The Minstrel in the Forest

part 2

by Tala Bar

Table of Contents
Part I appears
in this issue.

“Grannie,” said the young girl, “is there any world outside that forest? Sometimes I feel I absolutely suffocate here, and I would like to see something else beside trees, shrubs and beasts.” She was just beyond puberty, her feminine body barely formed; she had long, straight, fair hair and dreamy, sky-blue eyes, and she was clad in a leafy yellow-green cover.

“You know, Nimmi,” replied the old woman, who had a bent back, long, white, wispy hair and deep, black eyes, “I am so old I can’t remember. You’d better ask Mother.” She pulled a little nervously at the brown-gray sack that covered her shrivelled body.

Mother, a tall woman in the prime of her life, had reddish-brown hair falling to her shoulders in heavy waves; her eyes were sparkling greenish-brown and her full mouth red, and she was regally dressed in dark red clothes. “I am not sure you should ask such a question, Nimmi,” she said in a soft, sensuous voice, the effect of which was lost on her daughter and mother. “And you should not encourage her, Grannie,” she added, with a tinge of severity in her voice.

“I have a feeling,” the old woman croaked, “that we are going to have a visitor very soon. I suggest we go hunting in his honor.”

The other two were not in a habit to question Grannie’s “feelings”; they prepared for the hunt, though it was not one of the seasonal occasions when they usually had meat in addition to their more regular vegetarian food. Nimmi took her bow and quiver of arrows off the branch they were hanging on; Grannie began sharpening her knife on a strap of leather tied to another tree; and Mother prepared the fire in the midst of a stone circle...

* * *

A sudden glitter appeared in the gray forest, flashes of colored lightning he had not seen before. Alarmed for the first time that night, Finbar stopped and called out, “What are those?”

Bear stopped as well. “Ah, I see they’re coming. I hoped we’d have a little more respite.”

“Who is coming?” asked the Minstrel.

“I didn’t want you to meet them, it could be unpleasant.”

“So, there is something unpleasant in this forest, then? Something you know but do not want to acknowledge?” he asked, with a trace of sarcasm in his voice.

They stopped walking, as the flickering figures drew nearer and nearer. At last, two beings, one young and one old, stood in front of Finbar and Bear. The Minstrel cast a questioning look at his guide. Bear growled but did not move, so the Minstrel turned to look, curiously, at the apparition before him, not knowing whether he should be afraid of them or not. They looked strange enough but solid, like him and Bear, not mistily transparent like the trees and animals.

The young creature looked like a girl going hunting, having a bow and quiver of arrows slung over her shoulder. She was not exactly pretty but subtly impressive, with her long, fair hair and long legs under the short, greenish-yellow cover; her sky-blue eyes looked at him more with interest than any other expression, creating a flutter in his heart. The old one was a little more frightening and he did not really want to look at her, averting his eyes as if afraid of being trapped by her deep, black eyes. The word Witch came immediately into his mind, though he had never met an actual witch beside the usual village healer or wise woman.

As no one spoke for a while, Finbar said aside to Bear, “they look solid enough.”

“They are quite real, actually,” Bear answered, “as you may find out...” The Minstrel thought he sensed a shudder going through the creature’s substantial body.

Before he had a chance to ask more, the old female croaked, “All right, Bear, we are taking over now. You can go.”

“Where is Mother?” he asked, in a fiercer voice than Finbar had heard him use up till now.

“It’s me and Nimmi today,” the old Witch croaked again. “You’ve no say in the matter, you know.”

“One day you’ll be sorry for it,” Bear warned, then he said to the Minstrel, “I’ve tried to avoid this, I’m sorry. I wish you good luck...” Then he turned and slipped among the trees, vanishing in the forest without even a silhouette to mark his form.

* * *

Looking after Bear, Finbar noticed the forest was no longer the gray, transparent mass as before; the trees were gradually becoming more solid, and the ghostly animals vanished from among them. The forest had assumed its former dark, menacing atmosphere, and the Minstrel’s heart missed a beat while his limbs started shaking. With a dampened spirit and a sense of doom he tried to avoid looking at the two women standing before him. They were looking at him very intently now, and he could not think what they had had in mind for him.

