Isabel the Fair
On the morning of the first day of May, Isabel sat alone in her bower, busy at her embroidery. Far away and faint across the hills, she heard a horn of elfland (a sound so sweet could be no other). The wild call trembled in the air, and the maiden's flashing needle paused. An image came to her, a vision of shining castle walls and still lakes, and of an elfin knight astride a mighty charger.
"If I but had that knight to sleep beside me..."
whispered Isabel the Fair, but her thought was never finished.
It was unwise to wish when the sound from the other world had yet to die. Before her needle plunged again, a princely man appeared in the courtyard beneath Isabel's window, he was riding a tall horse and leading a pretty palfrey. He raised his head and smiled upon her gravely.
"Isabel the Fair," said the man, "you called and I have come for you. Ride into the greenwood with me now."
The palfrey tossed its head, and the bells on its harness rang merrily. The needle and embroidery silk slipped to the floor. Isabel sped down a winding stone stair and into the courtyard. Without a word she mounted the palfrey, and together she and the elf clattered across the cobblestones and out through the castle gate. As they galloped across the hills, no word was said between them. Finally, they came to a wood, and there the elfin knight drew up. He leaned from his saddle and took the palfrey's reins from her.
"Isabel the Fair," said he, "dismount now. You have come to the place where you are to die."
She stared at him. He returned her gaze with one as calm as a mountain pool.
"I have slain seven kings' daughters here, Isabel the Fair. You are to be the eigth."
His voice was gentle, his eyes clear and blank. Isabel slid from the saddle to the ground, and he swung down beside her. He slapped the horses' flanks, and the animals ambled into the forest, reins trailing.
Suddendly Isabel smiled. She stroked the knight's sleeve with a small, soft hand and in her sweet voice bade him lie down with her, that she might rest before she died. And he did that. Isabel sat in the grass of the greenwood and held his head in her lap and stroked his hair. In her mind, she recited a charm, one that her mother had taught her for bringing on sleep, and sleep he did.
After a while, she carefully unbuckled his belt, pulled it off and bound it around his body just above the elbows, so his arms were strapped to his sides. Then she waited for the power of her simple spell to fade. At length, the knight stirred, his heavy head lolling across her knees. He opened his eyes and looked up at her drowsily, and in that instant she moved. She stabbed him in the heart with his own dagger.
He made no move or sound when the bloody stain spread across his breast, but the light faded from his eyes. Isabel watched until they dulled, then she shifted herself from under him.
"If seven kings' daughters you here have slaid," said she, "then lie here a husband to them all."
She rose, turned her back on the stiffening elf and began her long walk home. That is the last that is known of the Scotswoman, whose walk from the greenwood took her out of history.
Fairies - Content | Myths and Legends