The King of the Misty Mountain
This is my adaptation of an old Estonian folk tale, which I hope you will find as captivating as I once found it.
One day a company of bold children made a bet to spend a night in the old forest at the foot of the mountain nearby their village. The weather promised to be clear and warm, so they packed some food and left the comfort of their homes right before sunset.
As the pale rose mist swallowed the last rays of the setting sun, the company reached the edge of the forest and hurried in to find a good spot for their night camp.
They chose a little meadow surrounded by tall and gnarly pines. The trees creaked subtly on the wind as the children were collecting sticks and tinder for their campfire. Soon, a pile of dry wood was mounted in the centre of the meadow, and a merry fire arose at the heart of it, spreading quickly with a merry cracking sound.
Soon, the darkness fell on the forest, and against their hopes, the weather suddenly became chill and foggy. The air grew cold and wet, piercing right through their skin and into their bones, and after a while even blazing campfire was powerless to warm up their stiff hands and feet.
Finally, one girl, more restless than the others, sprung up to her feet and grumbled:
‘Well, that’s enough for me! I’ll go running: this way I’ll surely warm up better than sitting here with my arms folded!’
Thus, she quickly trotted through the trees, and pale arms of thick fog that swayed drowsily under the trees slowly closed around her silhouette.
The other children laughed uneasily and shook their heads.
‘She’ll be back soon!’ they convinced themselves, as no one was willing to follow her. However, the runaway did not return neither that night, nor even in the morning. As the dawn broke, and it was time to set off home, the dismayed company began searching for their missing friend. Struggling through thick underwood, now covered in glittering drops of cold morning dew, they were crying out her name over and over again — yet there was no one but echo to answer them.
After a while, the children had given up their hope to find the girl. Wet, chilled to the bone, and tired, craving desperately for the warmth and comfort of their homes, they agreed that she must have gotten scared and returned to the village, so it was best for them to follow her there. But as soon as they returned, they figured out, that there was no sign of her at home either…
The girl’s parents were desperate. At once they sett off to the forest to look for their missing daughter. They spent the whole day searching for her, yet all was in vain, and fear crept in their hearts that the girl was already dead. As the night fell, the last rays of hope to find her alive withered, and so, troubled and bereaved, father and mother returned home alone. If only they could know what had happened to their dear child! And indeed, many things happened…
Tiyu was no ordinary girl. Neither darkness nor loneliness could ever scare her. Daring and curious she was, and that night her restless mind and eager feet led her far away from her friends. Running indeed cheered and warmed her up; she jumped merrily over the deadwood and touched old mossy bark of the trees as she passed them. At last, she stopped to catch her breath, looked around and halted in confusion. She knew the forest behind her village very well, yet it seemed to her that she had no memory of this place.
Her feet stood on a narrow trail framed by two steep granite walls; ancient oaks, tall and wide, stooped over her head, dropping their boughs to the ground; the fog was dancing around her, rising and falling, twisting and curling, as if inviting her to follow its beckoning sways. Her eyes followed the trail wounding up between the rocky slopes. Its tail was lost behind the veil of fog, yet it seemed to the girl that a glimpse of bright fire shone through it. She had no hope to find her lost friends there, yet she desperately needed to make out where she was; thus, she plucked up her courage and followed the trail.
Deep was her astonishment when on the top of the hill she saw not a company of hunters or travelers, but a lonely one-eyed old man with a long gray beard. The man was lying by the fire, leaning his back against the old oak tree, thoughtfully raking firebrands with his iron staff. Every time he disturbed the fire, his sole eye glimmered misteriously, as if a spark of it was hidden in its depth.
There was something scary about him, although the girl could not grasp what it was. An uneasy feeling lay heavily on her heart. Quietly, she took a step back and was about to turn around, when with muffled snap a stick cracked under her foot. The old man raised his head and pinned the girl to the ground with the piercing gaze of his flickering eye.
‘Stay where you are, little mouse, or else I’ll throw my staff at you!’ he shouted harshly. ‘One eye I have, but a sharp one, and a firm hand — be sure I will not miss…’
The girl froze, trembling from head to toe. The old man commanded her to come closer, but she did not dare to approach him. Irked by her hesitation, he got up, grabbed the girl by the hand and led her to the fire, grumbling:
‘Aren’t you taught to heed the elders? Do as I say, and stop shaking there like a little trapped mouse!’
The girl was so scared that she could barely feel her feet, yet she had no choice but to obey. She approached the fire and stretched out her stiff hands to it. Meanwhile, the old man went back to his place under the tree, grabbed his knapsack and took a loaf of bread and some cheese out of it. Then, he turned to the girl and, to her great surprise, handed the food to her.
