fairytales from the firm forest

“Assuredly, I say to you, unless you are converted and become as little children, you will by no means enter the kingdom of heaven" (Matthew 18:3)

Once upon a time, in the magical Firm Forest, lived the princess of the fairies whose beautiful vision was only matched by that of her name – a name that you, mere men, with your short tongues, inflexible jaws and mortal spirits cannot pronounce. Only the wind, the trees and grass are able to say it perfectly. She was so beautiful that the animals fell in love with her at the first sight of her; the winds breezed through her forest just to visit a glimpse of her; the sea reached up from the sea, creating rivers and streams up to her mountains just to touch her soft skin. Yet, for all her beauty, it was one that meant nothing to the princess. She wanted more than the life she had, and to attain it – whatever it was, she still did not know – she was ready give up everything.

Even her name.





Fairy Tales from the Firm Forest





Prelude
The Unchasable Unicorn


I first saw the fair maiden a thousand years ago. My master, Pan, a short imbecile of a god with a goat’s horn on his head, the beast’s hoofs for feet, and whose idiocy and great power was only exceeded – ten fold – by his ugliness, had heard of her beauty all the way from his Greek island home. As if it were his own pilgrimage to a Mecca of promised happiness, Pan and his accompaniment of emissaries, of which I was part of, journeyed the divide of the Mediterranean to here, Spain, and snaked though wide rivers and shallow brooks to the woodland kingdom of the fairies.

The local king’s ambassadors and criers, fairies with brown moth’s wings to transport them from one space of the kingdom to another, greeted us at a streambed of rocks and mud, and escorted us to the largest tree in their forest, the tree’s leaves and flowers greener and more beautiful than anywhere else in the woodland. Its roots opened to receive us, and we were led underground to where our host, the god-king of the forest, held court for our sake in a magnificent hall. Looking around me, my intellectual mind appraised the hall’s architecture. It was once a cave, its natural stone and mud walls now bricked with glazed blue and yellow blocks like that which made up the gates of the ancient city of Babylon. Touched by candlelight, the walls glowed magnificently.

The god-king of the Firm Forest sat at the head of a long table. He preferred sitting here in front of food than on his thrown in front of peasantry of animals who asked for his wisdom in debates concerning, for instance, the territorial, property rights to certain areas in the forest.

“They’re serfs,” the king said as we ate. “They’re on my land, they forget.”

The king was a slothful, gluttonous immortal who partook in the delights that humans did though he never needed it. He enjoyed above all human vices, food, and more than his immortal body could ever need. In stone walls and pillars around the woodland kingdom, one could see the god-king’s portrait – his long beard messed by food morsels and his stomach expanding his robes. The king liked that image of himself. He made a statement to his people with it – I have more; I eat more; I, king, am better than you.

As the king of the Firm Forest and my master dined, Pan and the two dozen of us emissaries, wearing the hoods of our black cloaks over our faces, expected to shun our features in the presence of our immortal god for a host, saw the princess of these lands. The god, Pan, fell deeply in love with the princess at the very first sight of her. I, for the all my years of forced loyalty to him, serving him as mystic and fortune teller, cannot blame his instant desire for her. The rumors were true.

She was a vision. I shall tell you men what I saw, and imagine your mortal senses acting upon the sight of her. She wore a white dress that covered the length of her arms and legs but revealed her hands and bare feet. Her hair was long and bushy and fell in a triangulate shape. Her head was crowned by a circlet of green leaves and flora of different colors. She was a young lady. In terms of years you men spend on earth, she would have looked to you as if she had spent a quarter of her lifetime already. Perhaps twenty-four-years old, put simply for you men to understand. But beyond these descriptions, she had a beauty of the ages. Music of spirits - something you men cannot hear – accompanied her every step.

“I must have her,” Pan said to her father.

“And what will you give me for her?” the king asked. “What fine spices and delights of the belly does your country have that might pique my interest?”

“Whatever you want I shall deliver,” Pan said. “She will be a princess of two kingdoms, the Forest of the Firm and the Greek isle I live in.”

