Fairy Tales

THE ROSE ELF

IN THE MIDDLE OF a garden there was a rose tree that was completely full of roses, and in one of these, the most beautiful of them all, lived an elf. He was so tiny that no human eye could see him. He had a bedroom behind every rose petal. He was as well formed and lovely as any child could be and had wings from his shoulders all the way down to his feet. What a lovely fragrance there was in his rooms, and how clear and lovely the walls were! Of course they were the fine, pink rose petals.

All day he amused himself in the warm sunshine, flew from flower to flower, danced on the wings of the flying butterfly, and measured how many steps he had to take to run over all the roads and paths on a single linden leaf. What we call veins in the leaves is what he called roads and paths. They were long roads for him and before he was finished, the sun went down. He had also begun pretty late.

It became cold. The dew fell, and the wind blew. It was best to get home. He hurried as fast as he could, but the rose had closed, and he couldn’t get in—not a single rose stood open. The poor little elf was so scared. He had never been out at night before, had always slept so cozily behind the snug rose petals. Oh, this would surely be the death of him!

He knew that there was a bower of lovely honeysuckle at the other end of the garden. The flowers looked like big painted horns. He would climb down in one of those and sleep until tomorrow.

He flew over there. Hush! There were two people in there: a handsome young man and the loveliest maiden. They sat beside each other and wished that they never had to part for all eternity. They loved each other so much. Much more than the best child can love his mother and father.

“But we must part,” said the young man. “Your brother doesn’t like me, and that’s why he has sent me on an errand far away over the mountains and seas. Farewell, my sweet bride, for that is what you are to me!”

And then they kissed each other, and the young girl gave him a rose, but before she handed it to him, she pressed a kiss on it—so firm and heartfelt that the flower opened up, and the little elf flew into it and snuggled his head up against the fine fragrant walls. But he could clearly hear them saying good bye, and he felt it when the rose was placed on the young man’s chest—Oh, how the heart was pounding in there! The little elf couldn’t fall asleep, for it was pounding too hard.

The rose didn’t lie still on his chest for long. The man took it off, and while he was walking through the dark forest, he kissed the flower so often and so fervently that the little elf was nearly crushed to death. He could feel through the petals how the man’s lips burned, and the rose itself had opened as from the strongest midday sun.

Then another man came, dark and angry. He was the beautiful girl’s wicked brother. He took out a knife so sharp and long, and while the other kissed the rose, the wicked man stabbed him to death, cut off his head, and buried it with the body in the soft earth under the linden tree.

“Now he’s gone and forgotten,” the wicked brother thought. “He’ll never come back again. He was going on a long trip, over mountains and seas, where one could easily lose one’s life, and that’s what happened. He won’t be back, and my sister dare not ever ask me about him.”

Then he scraped together some wilted leaves with his foot over the disturbed earth and walked home in the dark night, but he didn’t walk alone as he thought. The little elf was with him. He sat in a wilted rolled-up linden leaf that had fallen in the evil man’s hair when he dug the grave. His hat was placed over it. It was very dark in there, and the elf was shaking with fright and anger over the dreadful deed.

In the early morning the wicked man came home. He took off his hat and went into his sister’s bedroom. The lovely, blooming girl was lying there dreaming of him whom she loved so much, and whom she thought was now far away over mountains and forests. The evil brother bent over her and laughed as wickedly as a devil can laugh; then the wilted leaf fell out of his hair down on the bedspread, but he didn’t notice it and went off to sleep a few hours himself. But the elf slipped out of the wilted leaf, crept into the ear of the sleeping girl, and told her, as if in a dream, of the terrible murder. He described the place where her brother had killed him and buried his corpse, told about the flowering linden tree close by, and said, “So you won’t think it’s only a dream I’ve told you, you’ll find a wilted leaf on your bed,” and she found it when she woke up.

