Enchanted Folk A Sidhe Fairy Tale

Enchanted Folk A Sidhe Fairytale
Author:Otilia Tena
TellStory

Enchanted Folk
A Sidhe Fairytale

My grandma took me with her everywhere when I was little. She showed me all the herbs and taught me how to use them. I used to think of the woods as my best friend since our home was there. But grandpa told me it was also full of dangers. He knew many lovely stories and each night he would tell me a different one.
One day I was playing with my doll outside.
“How are you, young lady?”
He called me “young lady”! Such a weird man!
“I’m not a lady! And I’m doing fine.”
He stood by his horse, dressed in green, with boots and everything.
“I’ve heard your grandma is a midwife. My woman is about to bear and needs help.”
He was so beautiful and there was something about his horse too; it kind of glittered and I stretched my hand to stroke it. I don’t know what happened, I lied down and my belly hurt bad.
“Go inside, Ilana!” Grandma rushed out of the house. “You, naughty child!”
“I only wanted to stroke the horse!”
“Go now, I said!”
“But grandma, you always take me with you…”
“Not this time!”
He put her next to him on the back of the horse and they rode off. She came back late. I had lied in bed all day long. She said: “You are different”.
“It was the hoof. And look what happened to me!” I showed her the blood stain on the sheets. She smiled. “Now you are a young lady!”
“Who was that man, grandma?”
“You’d better not meet one of these again!”
The years passed and I learned new things every day. I went with grandma in many homes to heal wounds or to relieve people’s griefs and children loved my stories. I only told them the stories I knew from grandpa.
One evening we were on our way home and I had sprained my ankle and couldn’t walk fast.
“You don’t have to wait for me, grandma.”
“If you see something, you must hide quickly, no matter what!”
I walked alone for some time and thought I heard a distant flute. I drew close to the place from where the sound came and suddenly saw them. There were two couples; the men played the flute and the women danced. I hid in the huge hollow of a tree and tried to keep my breath.
“There’s someone here with us!”
“Someone hiding from us!”
“Here she is! How beautiful she is!”
“Beautiful indeed. What are you doing here, young lady? It’s such a late hour for a walk, don’t you think?”
“Leave me alone, please! My grandma helped you once. Don’t hurt me!”
“They say you are a story teller. Tell us a story about us, a beautiful one. If we like it, you can go; if not, we take you with us.”
His hand still rested on my waist. His face nearly touched mine.
“My lord, I would follow you everywhere and even to the otherworld, but you have a wife and I am engaged.”
They all burst into laughter.
“She wants to follow you! Uuh! Uuh! Uuh!”
“You tell us the story, young lady, or else you go with us!” I was surrounded.
“Then I will tell you about Oisin and his beautiful Niamh.”
I saw how tears filled their eyes.
“We know the story but we do want to hear it again”.
We sat down in circle and each time I ended the story they asked me to tell it again and again until dawn. They let me go in the end and I went to my fiance’s house. They were all worried. My grandpa was there too.
“Where have you been, Ilana?”
I didn’t dare look at him.
“Did you meet the enchanted folk?” my fiancé asked.
“Who?”
“They beg and steal and rape and they lead us astray”.
“Don’t talk like that about them, young man”, grandpa said. “They hear everything. We must tame them, not make them run wild.” He turned to me. “Do you remember what I told you when you were little?”

“You told me the woods can be dangerous too.”
“You met the fairy folk, didn’t you, Ilana? You are changed.” He took me by the hand and whispered in my ear: “You must stay here with your fiancé. The young faeryman wants to take you away.”
“I know that he is married. I remember he took grandma as midwife to help him. He’s got a wife!”
“I didn’t say anything about his wife. I said he wants to take you away. Take care of yourself!”
I heard his flute at midnight and got out of bed. I opened the window and he took me in his arms. His lips were like nothing I had ever known.
“Come with me, Ilana! I’ve been longing for you for so long!”
“Come with you where?”
“To the land of Niamh and Oisin. Where all are beautiful and nobody dies”.
“Oisin returned an old man. I do love you but I don’t know who you are and I don’t live by your rules.”
Then I heard their strange laughter again. “Rules? She said rules?”
He put me down and they surrounded me again and danced and laughed.
“Ripe rape ripe rape she is ripe and good for rape! Uuh! Uuh! Ripe rape ripe rape she is ripe and good for rape!”
“No! Leave her alone!” That was grandma’s voice. She was there, all of them were there or so I felt but I couldn’t see them.
“Young man, I beg you leave her alone! I helped your wife a long time ago. Why are you doing this to us? Please, go back to where you came from and never return!”

I didn’t see anything; he put me on his horse and carried me off with the merry convoy.
We hid and we made love and danced the days away. He killed our children and sent me to steal buttermilk and babies and treated me badly.
“You promised to take me to the enchanted land”.
“And you believed!”
“Uuh! Uuh! She believed you! Uuh! Uuh!”
I covered my ears not to hear their mocking laughter again. Then they moved their heads with both hands from one side to the other, in distress.
“You said I am one of your kin”. I felt like weeping, I hid my face in both hands but tears wouldn’t come. All that time- Was it days? Was it years?- I had been trying to weep my sorrow away but tears wouldn’t come. I remembered the things I said when I was little; I would say I was more beautiful than them and one day I would be with them. Grandma always told me to mind my words because they heard everything.
One day, as I lay in the flower bed, I heard a little bird: “My mistress, my mistress, hear what I say. Your husband laid Ilana in your bed”.
“Stupid bird! I am Ilana! Since you are blind, I’ll cut your eyes out!” I caught the bird and maimed it and sent it back to its mistress.

I peered through the branches and saw them embraced in our bed of flowers. I tried to weep and I couldn’t but the others surrounded me and wept and braided my hair as a solace.

Once I found a wounded deer there, in the woods. They danced and sang and laughed around it. I dragged it alone and tried to cure it with my herbs but it was in vain. At last it spoke: “Thank you, Ilana, you tried to save me but I’ll die anyway.”
“Who are you?”
“I’m his wife.”
“You are the faeryman’s wife!”
“Yes, I am but don’t be afraid! Tonight your fiancé will send his horse after you. Jump on its back and run away! Do it before they see the horse and kill it!”
“But I love your husband. He promised to take me to the enchanted land.”
“I’ve seen how he mocks you and you call it love! Love is what he felt for me”. She said that and died.
The sheer shadows of evening fell on the woods and suddenly I caught a glimpse of the horse drawing closer and closer. I felt sorry about it, thinking how they might kill it, then I remembered my love and thought of the land of Niamh and Oisin. I said: “There’s no hope here, I’ll go now!” I ran to the horse but couldn’t make it in time; I hesitated only a bit too long. I saw how his arrow pierced its very heart, just the way his beauty had pierced mine.
“I only wanted to stroke the horse”.
I finally felt the tears filling my eyes. At last I could weep.