“The princess of one kingdom is good enough for me,” the princess said. Her wide eyes shrunk, divulging to me her true nature – that of a snobbish, spoiled, immature girl.

Her father banged his fist on the table. “I am speaking, girl –!”

“You speak about me,” she interrupted her father-king. “And in front of me as if I were not here. I might only be a woman, but I am still not a thing to be bartered.” She eyed my master.

“Especially to something so ugly.”

“How dare you -!”

“Go on, ask for my hand in marriage,” she said smugly to my master. “I shall give you the same offer I had given to hundreds of other gods and kings who sought my hand – Marry me and I’ll make life a living hell. My bed will be as closed to you as my heart shall be. As my name shall always be.”

Enraged, my master stormed out of the hall.

“How dare her!” he said. “She will pay! The god Pan does not take insults! Not from anybody! And especially not from anybody’s daughter!” Pan looked behind him, searching for a face in the two dozen emissaries he had brought along. “Baltazar!” he called.

At my master’s beckoning, I walked up to him.

As we walked out of the long underground corridor, lit magnificently by thousands of candles, Pan whispered, “I want you give her a gift from me,” he said. “Do this for me, and I promise you, it will be the last chore you ever do in my service…”

From behind the cloth of my hood, I listened to the devious plan of my scorned master. Evil creature, I thought.

And so it was that that night, I did my last deed before my master freed me from my duties to him. But the cost of my freedom would be the princess’. I had no choice, I tell you now. By the tree, I left behind my master’s gift. I hid behind a bush several paces away, and then, with my magic, I whispered from for away to her ear,

“Come up, fair maiden. I have a gift for you. Come out and see it.”

A little while later, the tree spread its roots and opened its trunk. The princess emerged from the tree and saw my master’s gift – a magical beast from his country. It was a unicorn, its pure white body interrupted only by a black blindfold around it eyes.

The princess smiled widely at the sight. She inched closer, without any doubt that the unicorn was hers to ride. I fed her that thought with my magic. As I muttered my spell, hiding several trees away, I cursed her with the most damning curse the world has ever known – that of the impossible, unreachable dream.

“Come closer,” I whispered. “Come and touch its skin.”

She did. The unicorn, at her touch, jumped back. The princess, in turn, pulled her hand away.

“No,” I whispered. “Do not fear it. It is yours. Take off its blindfold.”
She did. The unicorn opened its eyes reflected in its black pupils the beautiful image of the princess. It knew what next to do. It bucked its front legs in the air and neighed wildly. The princess looked on, mesmerized, enchanted by its magic.

Then, the beast turned around and ran away.

The princess was left there, suddenly made sad by the beast’s departure.

“Chase after it,” I willed her. “It is yours. Go on, run.”

And she did. Jumping into sprint, the princess ran after her gift, entering the deeps of the Firm Forest.

My deed was done. My master’s revenge was complete. The princess would chase after the unicorn. But she would never catch it. She would spend the rest of eternity running after shadows and the sounds of neighs from a distance. The unicorn would only stop running if distracted long enough to notice something beautiful. The princess did not have that kind of beauty the beast desired. What it wanted was a thing that exuded an innocent, virgin splendor; an earthly, but most appealing to it, mortal soul. The princess, an immortal and a devious, spoiled child, did not have what it wanted for it to stop.

Her fate was sealed. As she chased after the unicorn, the princess was doomed to live out her immortal life but not spend a day of it. For she no longer existed to the world. She was trapped in a ghostly visage of her forest; the purgatory of unchasable dreams and eternal youthfulness and stagnancy.

Ashamed, I did not move from where I stood. I would never move again. Consumed by the guilt of doing something so cruel to something so beautiful, I planted my feet on the ground to never pull them up again. I cast another spell, and I turned myself into a tree – one that was grey and old and flowerless from the day it had come to be in the forest. My sadness for the girl and my deed made me that way.

“Forgive me, sweet princess,” I whispered, breathing from my lips the last spell I would ever cast as an immortal man. “Forgive me. Forgive me.”