Adele's Stories

What does one know of fairies? What one reads in story books of course. But fairies are much more different than the greatest writers of our time made them appear. They live in the forests, that much is true. And they can be darlings when they want to. But they rarely do. They much prefer spending their days creating mischief and to a more extreme scale, wreaking havoc.

Now the Merry Forest of Sheridan was quite infested with fairies. Despite it’s name the forest was quite the opposite of merry. No one dared enter for if they did they’d leave exhausted and probably with a different color of hair than what they went in with. The people of Sheridan would leave baked goods, like pies, brownies, cakes, and cookies at the edge of the forest in order to appease the fairies and keep them from leaving the forest and entering their village.

But one day a brave young man entered the forest. No one knew why. Know one even knew who he was. He just showed up one day, declared his intentions of spending the night in the forest, and took off into the trees. Only he didn’t just spend one night in the forest. He was there for a fortnight. And when he did finally come out he had a beautiful fairy bride at his side.

It came as quite a shock to everyone. But no matter how much they begged and prodded he would not say a single word of what went on that forest. This of course inspired other young men to try their hand in the Merry Forest of Sheridan. But to their disappointment nothing happened. They didn’t even see a fairy, let alone get tricked by one.

And that’s how it was for the rest of time. The fairies were still in the forest of course, the villagers caught glimpses every now and then, but they just didn’t behave the way they used to. And the stranger who tamed the fairies went down as legend, getting more and more exciting each time it was told.

But in reality what he actually did wasn’t all that legendary. The truth of what happened was this. A neighboring prince had set out on his horse to find a bride. He stumbled upon this village and was quite intrigued by the stories of the Merry Forest of Sheridan. He decided it was high time for an adventure of some sort therefore he decided on spending the night in the forest.

He entered late in the day and quickly found a nice spot under a tree to sleep for the night. He settled into the hollow neath the roots and placed his pack with all his things next to him. Only when he woke up he found his pack gone and could hear the laughter of fairies around him.

He could see his pack floating away from him and angrily ran to retrieve it. But not matter how fast or hard he ran the fairies always remained just ahead of him. That is until he tripped over a root and fell headfirst into the ground. The prince lost consciousness and when he at last awoke he found himself inside the home of a beautiful young fairy.

She had placed him upon her own bed and was caring for his injury. When she turned to find him awake and studying her she blushed deeply. “You’ve been asleep for so long…”

“How long?” the prince asked.

“Nearly two days.”

The prince considered that for a moment. “Thank you for your kindness.”

The fairy maiden blushed again. “I felt it was my duty. It was my brother and his friends who stole your things.”

The prince didn’t get a chance to respond as he had fallen unconscious again. For the next two weeks the prince spent his days in the fairy maiden’s home being nursed back to health. It only took a week for the love to bloom and only a few days later for a betrothal to be set.

On the last day of the two weeks and the eve of their wedding day the fairy maiden’s father paid a visit to the prince. To his utter surprise her father happened to be the king of the fairies.

“I have come to bring a wedding gift. And amends. As much as we like our fun we never set out to hurt any one. I greatly apologize for the actions of my son and his friends. So as a gift to you and my daughter we have agreed to leave the people who come into this forest alone and find our mischief elsewhere.”

The prince was very grateful for the kings gift and his blessing for their marriage. Now a fairy wedding is simply the most beautiful thing one has ever seen. I could hardly to it justice to try and describe it using only words so I’ve decided not to try. Just know that if you ever do see one your life will never be the same.

So the prince took his fairy princess bride and brought her home to his castle where they lived happily ever after. And the legend of the stranger who tamed the fairies went down in history, while the far away royal family held onto a completely different legend.