‘Eat, you little mouse, this shall stop your feet from shaking.’
The girl was indeed very hungry, so she swallowed the food before the thought that it might be unsafe to break bread with a stranger like this even reached her mind.
Once she had finished, the old man tapped the grass with his staff, and suddenly two young girls appeared by the fire, as if woven from thick fog. Merry and nimble they were, and, unlike their master, not at all scary. Before long, the children found themselves laughing, playing and frolicking together around the fire, and the old man returned to his place under the tree, leaned back and closed his eye so that it seemed that he was asleep, although even when closed, it seemed that his eye was watching them.
When it began to get lighter, an old lady, tall, fair and clad in white, appeared before them. The calm look of her wise eyes slid slowly over the children and settled on the village girl. Silence fell on the world around them, as if even the wind held back his cold breath so as not to disturb the lady. mFinally, she uttered:
‘The hand of fate led you here, child.’ her voice rustled like dry leaves in autumn, ‘You were honored to be our guest. Stay with us for one day and one night more, and at the dawn of the next day I shall lead you back home.’
Shy at first, the girl soon became so friendly with the other children that she was no longer thinking about the old man… or her home. The day passed in games, and in the evening all the children went to bed together, singing, laughing and telling each other wonderful stories.
The next morning a young lady appeared before them, tall, fair and clad in white, and, although brightened by youth, her features resembled strangely of the ones of the old lady that spoke to the girl yesterday.
‘It is time.’ she said, and her voice now brought the memories of summer rain pattering softly on fresh leaves and grasses, ‘Come, child, I will show you the way.’
With these words, she took the girl by the hand and, following a long winding trail, led her out of the forest. At the edge the lady stopped, gave the girl a piercing look, and said:
‘You must promise me, child, that, whatever happens, you shall not tell anyone what you saw or heard by our fire. Do this, and you shall know our gratitude for loyalty.’
‘I promise.’ the girl whispered.
The lady’s eyes softened; her hand disappeared in the folds of her cloack and reappeared with a round copper brooch in it.
‘If you ever want to see us again, blow on this brooch and you will lead you back to us.’ she added, and, with a smile and a wave of her cloack, she vanished in the first rays of the rising sun, as if a wisp of fog blown away by the wind.
The girl headed to the village, pondering on her way about the old oak grove and its mysterious inhabitants. She could not stop asking herself what her parents would think of all this. Bound by her promise, she could not tell them the truth, but even if she did — would they believe it? Would anyone believe it at all?..
Immersed in her thoughts, the girl had not noticed when she finally reached the village. Two men passed her by, loudly talking to each other. At first sight there was nothing unusual about them, but one thing troubled the girl’s mind: she could swear that she had never seen their faces before.
As she approached the gates of her father’s courtyard, her astonishment grew further: she could not recognize this place. Where tiny seedlings used to grow, now stood tall apple trees hung with beautiful fruits; where once was an empty place, was a new house, and her own home, too, looked completely foreign to her.
As she stood there, looking around in confusion, a young man came out of the door of the house that used to be her home.
‘Odd days… Never seen strangers in our village before…’ he muttered to himself, shaking his head in surprise. Then he turned to the girl and asked: ‘Can I help you, miss? You must be lost.’
The girl opened her mouth and closed it again, powerless to utter a word. The young man kept staring at her with a puzzled look. She slowly nodded, as if in a dream. The man shook his head again and disappered in the doorway.
‘Sir!’ she heard him calling in the depth of the house. ‘Sir, ma’am, there’s a strange girl in our yard, come have a look at her, I can’t figure out what she wants…’
An old couple appeared on the porch, gray and bent by age.
‘Who are you, child, and what led you here?’ the woman asked, squinting at the girl.
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‘I appologize for disturbing you…’ the girl replied with effort. ‘I’m looking for my mother and father — they used to live here.’
‘M-mother?..’ the woman repeated with fright. ‘Lord have mercy! Who are you — the spirit of our missing Tiyu or a living creature, like us? Can it be that our dear child, who had died seven years ago, is resurrected again?’
She tottered to the girl, grabbed her by the hand, wrapped up the sleeve of her shirt, revealing a small burnt scar on her arm, and sighed. At once, the woman burst into tears and wrapped her shaking arms around the girl.
‘Our Tiyu, our dear child!’ she exclaimed. ‘Seven years! Seven years has passed since you disappeared in the forest! We mourned you as dead, and here you are… unchanged… as if it was yesterday… Oh, can this be true?’
