The Nymph In Folklore
Book 3. Folk Tales of the Verteron Region
The Nymph and the Woodcutter
Once upon a time, when the Twelve Empyrean Lords ruled the world together, a woodcutter lived in a snug home he'd made himself with trees he cut with his own axe.
He was a good man, or as good as most men, and better than some others. He was kind to the woodland animals, and he was a good friend to a young Elim who lived in that forest.
But the woodcutter came to feel there was something missing from his life. For unlike the animals in the forest around him, he had no mate.
"I want someone of my own," he told his friend the Elim. "I want someone to share my home, a wife who'll love me and bear my children."
The young Elim felt sad for his friend, and wanted to help. But he knew there were no Human women in the forest who might be a wife to the woodcutter.
A few days later, the Elim came to see the his friend. "I have found you a bride, friend Woodcutter!" he said.
The woodcutter said, "That's kind of you, but how can an Elim find a Human bride?"
The Elim smiled, and told his story.
Every night, the Elim told the woodcutter, beautiful nymphs bathed in the pool in a nearby grove. After bathing, they would put on their beautiful feathered gowns and, transformed by magic into graceful water-birds, they would fly away.
One night, the young Elim heard one Nymph say to another, "Sister, you left your feathered gown on that rock! If you lose it, you will never be able to fly home, and you will have to stay in this form forever."
The more the woodcutter thought about this, the more it seemed the solution to his problem, and if he had a moment of concern that it was wrong to keep such a wonderful creature in captivity, it was soon lost in his eagerness to have a beautiful nymph for his wife.
As night fell, and the pool sparkled in the moonlight, the woodcutter hid nearby, watching as a beautiful nymph came down through the moonlight, took off her feathered gown, and left it on the rock.
His heart nearly jumping from his chest, he crept out to steal the gown, then hid it under the roots of the Elim. "Do not give the nymph back her gown until she has borne you three children," the Elim said.
The woodcutter agreed. Just then, the nymph rose out of the pool and discovered her gown missing.
"Oh where is my feathered gown?" she cried. "What should I do?"
The woodcutter stepped out from his hiding place, and held out a gown of ordinary cloth.
"I will give you this gown if you will marry me," he said.
The nymph, having no means of escape without her magical gown, agreed. So the woodcutter married the nymph, and for a while he lived the wonderful life he had dreamed of.
The nymph and the woodcutter had two children, and a third was growing in the nymph's womb.
One day, she said to her husband, "My dear, can I see my feathered gown just once? I miss my sisters so much, and even seeing it will make me feel better. I ask this in the name of the children I have borne you, and the one who will soon be born."
The woodcutter went to the Elim. "Give me the gown you've hidden under your roots."
"We had an agreement," said the Elim. "Has she borne you three children?"
"We have a fine son and daughter, and even now the third child grows in her womb," replied the woodcutter.
The Elim stood firm. "You are very foolish," he told his friend. "Do not ask for the gown until she has borne three children."
But the woodcutter was determined. "My wife would not fly away from me, even if she had the gown!" he said. And he took it from its hiding place.
The woodcutter returned home and gave the gown to his wife. "Thank you!" she cried. She put it on, and transformed into a water-bird before his eyes.
"You tricked me, husband!" she cried. "You took my freedom, and took me away from my sisters. And now I have tricked you! You will never see me or our children again!"
And saying this, she took her son gently in one clawed foot and her daughter in the other, and spread her white wings, and soared into the sky.
The woodcutter went to his friend the Elim, and lamented his mistake. "I should never have returned her gown," he said. "I should have listened to you."
The Elim could do nothing to help him. "If you had waited for your wife to bear her third child, she could never have left you," he said, "For she could never have flown away with all three."
For the rest of his life the woodcutter haunted the nymphs' pond at night, but neither his wife nor her sisters ever returned, and he lived the rest of his life in loneliness and misery.