A Tale Of the Tontlawald
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A Tale Of The Tontlawald is an Estonian fairy tale collected by Dr. Friedrich Kreutzwald in Eestirahwa Ennemuistesed jutud. W. F. Kirby included it, as "The Wood of Tontla" in The Hero of Esthonia. Andrew Lang included it in The Violet Fairy Book; he listed his source as Ehstnische Märchen, which was the German translation of Kreutzwald's work, by F. Löwe.
[edit] Synopsis
No one ventured to Tontlawald. Some bold souls had, and reported seeing a ruined house surrounding by beings that looked like men, women, and children. One night a peasant who had wandered farther than most came back with the same tale, adding that an old crone stirred the fire now and again, which sent the children away, shrieking, and an old man had carried a sack into the woods, with women and children weeping and trying to pull down the sack, and a black cat as big as a foal. No one believed him. The King of Sweden had ordered the woods chopped down, but no one dared.
A peasant had married, and he and his new wife quarreled, and she abused her stepdaughter Elsa. One day, the children were gathering strawberries when a boy realized they were in the Tontlawald; the rest ran off, but Elsa did not think they could be worse than her stepmother. She met a little black dog with a silver collar, and a maiden dressed in silk who asked her to stay and be her friend. She brought her back to her mother, who finally agreed that she could stay. The maiden took her to the sea and they played there, and came back in the evening. That evening, a man made a copy of her and sent her to the village in Elsa's place. She stayed many years and learned many marvels, and grew up as the maiden did not.
Finally, however, the lady there said she was grown up and must leave.
Back in the village, the stepmother had beaten the figure until one day a snake come out of its mouth and poisoned her. Her husband found her, and then that night ate a piece of bread. In the morning, he was as dead as his wife, because it had been in the figure.
The lady turned her into a bird, and she flew home. There, someone shot her, and she fell to the ground and reassumed her shape. A king's son, who had shot her, took her home and married her, and in time, she became queen.
No one ever heard of the Tontlawald after that.
