The Rose-Elf
In the middle of a garden there grew
a rose bush that was a mass of roses, and in one of these, the most beautiful
of them all, lived an elf; he was so tiny that no human eye was able to see
him; behind each petal of the rose he had a bed chamber; he was as healthy and well-proportioned
as any child could be and had wings from his shoulders right down to his feet. Oh,
what a wonderful fragrance there was in his rooms, and how bright and beautiful
the walls were! for they were fine, pale-red rose petals.
All day
long he amused himself in the warm sunshine, flew from flower to flower, danced
on the wings of a passing butterfly and measured how many steps he had to take
to run over all the highways and paths there were on every single lime-tree
leaf. These are what we call the veins of the leaf, but to him they were endless
roads! before he had finished the sun had set; he had also started so late in
the day.
It grew quite
cold, the dew fell and the wind blew; now it was probably best to make for
home; he hurried as much as he could, but the rose had closed, he couldn’t
enter – not a single rose was still open; the elf was so frightened, he had
never been out at night before, always slept so soundly behind the warm rose
petals – oh, this was sure to be the death of him!
He knew
that at the far end of the garden there was a bower with lovely honeysuckle,
the flowers looked like painted horns: he would climb down into one of these and
sleep there till morning came.
He flew
over to it. Hush! there were two people inside it – a handsome young man and
the loveliest of maidens; they were sitting next to each other and wishing they
might never ever be parted; they were so fond of each other, far more than the very
best child can be fond of its mother and father.
‘We must
be parted, nevertheless!’ the young man said, ‘your brother is not favourably
disposed towards us and that is why he is sending me away on business far
beyond mountains and oceans! Farewell, my sweet bride, for that is what you are
to me!’
And then
they kissed each other, and the young girl wept and gave him a rose; but before
she reached out with it to him, she planted a kiss on it, so firm and fervent;
then the flower opened and out flew the little elf from inside it, and leant
his head up against the fragrant walls; but he was well able to hear that
goodbyes were being said and he felt the rose gaining a place at the young
man’s breast – oh, how his heart throbbed within him! the little elf was
completely unable to fall asleep for all that throbbing.
For a long
time, the rose could not rest quietly on his breast, the man took hold of it,
and while he went on his lonesome way through the dark wood, he kissed the flower,
oh, so often and so passionately that the small elf was almost squashed to
death; he could feel through the petal how the man’s lips burned, and the rose
itself had opened as if the strongest midday sun were shining down on it.
Then
another man came along, dark and irate, he was the lovely girl’s wicked
brother; he took out a knife so large and keen, and while the other man was
kissing the rose, the evil man stabbed him to death, cut off his head and
buried it with his body in the soft earth under the lime tree.
‘Now he is
gone and forgotten,’ the wicked brother thought, ‘he will never come back
again. He was to undertake a long journey, over mountains and oceans, and there
one can easily lose one’s life, and that he has done. He will not come back again,
and my sister will never dare ask me about him.’
Then he
raked withered leaves over the newly dug grave with his foot and walked home once
more in the dark night; but he did not walk alone, as he thought he did: the
little elf accompanied him, it sat in a withered, curled-up lime-tree leaf that
had fallen into the wicked man’s hair as he dug the grave. He had put his hat
on since then, it was so dark inside that the elf shuddered with fear and with
anger at the foul deed that had been committed. –
Early the
next morning, the wicked man arrived home. He took off his hat and went into
his sister’s bedroom, there the lovely, blooming maiden lay dreaming of the one
she was so fond of and who she believed was now travelling over mountains and
oceans and through forests, and the wicked brother bent down over her, and gave
a wicked laugh, just as a devil can; then the withered leaf fell out of his
hair onto the quilt, but he didn’t notice any of this and went out again, to
sleep in the early hours of the morning. But the elf slipped out of the
withered leaf, entered the ear of the sleeping girl and told her, as if in a
dream, of the horrible murder, described the place to her where the brother had
killed him and laid his body, told her of the blossoming lime tree close by and
said: ‘So as to convince you that it is not merely a dream I have told you, you
will find a withered leaf on your bed!’ and this she did when she woke up.
