! I am grateful for the time that you share with me here. Sincerely yours, The Fairy Lady
"THE FAIRY WIFE"
Demetros watched them, wondering who they were, why they had come and where they had gone. He said nothing about these strange maidens, but he could think of nothing else all the next day. When night came he went again to the Neraidovreshe. It was about the same time, the moon was shining, the maidens were there; but now in addition to the first three there were three others. Just as the cock crowed the maidens rose, danced over the hills, singing, and vanished as before.
Demetros filled his water-jar and walked home with his head bent, thinking. He was so quiet that his mother asked if anything were wrong. He hesitated a little and then told her what he had seen on the two evenings.
"Beware, my son!" she cried. "The maidens may be fairies. Evil may come. Beware!"
"Is there any harm in watching them?" the goatherd asked himself. "They are so strange, so beautiful!" This time he forgot to fill the water-jar and he walked home still gazing westward at the far line of hills where the fairies had disappeared.
"You must have seen them again!" his mother cried. Demetros nodded. "Then go not again to the Neraidovreshe," she warned. "It would be better to die of thirst. See! already you come back without water in the jar. Tomorrow night is the night of the full moon when fairies’ power is greatest. Tomorrow night you must not leave the strounga!"
Demetros intended to obey his mother. All day he sat on the hillside, watching his goats and thinking of the maidens.
"I will not go tonight," he told himself. "I will never see them again. I do not want to see them. They might bring evil to my mother and me. I will not see them—how beautiful they were!"
That night he put his goats in the strounga as usual. Outside the door he looked up at the full moon and remembered the three other nights when he had gone to the spring. How lightly the maidens had danced! How brightly their golden hair had shown as it rippled over their shoulders!
"Oh, to be light and oh, to be light
In the summer noonday sun;
Oh, to be light in the fairy night
When moon gossamers are spun;
On the sea sands bright and the hill snows white,
To run and to run and to run!
"Oh, to be gay and oh, to be gay
Where bright rivers glide and glance;
In gardens of May to skip and play
While fairy flutes entrance;
Oh, to be gay, and away and away
To dance and to dance and to dance!
"Oh, to be free and oh, to be free
As the north wind riding high;
Oh to be free with the lilting sea
When the wild waves wash the sky;
Oh, swift and free and a fairy to be,
To fly and to fly and to fly!"
"Come with us," begged the ten maidens. "Come with us, Demetros."
"Come and live in our palace with us," said the tenth fairy with her loveliest smile. "We shall make you happy, Demetros."
Unable to resist, he went with them a long way over the hills. He laughed and sang and forgot everything but the fairy maidens, their flowers, their smiles, their golden hair. Once he thought of his mother, ill and in need of him, and of his goats that would cry for him in the morning. He knew he should not go any farther with the fairies, but when he looked at the tenth, the most beautiful, he felt that he could not leave her as long as he lived.
Now the loveliest one was near him in the dance. Her long golden hair was sweeping past him. He breathed the fragrance of her flowers. He reached out to catch her, but only her handkerchief remained in his hand. The dance stopped. There was a scream from all the fairies. With a rush, like wind through a forest, they shot upward and disappeared—all but the tenth. She sank down upon the ground with a kind of moan and hid her face in her hands.
"Do not speak. Do not touch me," she said. "You have taken from me my freedom, my happiness!"
Demetros did not know what to do. He stood up, tucked the handkerchief into his selahe, leather belt, and walked slowly a little way off, thinking. When he turned he saw that she had risen and was following him, weeping and reluctant. He walked on and she came after, stopping when he stopped, moving forward as he did, until they crossed the hills to the little hut that was his home.
His mother was startled when she saw this strange, golden-haired maiden with her son. She welcomed the stranger, however, and because she saw that Demetros loved her, she kept the wonderful handkerchief wrapped in silk and locked in a box in her own room where the fairy wife never entered.
Katena, so she was called, spent her time spinning, sewing and embroidering. She made beautiful clothes for Demetros’ mother, for herself and for the little child when it came. Everybody in Loutro knew that Katena was a fairy, because whatever she did was finer and lovelier than anyone else could do in all that part of the country. The child, too, was very beautiful, with fine, golden hair and soft, white skin. All the villagers and country people called her Neraidokoretso, which means fairy child.
One Saint Konstantinos day the mother went, as is the custom, to a neighboring village to visit a cousin named Konstantinos. She left, believing everything safe until her return.
Katena said to Demetros: "Today is a holiday. I should like very much to go to Loutro to dance. I have not danced for a long time. Will you bring out one of my pretty dresses and my best handkerchief? We shall dance together as we danced on the night of the full moon seven years ago."
Demetros could not speak for his delight. His beautiful wife would dance and be happy again. He fumbled with the keys which his mother had left in his care; he caught up the first dress his eyes fell upon; he took the beautiful handkerchief from his mother's box and put it into his selahe with trembling hands. As soon as Katena was ready, she and Demetros with Neraidokoretso hastened down the hill to Loutro.
Katena's turn came to lead the dance. Demetros dropped his corner of the handkerchief. Katena sprang from him and went whirling madly about the circle. Demetros watched her amazed. Three times she circled before the astonished villagers, then rose as though on wings and floated like a cloud into the sky.
Demetros was heart-broken. When he realized that his fairy wife had left him forever, he wanted to die. His mother, returned from her cousin Konstantinos’, tried to console him.
"My son," she said, "this is the evil which the fairy has brought upon us. Let us try to be content. Now nothing worse can come to us."
Demetros feared that Neraidokoretso would be unhappy without her mother, but every morning the child would hurry away to the fields and in the evening run home again, skipping and singing as she came. People said they often heard her talking or chanting to herself in words no one could understand.
Her grandmother was frightened at first because she could not induce the child to eat anything. One morning Demetros followed Neraidokoretso. She went straight to the Fairy Spring and, looking up, held her little arms toward the sky. Demetros heard her calling and he saw something white like a mist descending to her. A silvery voice came out of the mist and the child answered in words of strange sound.
As the years went by Neraidokoretso grew more lovely, always more like her mother, with long, shining hair and the same beautiful smile. When she went to the fields now she took her sewing or embroidery and worked while she talked with the spirit that no one else could see. Often Demetros followed her and watched her wonderingly. She was his daughter, but she never seemed to belong to him. She did not need him and was happy without him or anything he could do for her. She was so much more a fairy than a human child that it made him afraid. He once said to his mother: "I believe something worse can happen to us than the trouble we have already suffered."
"How can that be, my son?" she asked.
"I am afraid that Neraidokoretso will not always be with us."
Demetros and his mother looked at each other without speaking. They both loved Neraidokoretso very much.
On the girl's fifteenth birthday her father followed her to the Neraidovreshe, as he had done every day for a long time. He saw again the white mist come to her out of the clouds and heard the sweet, silvery voice. She held up her arms and the mist, enfolding her, lifted her up and carried her away. After it had vanished, Demetros caught the echo of two fairy voices. He listened motionless as long as he could distinguish the sound. Then he knew that Katena and Neraidokoretso had gone from him forever.
"Come back, come back, my fairy wife.
Come back, my fairy child.
Seeking and searching I spend my life;
I wander lone and wild.
Come back!"
Muchas gracias, many thanks, your visits are valuable to in making this blog possible. Have a beautiful day today and every day. With much love to you, The Fairy Lady
I hope you all enjoy this story part 2 from Greek folklore, I enjoyed the legends and I do hope you have found them interesting as well. I there is another legends or myths you would like please do not hesitate to ask. Thank you.
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