The Fairy of the Dawn, part 1 · page 21 2101Dig your spurs in my body up to the rowel, draw your sword, and keep yourself ready, for we shall have to leap over both bridge and dragon.102When you see that we are right above the dragon cut off his biggest head, wipe the blood off the sword, and put it back clean in the sheath before we touch earth again.’103So Petru dug in his spurs, drew his sword, cut of the head, wiped the blood, and put the sword back in the sheath before the horse’s hoofs touched the ground again.104And in this fashion they passed the bridge.105‘But we have got to go further still,’ said Petru, after he had taken a farewell glance at his native land.106‘Yes, forwards,’ answered the horse; ‘but you must tell me, my lord, at what speed you wish to go.107Like the wind?108Like thought?109Like desire? or like a curse?’110Petru looked about him, up at the heavens and down again to the earth.111A desert lay spread out before him, whose aspect made his hair stand on end.112‘We will ride at different speeds,’ said he, ‘not so fast as to grow tired nor so slow as to waste time.’113And so they rode, one day like the wind, the next like thought, the third and fourth like desire and like a curse, till they reached the borders of the desert.114‘Now walk, so that I may look about, and see what I have never seen before,’ said Petru, rubbing his eyes like one who wakes from sleep, or like him who beholds something so strange that it seems as if...115Before Petru lay a wood made of copper, with copper trees and copper leaves, with bushes and flowers of copper also.116Petru stood and stared as a man does when he sees something that he has never seen, and of which he has never heard.checked by a teacher117Then he rode right into the wood.118On each side of the way the rows of flowers began to praise Petru, and to try and persuade him to pick some of them and make himself a wreath.119‘Take me, for I am lovely, and can give strength to whoever plucks me,’ said one.120‘No, take me, for whoever wears me in his hat will be loved by the most beautiful woman in the world,’ pleaded the second; and then one after another bestirred itself, each more charming than the last, all promising, in soft sweet voices, wonderful things to Petru, if only he would pick them.121Petru was not deaf to their persuasion, and was just stooping to pick one when the horse sprang to one side.122‘Why don’t you stay still?’ asked Petru roughly.123‘Do not pick the flowers; it will bring you bad luck; answered the horse.124‘Why should it do that?’125‘These flowers are under a curse.126Whoever plucks them must fight the Welwa(1) of the woods.’127(1) A goblin.128‘What kind of a goblin is the Welwa?’129‘Oh, do leave me in peace!130But listen.131Look at the flowers as much as you like, but pick none,’ and the horse walked on slowly.132Petru knew by experience that he would do well to attend to the horse’s advice, so he made a great effort and tore his mind away from the flowers.133But in vain!134If a man is fated to be unlucky, unlucky he will be, whatever he may do!135The flowers went on beseeching him, and his heart grew ever weaker and weaker.checked by a teacher136‘What must come will come,’ said Petru at length; ‘at any rate I shall see the Welwa of the woods, what she is like, and which way I had best fight her.137If she is ordained to be the cause of my death, well, then it will be so; but if not I shall conquer her though she were twelve hundred Welwas,’ and once more he stooped down to gather the flowers.1 2← previousThe Envious Neighbournext →The Fairy of the Dawn, part 2↑ back to The Violet Fairy BookThis page in Markdown → https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg641/19/page/2/