‘That cannot be…’ Tiyu muttered. ‘One day and two nights I have spent in the forest… How can this be that I’ve been missing for seven years?..’
There was no end to the surprise of Tiyu’s parents and her own. Oh, how she wanted to tell them what happened to her! Yet she remained silent. She only said that she got lost in the woods, and some strangers gave her shelter. The joy of the parents, beyond all hopes reunited with their dear daughter, was so great that they asked her no more questions.
But Tiyu’s heart could not find peace. She felt estranged, uprooted and utterly lonely. Myriads of questions nested in her head, rushing hither and thither, mobbing into flocks, forming strange disturbing shapes and scattering swiftly every time she tried to grasp them. They overwhelmed her consciousness and overflowed into her dreams. She needed to know what had happened to her, and as the night fell, she waited for her parents to fall asleep, took her round copper brooch quietly out of her pocket, hesitated for a moment, and blew on it.
At once, thick fog came out of nowhere, curled up around her until pale contours of her bedroom started shimmer and dissolve right before her eyes, and before she realized it, she was standing in the old oak grove by the fire.
She looked around and found the the one-eyed old man sitting on the same place where she left him. His face showed neither anger nor surprise, and with a beckoning gesture of his hand he invited her to come closer.
Somehow, he no longer seemed daunting to the girl. A strange feeling rose in her heart — calm and soothing, as if she found peace at last… as if she was at home.
Tiyu approached the old man.
‘Dear father…’ she adressed him, marvelling at her own words, ‘I cannot bear this any longer! Can you please explain what had happened to me?’
The old man shook his head softly and replied with a mysterious smile:
‘Chatter is women’s business.’
He tapped on the ground with his iron staff, and a lady appeared before Tiyu. The girl recognized her immediately: it was the same white lady with piercing look who had accompanied her home last time. She took Tiyu’s hand, led her away from the fire and deeper into the grove.
Once they had reached the twisted roots of a mighty oak with long curved boughs, the lady stopped, turned to the girl and said softly, her eyes shining with a subtle light, cold and distant, yet soothing and tranquil:
‘I am glad to see you here again, child. You have proved that you can keep secrets, so I shall ease your heart and answer your many questions. You might have guessed that you happened to be a guest of a very unusual company: the old man sitting by the fire is the King of Misty Mountain and the guardian of all that walks and grows on it; I am the Forest Witch and the mother of all spirits that dwell within it; and the girls you played with are my daughters. Time flows differently in our realm. I am sorry that it took your old home from you, but I shall not leave you mourning. Now that you have gained our trust, I shall give you a silver brooch for you to visit us any time you want and join in our merry nights by the fire. Today I shall say no more. But if you keep this secret safe as well, you will get a chance to learn more. Now go home and sleep well.’
She leaned over and kissed the girl on the forhead. Thick white fog fell on the world around them, and the forest disappeared from Tiyu’s sight.
Upon waking, she thought that perhaps everything that had happened at night was nothing but a dream… Yet a twisted silver brooch that glittered softly on her pillow confirmed that it was real.
Life took its course again, and Tiyu had to get used to the strangely unfamiliar place that used to be her home. Days turned into weeks and weeks — into months, but the harder she tried, the more alien the village and her inhabitants seemed to her. Gray and dull were her days, and irresistible sadness fettered her heart as the memories of the joyful nights at the Misty Mountain passed before her mind. She thougth of its mysteries and miracles, wisdom and joy, and the overwhelming freedom that she felt there — and she could no longer find peace anywhere else. Waiting impatiently for the evening to come, she often locked in her room as soon as her parents had fallen asleep, blew on her brooch and returned to her new home on the Mountain.
Years passed, and Tiyu grew into a beautiful young woman. Many suitors proposed her, but she refused them all, until one late autumn day on the seventeenth year of her life, when the dullness of everyday life lay heavier than ever on her heart, she accepted a young man whom she met on the day of her first return from the Mountain. They were married on the day of Yule, and a year later, Tiyu gave birth to a beautiful daughter.
Tiyu’s marriage was not the one of affection, but the child got all of her love, and when she was rocking her little craddle, it seemed to her, that she had finally found her peace… But it was not meant to last. Very soon, the yearning for her other family crept back into her heart, and little by little Tiyu fell back into despair, although this time it was deeper than ever. It seemed to her that she was torn between the two worlds, doomed to stay forever in the shadows of this grievous limbo, as now both of them were equally loved, and none of them could she let go of.