“What are you going to do?” he dared ask with a trembling voice, taken over by a shiver he could not stop. Having recognized the old woman from his own tales, he knew there was no escape from that most dangerous witch, who dwelled in forests, rock clefts or mountain crevices. In his stories, she had occasionally dared to come out and into a settlement, to steal little children neglected by their mother, frighten pregnant women into miscarriage, or create other unavoidable mishaps. Her greatest pastime was to turn men into different kinds of animals, or sometimes into plants or dumb rocks. He did not wonder that Bear had preferred to get away from her, but he was surprised that Bear was powerless against her magic. Of course if Bear, such a mythical creature, could do nothing against the Witch, how could he, a miserable human, protect himself...

While these reflections were passing in confusion through the Minstrel’s mind, the Witch, paying no attention to him, started moving around in circles, in a most horrible, crooked dance. It made Finbar dizzy, and he felt he was unable to move away. He shut his eyes with terror as he felt a sticky, invisible spider web forming around his limbs; it held his arms tight to his body and his legs planted in the ground. More and more threads were wound around his body until he could not move his head, and they filled his mouth until he could not utter a sound. At last, he felt himself wrapped in an unseen shroud, trapped like a cocoon.

Then, as in a cocoon, he felt strange restlessness in his limbs under the web, as if they were changing their shape, like a caterpillar changing into a butterfly inside the pupa. Slowly they altered, his arms lengthened until they reached the ground and turned in legs, his legs shortened to become of the same length, his body bent to accomplish his new form; his head grew larger and his nose longer, becoming a snout (was he turning into a bear-like creature? He though for a minute), and he felt something growing from his behind.

Then, as his new shape seemed to have been completed, the web slowly melted away, releasing Finbar’s body, which became again flexible and moveable. He opened his mouth and tried to talk, but his throat uttered a kind of snort and nothing else. Carefully, he opened his eyes to take a look at himself, and his heart stopped beating for a moment. His clothes seemed to have turned into a light, gray plumage, and the shape he was able to discern was that of a boar.

Unable to speak, Finbar sniffed in fear. He looked, bewitched, at the old creature, who had now stopped her twirling and burst with a wild laughter. The hair of his fur stood on end, and Finbar Boar started skipping on his short legs, shrieking in high snorts and calling for help. But the more he shrieked, the more the Witch laughed, and the girl joined her now, calling to the old one, “Ah, Grannie, you’ve done us proud.”

Then she drew out an arrow from the quiver on her back, checked its point then positioned it on the string of her raised bow. “Run, Boar, run!” she cried out loud. “I know you understand my words, and I want you to give me a good chase for my effort to hunt you!”

Finbar, stunned, stood motionless, unable to move even without the web wrapped around his body. ’Hunt! Me? A human being and a respected Minstrel?’ But he could not voice these words aloud, and his heart sunk to rock bottom.

“Yes, Yes, Yes!” Grannie answered his unsaid thoughts. “The quicker you run the longer you’ll stay alive, so do us and you this favor!”

Something in the old Witch’s voice made Finbar snapped out of his paralysis. He lifted the boar’s short legs and started running. ‘But what about the trees blocking his way?’ a fleeting thought passed in his still-human brain. Strangely, those threateningly solid trees did not seem to block his way, and he passed through them as if they were still as transparent as they had been in the company of Bear. How he longed for Bear to be here right now! But it seem even the Forest Spirit had no power against the wicked Witch!

So, Finbar Boar ran for his life, leaped and skipped as he had never done before, feeling the very real danger chasing him behind. He knew it was real, because from time to time he turned the head on the short neck to look back. Though his eyes were rather crossed, he could still make out the shape and colors of the young creature named Nimmi, flying like the wind among the trees and shrubs. ‘Nymph?’ the question passed through his mind, but he did not let it dwell there, continuing on his hurrying escape, hoping against hope his short legs would hold...

Proceed to the conclusion...