9th January
It has been too long since I’ve written. Several times after our journey to the yew grove I have picked up my journal, readied my pen, and then simply stared at the blank page—a symptom of a condition with which I have intimate familiarity by now: namely, stupefaction brought on by some manner of faerie misadventure. In addition, I had only a page or two left in my old journal, hardly enough space to recount anything in detail.
Eventually, I visited the bookbinders, still hard at work filling the shelves in my journal room, and selected this ridiculous paper confection. It has pages enough, but also an enchanted lock—which I do not bother with—and intricate silver engravings of overlapping circles of fern fronds, which I am beginning to recognize as a common artistic motif in Where the Trees Have Eyes. The top of every page is illustrated with a little landscape sketch, a gentle brook or a moorland vista, and if one stares at these long enough, they become a tiny window to the place where the artist must have stood. It is all completely frivolous and unnecessary.
But. I am writing again.
I reached Dublin’s Trinity College three days ago via acarriage from Corbann to the train station one village over,then two additional trains. Since then I have been ensconced in their Natural Sciences Library—in which is housed their considerable collection of dryadological journals and folklore—from dawn to dusk. I would sleep here if the librarians would allow it, but while most of them have received me with kindness and welcome, the head librarian is a tyrannical sort, and seems already to disapprove of me and my many requests, even seeing fit to lecture me for leaving the special collections room in disarray, so I doubt such a request would be well received. One would think books existed simply to be looked at and occasionally dusted, the way that man carries on. And if the filing system differs from Cambridge’s, is it my fault if this occasionally leads me to misplace things?
I have been dreadfully scattered of late. I sat down to provide an account of my doings since the grove, and here I am, griping about librarians.
Wendell has written me three letters already, despite the short period of my absence. I had the below waiting for me when I arrived at my rented lodgings.
To: Dr. Emily Wilde
11 Scholars’ Square, Trinity College
Dublin
From: Wendell Bambleby
Faerie via Corbann
Dearest Emily,
I do not like this promise I made to you, that I would match the passage of time in my realm to that of the mortal world. Surely you would not object to me speeding things along a little, so that I should only have to wait another hour or two for your return. And anyway I am half convinced that the enchantment has gone awry somehow, for surely it has not merely been a day since you left. How dull it is without you! At least I have Niamh to talk to, and I have even taken to summoning my uncle every so often to keep me company, which he does not seem to appreciate, surly old recluse that he is. I have had some good conversations with Callum, and I seem to be making progress in convincing him that he need not be afraid of me. My dreadful sister has been following me about, but I do not count her as company, for all she does is mope. And what reason does she have to carry on so? I have endured a great deal more hardship than she, and yet here I am, engaging in all sorts of industry and enduring tedious demands upon my time; nor have I had one word of sympathy from her. I don’t know why she has suddenly chosen to inflict her presence upon me; I even woke this morning to find her curled up outside my door under a blanket, asleep. I attempted to talk to her kindly, which I knew you would appreciate, as you seem to have some sympathy for the wretch, but she only spat insults at me. Is this situation better or worse than when she was trying to kill me? Worse, I think. I could throw her back into the dungeons if she were up to no good. You will only be angry with me if I do so otherwise.
Anyway, Em, I am sure you are happily ensconced in your native habitat, that dreary monument to mortal rumination that is the library, no doubt thinking of me hardly at all. Well, why would you give a thought to romance or the faerie kingdom that now belongs to you as much as to me when you have a limitless supply of dusty old tomes to mutter and scowl at? I see now that my downfall as a suitor lies in my ability to offer you only a castle, great quantities of faerie silver, and various enchantments to dazzle and provoke you, instead of the full bound collection of Dryadological Fieldnotes.
Please return tomorrow, or the day after at the latest.
Love always,
Wendell
And the next day:
To: Dr. Emily Wilde
11 Scholars’ Square, Trinity College
Dublin
From: Wendell Bambleby
Faerie via Corbann
Dearest Emily,
You have not heeded my request to return today, I see. Will you be back tomorrow? Surely you will have exhausted the supply of relevant tomes by then, given how quickly you devour them.
I know you are annoyed with me for pestering you with letters, when you have only gone away in the first place to unravel the threat to my kingdom, but Em, do you truly believe the answer to my stepmother’s curse may be found in a library? Particularly when you consider how little scholarship understands about my realm. After all, you once thought it quite a fearsome place, did you not? Now you know how exaggerated such accounts are.
(I gave a strangled snort at this.)
Well, if there is one person who could unearth the proverbial needle in the haystack that is the esoteric ramblings of thousands of scholars, it is you, but if you do not find an answer, please do not sit there sulking among the stacks, or waste time harassing the poor librarians, as you were wont to do at Cambridge. Just come home.