Oh, what
salt tears she cried! and she did not dare tell anyone of her sorrow. The
window stood open all day long, the little elf could easily go out into the
garden to the roses and all the other flowers, but he could not bring himself
to leave the mournful girl. In the window there stood a bush with monthly
roses, he sat down in one of the flowers there and gazed at the poor girl.. Her
brother entered the room on many occasions, and he was so merry and wicked, but
she did not dare say a word about her deep-felt grief.
As soon as
it became night, she slipped out of the house, went to the spot in the wood
where the lime tree stood, raked the leaves away from the ground, dug down in the
earth and immediately found her murdered love, oh, how she wept and begged the
Lord God to let her die soon too. –
She
greatly wanted to take the body with her home but was unable to; so she took
the pale head with the closed eyes, kissed the cold mouth and shook the earth
out of the lovely hair. ‘This I will have as mine!’ she said, and when she had
replaced earth and leaves on the corpse, she took the head home with her and a
small sprig of the jasmine tree that flowered in the wood where he had been
killed.
As soon as
she was back in her room, she fetched the largest flower pot that could be
found, in it she placed the dead man’s head, heaped earth on top of it and then
planted the sprig of jasmine in the pot.
‘Farewell!
farewell!’ the little elf whispered, he could no longer stand seeing at that
grief, and so he flew out into the garden to his rose; but it had finished
flowering, there were only a few pale petals hanging by the green rose hip.
‘Ah, how
quickly all that is beautiful and good passes!’ the elf sighed. Finally he
found a rose once more, it became his home, behind its fine, fragrant petals he
was able to build a place to live.
Every
morning he flew over to the poor girl’s window, and there she always stood by
her flower pot and wept; the salt tears fell onto the jasmine branch, and as
every day she grew paler and paler, the branch became healthier and greener,
one shoot after the other began to grow, soon there were small white buds of
flowers and she kissed them, but the wicked brother scolded her and asked if
she had lost her senses? he didn’t like or understand why she was always crying
over the flower pot. He didn’t know what eyes there lay closed and what red lips there had become earth; and she put her head up close to the flower
pot and the little elf from the rose found her as if dozing there; then he
climbed into her ear, told her about the evening in the bower, about the rose’s
scent and the elves’ love; she dreamt so sweetly, and while she was dreaming
her life ebbed away: she died a quiet death, she was in heaven with the one she
loved so dearly.
And the
jasmine blossoms opened their large white bells, they smelt so wonderfully
sweet: they could not weep for the dead girl in any other way.
But the
wicked brother looked at the beautifully blossoming bush, took possession of it
as his inheritance and placed it in his bedroom, close to his bed, for it was
lovely to look at and its scent was so sweet and fragrant. The rose elf
followed too, flew from flower to flower, for in each of them there lived a
small soul, and this he told about the young man who had been killed, whose
head was now earth under the earth, told the tale of the wicked brother and the
poor sister.
‘We know so
well!’ each of the souls in the flowers said, ‘we know so well! haven’t we
grown out of the eyes and lips of the murdered man! we know so well! we know so
well’ and they all nodded their heads quite strangely.
He failed
to understand how they could be so calm, and he flew out to the bees who were
collecting honey, told them the story of the wicked brother, and the bees
passed it on to their queen, who ordered them all to kill the murderer the following
day.
But during
the night before this, it was the first one after the sister’s death, while the
brother was asleep in his bed close to the scented jasmine, every calyx opened,
and invisible, but with poisonous spears, all the souls of the flowers rose up
and started by entering his ear and telling him bad dreams, then they flew
across his lips and pricked his tongue with their poisonous spears. ‘Now we
have avenged the dead man!’ they said and returned to the white bells of the
jasmine.
When
morning came, the window of the bedroom was suddenly flung open, and in stormed
the rose-elf with the queen bee and the whole swarm of bees to kill him.
But he was
already dead; there were people standing round the bed and they said: ‘the
scent of the jasmine has killed him!’
Then the
rose-elf understood the revenge taken by the flowers, and told the queen bee of
this, and she buzzed with her entire swarm round the flower pot; the bees could
not be chased off; then a man took away the flower pot and one of the bees
stung him on the hand, he dropped the pot and it broke.
Then they
saw the white head of the murdered man, and knew that the dead man in the bed
was a murderer.
And the
queen bee hummed in the air and sang of the flowers’ revenge and of the
rose-elf, and that behind the tiniest petal there dwells someone who can uncover
and avenge evil!
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