwin closed his eyes and kept thinking of the treasure in his mind and how proud his family would be if he brought it home to them and, even though he ached all over, he clung on all the more tightly.

 

Eventually the mare-maid grew too tired to fight or to run any longer.

 

“Very well”, she said, “You win. I will take you to my treasure”.

 

And, then turning round, she galloped back over all the stiles and fences until she came to the green hills and then she galloped up hill; kept galloping faster and faster until she reached the top of the hill and then when she was standing on top of the hill she let out a terrible, loud scream and the earth split open into a cave out of which poured mountains of gold and silver coins; rubies, diamonds, sapphires, emeralds and pearls.

 

“Oh!”, gasped Jerwin, seeing all of the glittering wealth before him, almost spellbound.

 

Now, finally he dismounted and, getting down upon his knees, began scooping up all that he could and filling his knapsack with it.

 

And, with it, the Mare-Maid, becoming human once more, gave him her pony tail that she cut off.

 

“It is fairy law”, she said, “He that hath my treasure hath me”.

 

Now Jerwin returned home with both his treasure and the mare-maid and, soon after, they were wed in the sight of god and though, at first, it was not a happy marriage, eventually they learned to love one and other.

 

However, some years later the mare-maid gave birth to a son and a daughter and, though the son was mortal, the daughter was a mare-maid and, following Fairy Law, when she was 4 years old, her mother took her into the forest and gave her to her Mare-Maid herd to be raised according to the wild ways of the fairy folk.

 

“Be smart; be brave; be cunning and stay wild”, she told her daughter, weeping, as she waved goodbye to her, “Never let a man catch you as I was caught or you will never be free”.