Yours, always and ever,
Wendell
Today I had a much longer letter from him, which included an update on Orga’s campaign against Lord Taran—she somehow obtained entry to the wing of the castle he shares with Callum, whereupon she shredded half of his boots, namely the left half of every pair, a remarkable display of efficiency. There were also the usual demands for my return and complaints about his sister, and the news that he had fired half the Council (“the more insufferable half”) and replaced them with mortals, which he seemed convinced I would be delighted by, though I did not have the sense that he had applied any criterion in the selection beyond a lack of faerie ancestry. It would be nice if he would include something useful in his missives—the queen’s curse is spreading every day, but how much? Perhaps he does not wish to alarm me, though it is also possible that he does not consider the information as relevant as his visit to Margret and Lilja, including an update on Margret’s progress in mastering traditional Irish baked goods.
This morning I made my way from my rented rooms to the library, stopping only to take a quick coffee and buttered scone at one of the campus cafés. (I was once able to make do without breakfast, but I have fully succumbed to the habit now, it seems.) Trinity is smaller than Cambridge, though elegant in its own right, a mix of gothic architecture jostling good-naturedly with modern brickwork, and a great deal of green lawns and quiet promenades. The library is particularly admirable, with a vaulted ceiling and warmly lit atrium, off which one may find innumerable reading rooms and shelves stretching from floor to ceiling. Though the task before me is a grim one, I have found these homely surroundings to be a balm upon my anxieties.
Yesterday I made a discovery that I believe will be of immense help in our plight, and today my goal was to cross-reference the tale in question with stories from other Irish realms. I claimed a desk and switched on the electric lamp, then took up my notebook, in which I had jotted down the shelf number and location of several volumes. Shadow, meanwhile, settled in for a nap under the desk. One of his many talents is his ability to make himself scarce; dogs are rarely welcomed in libraries, but he seemed to blend into the shadows in that corner of the room, and I did not think he would be noticed unless one looked closely.
I had to visit the special collections room again—an experience I was not anticipating—but thankfully the man who had taken such offence to me before was not working that day, and I was assisted by a kindly old woman who not only located the volume I required, but suggested I consider another book of folktales, similar in theme, which I had overlooked before, having assumed from the title that it was written in Irish. Such is the way with librarians, who are almost as unpredictable as the Folk, some minatory and persnickety, others overflowing with warmth towards humanity at large. I thanked the woman, hefted my stack (ten books in total), and made my way carefully back to my desk, sweating a little.
I did not note the passage of the hours at first. However, shortly past midday, an older scholar wearing a bowtie and carrying a handkerchief he kept wiping over his bald head established himself at the desk across from mine, despite the abundance of empty space elsewhere. Naturally, he then proceeded to hum softly under his breath as he paged through the bound volume of journals before him, occasionally muttering criticisms, usually pertaining to the shortsightedness of the authors. Glaring at this oblivious person had no effect; indeed, he only seemed to grow more loquacious, as if desiring to further impose his presence upon my sanctuary. Well, it was not as if I were trying to rescue a kingdom from destruction, and might need a little peace and quiet to think. It was like sharing office space with Professor Walters again.
After a quarter hour of this I decided I had earned a stroll upon the green; with any luck, the man would be gone when I came back. I woke Shadow, switched off my lamp, and placed my library card with its Cambridge seal upon it atop the books as evidence that I would be returning, to ward off any overindustrious shelvers. Then I wandered outside with Shadow padding at my heels.
The wind was chill, but for once it was not raining. I drew a deep breath, savouring the sense of homecoming. No, Trinity College is not Cambridge, but there is an essence shared by great universities that always puts me at ease; entering the campus grounds had felt like donning an old, cherished jumper. I adjusted my scarf and headed towards the open sunny expanse of the neighbouring green, where several students were seated on benches, taking advantage of the miserly winter warmth.
I paused for a moment in the sunlight, but the chill lingered. Now that I was away from my books, the thoughts rushed back like a flock of dark birds. I missed Wendell with a sudden and painful ache that left me short of breath, a sensation that would have surprised me had I not been experiencing it regularly, even when he’d been there beside me.
For two days after our visit to the yew grove, I’d buried myself in Irish folklore, and there I’d found the answer I sought, in all its horrifying simplicity. I’d had an inkling—of course I had.
Wendell’s death would lift the curse. Nothing more, and nothing less.
I had not known how Wendell would react when I came to tell him my theory, my hands stained with ink and my eyes red from rubbing at them. I’d found him gazing out the window of one of the castle’s many galleries, this one filled with curious wooden statues of dancers in various positions, some perfectly balanced on tiptoe, others with skirts twirling about them and arms uplifted. They looked like ordinary mortals, dressed mostly in peasant clothes, and some gave off the impression of mortal clumsiness too, even in their frozen states. I certainly hoped they were artistic renderings and nothing more sinister. Wendell does not know their origin; they have been in the castle since long before he was born. Naturally, they move when you are not looking. Just slightly, as if they are still caught in the dance, only time has slowed for them to the merest of trickles—a single finger might uncurl, a heel lift up, but that is more than enough to make me avoid the room as a general rule.