One night, soon after her daughter had turned seven years old, unable to stand this torture anymore, Tiyu blew on the brooch and immediately found herself on the Misty Mountain. The daughters of the Forest Witch ran out to meet her with cries of joy.
‘Oh, we missed you so much, dear sister! Why didn’t you come for so long?’ they wondered, holding her hands with relief and affection.
Holding back her tears, Tiyu told them about her struggles.
‘The King of the Misty Mountain will help us!’ the girls assured her. ‘Come back in two weeks, when the moon is full and bright, and take your little daughter with you. You didn’t think we would leave you, did you? There is home for both of you!’
Tiyu promised to do as they said eagerly, and once she returned to the village, she could not wait for the day of the full moon. Yet when it was time to leave, she glanced at her daughter sleeping so calmly next to her father, and her heart sank: she could not find the courage to take the girl away from him. But neiter could she stay with them. Thus, she kissed her child goodbye and returned to the Misty Mountain alone.
The King was waiting for her there.
‘At an unkind hour you came here today without your child.’ he said grimly upon her arrival, piercing her with a sharp glance of his only eye. ‘Have we not treated you with kindness? Yet you broke the promise. Well, here is my promise to you: nothing but grief this will bring you. Delight in your last time of joy this night, for I see no joy in your future…’
Having said this, he struck the ground with his heavy iron staff, and the daughters of the Forest Witch appeared to take Tiyu to her last feast on the Mountain.
At dawn, Tiyu’s husband woke up and noticed that his wife was not in bed again. Puzzled, he got up and went looking for her, but neither in the house nor in the yard did he find a single trace of her. Anger rose in his heart at the thought that his wife could have gone down the wrong path, and he rushed to the village elder to ask for advice.
The elder was a wise and respectable man — so the villagers believed. He listened to Tiyu’s husband attentively, as the man was confessing about his wife’s mysterious vanishings and her odd character. Then he gave him a grave look and concluded:
‘It is clear to me that your wife has become a witch. Where have your eyes been all this time? She is a threat to our village, and we have to take action! When she returns, you must immediately hand her over to the court.’
Upon his return, Tiyu’s husband found her sleeping peacefully in bed next to the child, as if she had been there all the time. There was only one thing that disturbed the picture — a dry brown oak leaf entangled in her twisted hair. The man picked it up carefully with his fingers, tryng not to disturb Tiyu’s sleep.
At first, there was nothing odd about it, but once he held it to his eyes, the leaf gave a subtle rustling sound and vanished as a wisp of fog carried away by the wind. The man gasped, covered his mouth with his hand, and at that moment he knew the elder was right. Silently, he closed the door and rushed back to him.
That very day, at noon, Tiyu was brought before the court, but nothing could make her utter a word neither of defiance nor of confession, and at sunset the court pronounced its grim verdict: Tiyu had to be burned.
A large pyre had been built on the market square, and at sunset the poor woman was brougth to it and tied to the rugged pole at its heart. She did not cry or plea; calmly and quietly she stood, holding her head with dignity, looking at the silent croud with unexplicable sadnes nested deeply in her eyes.
A torch was brought and casted into the pile of wood before her feet. Tiyu took a deep breath and looked up into the dark sky strewn with young stars. It seemed to her that she could see wisps of fog in its endless depths, and this filled her heart with longing.
A chill night wind blew, and the fire caught up, but at that very moment, out of nowhere thick white fog came floating like a mighty river. High above the village it rose, and in a blink of an eye swallowed the square, the croud, and the pyre. People froze in place, sticken by surprise, but before fear took them, the fog was gone — and Tiyu had gone with it. The pyre was there, but no sign of flames was in it, and no sign of the witch either, only a pair of rings of uncut ropes hung loose on the pole.
Cold was the heart of the King of the Misty Mountain… Cold, but not cruel. He did not forget Tiyu’s broken promise, but he did not wish her death either, and so he took her back to his realm.
Tiyu was grateful beyond words and glad indeed to see her true home again. Yet she was now a mother, and the longing secretly for her abandoned child never left her heart. There was no peace for her in either of the worlds, and none of them she belonged fully, and as the time passed, she grew more and more weary with gnawing sadness.
Where there was a place for her daughter in her heart, was now an empty space, a hole, throught which, drop by drop, the joy of life was leaving her, until one day she became so thin that her body melted into fog, and ever since then, at dawn, when thick fog crept from the forest, covering the fields and meadows and reaching the very windows of the houses, Tiyu’s daughter could hear a quiet voice calling out her name.
I’m thanking you for your attention to my work, and if you like this folk tale, please concider getting its illustrated PDF version here or here.
Until next time, keep on imagining.
