FullReads

“‘Here dwells our wise man!’ cried the magpie, while she bristled up her feathers from her head to her tail, which gave her a most unpleasant and repulsive appearance, ‘I will announce you, and ask how he feels disposed as to your wish.’ With these words, she slipped into the hollow, and almost immediately jumped back again, crying, ‘The old man is peevish and obstinate, and he will not give you the bough of yew, unless you stop up all the chinks in the cavern, for he says the draught annoys him. Before you can do this, many years may have passed.’

“The student plucked up as much of the moss and herbage as he could, and, not without a feeling of dread, entered the cavern. Within strangely-shaped stalactites were staring at him from the walls, and he did not know where to turn his eyes to avoid these hideous forms. He wished to penetrate deeper by the rocky path, but from the further corner a voice snorted forth to him: ‘Back! disturb me not in my researches, pursue thy occupation there in the front!’ He wished to discover who was speaking, but only saw a pair of red fiery eyes, that shone out of the darkness. He now set about his task, stopped up with moss and herbage every chink through which a glimmer of daylight passed, but this was a difficult, and–as it seemed to him–an endless task. For when he thought he had done with one cranny and might turn to another, the stopping fell out, and he was obliged to begin anew. The snorting thing at the back of the cavern went on rattling out sounds without meaning, only occasionally uttering intelligible words, which seemed to denote that the creature was boasting of its deep investigations.

“Time appeared to the student to be hastening along with the greatest rapidity, while he was pursuing his work of despair. Days, weeks, months, years, seemed to come and go, and yet he felt nothing like hunger or thirst. He fancied he was nearly mad, and with a kind of feigned passion, quietly repeated to himself the year in which he had entered the wood, and that it was on the day of Peter and Paul, that he might not lose all notion of time. The image of his beloved sleeper appeared to him as from a far distance, he wept with desire and sorrow, and yet he felt no tears flowing down his cheeks. All at once it seemed to him as if he saw a well-known figure approach the sleeper, contemplate her with rapture, and then bend over her as if to kiss her. At this moment he was entirely conscious of pain and jealousy, and, forgetting all around him, he darted towards the dark background of the cavern. ‘The yew-branch!’ he cried, eagerly. ‘There it grows,’ said the glaring snorting thing, and at the same time he felt in his hand the branch of a tree, which grew from a dark chink in the grotto. He was in the act of breaking one of the branches, when he heard a whimpering noise around him, the glaring creature snorted louder than ever, the cavern reeled, shook, and fell in, all became dark in the eyes of the student, and he involuntarily shouted out:

‘Before the yew tree,
All magic must flee.’

“When his eyes again became clear, he looked around him. A dry, strangely-discoloured stick was in his hand. He stood amid a heap of stones, which arched themselves to a cavern, which was not very large. In the depth of it he heard shrill, piping sounds, like those commonly uttered by great owls. The place around seemed changed. It was a moderate eminence, bare, and scanty, and sprinkled over with stones of no remarkable magnitude, between which the path by which he had ascended, led on one side, through the damp soil, to the abyss. Of the large blocks of rock, nothing more was to be seen. He was freezing with cold, although the sun was high in the heavens, and, as it seemed to him, in the same place as when he went out to fetch the bough, which had now become a withered stick in his hand. Stepping over the stones, he went down the path; the journey seemed wearisome, he was obliged to support himself on the stick, his head hung down on his breast, and he heard his breath, as it struggled forth with difficulty. On a slippery part of the pathway his foot slid, and he was obliged to cling to the hedge. In this act his hand came close to his eye, and appeared gray and wrinkled. ‘Good God!’ cried he, seized with horror, ‘have I then so long—-?’ He did not dare to utter his own thoughts. ‘No,’ said he, forcibly calming himself, ‘it is the cold wood-breeze that so freezes me; the exertion has made me weak, and the broken greenish light, which falls through the hedges, gives my hands this singular colour.’ He stepped farther, and saw, lying on the stones, the wild flowers and leaves, which he had thrown, on his ascent, to mark the way. They were as fresh as if they had been but just placed there. This was a new riddle for him. A charcoal-burner was chopping away the trees by the wayside, and cutting off branches; so he asked him what day it was. ‘Eh, father,’ said the man, ‘are you such a bad Christian, that you do not know the Apostles’ days? This is Peter and Paul’s day, when the stag leaves the wood for the corn. I am cutting out a toy for my young one, out of the veiny bough. For any other purpose, I do not work on this day; but that is all for pleasure and pastime, and is allowed, says the chaplain.’