Oh, what salty tears she shed! And she didn’t dare speak to anyone of her grief. The window was open the whole day so the little elf could easily have gone into the garden to the roses and all the other flowers, but he didn’t have the heart to leave the bereaved. There was a bush with miniature roses in the window, and he sat in one of the flowers and watched the poor girl. Her brother came into the room many times, and he was so merry and wicked, but she didn’t dare say a word about her great sorrow.

As soon as it was dark, she snuck out of the house and into the forest where the linden tree was standing, tore the leaves away from the earth, dug down, and found him, who had been killed, at once. Oh, how she cried and prayed to the Lord that she too might soon die.

She wanted to take the corpse home with her, but she couldn’t do that so she took the pale head with the closed eyes, kissed the cold mouth, and shook the soil from his lovely hair. “This I will keep!” she said, and when she had placed dirt and leaves on the dead body, she took the head home with her. She also took a little branch from a jasmine tree that bloomed in the woods where he was killed.

As soon as she was back in her room, she got the largest flowerpot she could find and placed the dead man’s head in it, put soil on top, and planted the jasmine branch in the pot.

“Farewell, farewell,” whispered the little elf. He couldn’t stand seeing all the sorrow any longer and flew away into the garden to his rose, but it had faded away. Only a few pale petals were hanging on the green rosehip.

“Oh, how quickly the beautiful and good pass away!” sighed the elf. He finally found another rose, and it became his house. Behind its fine fragrant petals he could live and build his home.

Every morning he flew to the poor girl’s window, and she always stood crying by the flowerpot. The salty tears fell on the jasmine branch, and every day as she became paler and paler, the branch became fresher and greener. One shoot after another grew forth. Small white buds appeared for flowers and she kissed them, but the wicked brother scolded her and asked if she had become a fool. He couldn’t understand or tolerate that she was always crying over the flowerpot. He didn’t know, of course, whose eyes were closed there, and whose red lips had become earth there. She leaned her head up against the flowerpot, and the little elf found her slumbering there. He climbed into her ear, told about the evening in the bower, about the smell of roses, and the love of the elves. She dreamed so sweetly and while she dreamed, life faded away. She died a quiet death and was in heaven with him whom she had loved.

And the jasmine flowers opened their beautiful big flowers. They smelled so wonderfully sweet. They had no other way to cry over the dead.

But the wicked brother looked at the beautiful flowering tree and took it, like an inheritance, to his bedroom and placed it next to his bed, because it was beautiful to see, and the fragrance was so sweet and delicious. The little rose elf followed along and flew from flower to flower. A little soul lived in each of them, and he told them about the murdered young man, whose head was now earth under them, and told about the wicked brother and the poor sister.

“We know this,” every soul in the flowers said. “We know it. Didn’t we grow forth from the dead man’s eyes and lips? We know it, we know it!” and they nodded their heads so strangely.

The rose elf couldn’t understand how they could be so calm, and he flew over to the bees, who were gathering honey, told them the story about the wicked brother, and the bees told their Queen, who commanded that the next morning they should all kill the murderer.

But the night before, the first night after the sister’s death, when the brother was sleeping in his bed close to the fragrant jasmine tree, each flower opened up. Invisibly, but with poisonous spears, the flower souls climbed out. First they sat by his ears and whispered bad dreams, then flew over his lips and stuck his tongue with the poisonous spears. “Now we have avenged the dead,” they said and searched out their white flowers again.

When morning came and the window to the bedroom was opened, the rose elf with the Queen of the bees and the whole swarm flew in to kill him.

But he was already dead. People were standing around the bed saying, “The fragrance of the jasmines has killed him!”

Then the rose elf understood the flowers’ revenge, and he told the Queen bee, and she buzzed around the flower pot with her whole swarm. The bees couldn’t be chased away so a man took the flower pot away, and one of the bees stuck his hand so that the flowerpot fell and broke in two.

They saw the white skull, and they knew that the dead man in the bed was a murderer.

And the Queen bee buzzed in the air and sang about the flowers’ revenge and about the rose elf, and that behind the smallest leaf lives one who can tell about wickedness and avenge it.