In any case, Wendell had not been in the least perturbed when I confided in him. He had nodded, and told me he had guessed as much, for he could feel the curse seeping through the realm, farther and deeper, and he had watched his blood heal the grove in the places where it fell.
“Well,” he had murmured, gazing at the forest. “At least I have seen it again.”
He must have seen my reaction in my face, for he added quickly, “Em, it is only a last resort. We will find our way out of this somehow. Have we not navigated such dangers before? I have no desire to give my stepmother the satisfaction of killing me, and still less to leave you.” He smiled. “Though I would not be surprised if you proved more adept at ruling a faerie kingdom alone than with my help.”
I was in no mood for jesting, and his calmness troubled me; I had obviously been expecting some reaction, most likely dismay, but annoyance and exasperation at the very least. I wished I could put into words the terror that had gathered within me since I worked out his stepmother’s true plot, how it only seemed to grow and grow until I feared it would take over every inch of me.
He had not needed me to explain. He had merely drawn me into his arms and held me for a long time, while the green shadow shifted beyond the window, and the dancers moved ever so slowly around us.
As I strode down the path beyond Trinity’s library, lost in unpleasant thoughts, something blue moved out of the corner of my eye. To my astonishment, I turned to see none other than Dr. Farris Rose in a navy peacoat, seated at one of the outdoor tables of the library café, waving at me.
“What on earth” was all I could sputter when I reached him.
He laughed and motioned for me to be seated. “Well, Emily!” he said, extending his hand to give Shadow a pat. “Have I surprised you? You’ve given me quite a turn yourself, you know. I’ve been here four days, enmeshed in research—when did you arrive?”
“Not three days ago,” I said. It was, I realized when I thought it over, more of a surprise that our paths had not crossed before now. No doubt Farris had also spent much of his time at this same library. “But what brings you to Dublin?”
“Ah.” He sipped his tea with a rueful sort of grimace. “Our meeting is perhaps not so much of a coincidence as I implied. I did not know you would be here. But Ariadne—well, something in your recent letter to her piqued my academic interest. And what better place than Trinity to research the Silva Lupi? Naturally the lion’s share of scholarship on the Irish realms is held within those walls.” He gestured at the library towering behind us.
“Ariadne shared my letter,” I repeated. I did not know whether to be annoyed or embarrassed—should I have written to Farris as well? Our relationship has come a long way from what it was before Austria, but someone like Farris Rose will never not be intimidating, and I confess I cannot imagine writing to him of my troubles, as I would a friend. What if he took offence at the presumption? I have ever been a poor judge of such things.
“We were spending the day on the huntsmen project when the letter arrived,” he explained. “The girl was much perturbed by its contents, and could not help but share them with me.”
“I see.” Following our Austria expedition, Farris took Ariadne on as one of his research assistants—quite an honour; he ordinarily has two or three assistants, but never has he employed an undergraduate before. Currently, they are working on a paper on the hunting patterns of the elder huntsmen, which the four of us had the misfortune to meet in St. Liesl.
Farris flagged down the waiter, who brought me a cup and refilled the pot. Farris waited until he had gone back inside before continuing, “I suspect you left out many of the details of what you are facing in Bambleby’s realm. Am I correct?”
I looked away. Yes, I had given Ariadne only an abbreviated version of what had transpired since Wendell and I returned to Faerie. I had made it sound as if Queen Arna were more of a temporary nuisance than a threat, to avoid worrying the girl.
I could tell that Farris was holding back questions. The lines in his face—scholars’ lines, mostly between the brows and around the eyes, from frowning down at books—were sharper with suppressed tension, and suddenly I wanted nothing more than to tell him everything. And so I did.
Farris listened intently at first, then held up a hand with an “If you don’t mind?” He rummaged around in his pockets until he unearthed his glasses, settled them on the bridge of his nose, and opened the little notebook he’d placed beside him on the table.
“Please continue,” he said.
He did not attempt to steer the direction of my tale, though I went off course several times, providing far too much detail on extraneous matters (the ghastly oaks being one of these); he merely listened, jotting notes in his shorthand. Occasionally he would ask me to clarify something, but that was all. He might have been taking notes at a conference. I felt oddly comforted by the whole thing.
“This curse,” he said when I came to the end of the story. “It is worsening, then?”
“Every day it spreads to a new grove or moor,” I said. “Those that are not promptly burnt only grow larger. If we cannot put a stop to it, the realm will become a wasteland.”
Saying it out loud had an effect upon me that was like hearing Queen Arna’s name for the first time; it was a destabilizing feeling, like standing on the precipice of a great height. I realized that I had not said it before, the potential consequence of our failure, not even to myself. It did not feel real. Wendell and I had worked so hard to find a way back to his world—that all our efforts should have brought us to this!
I wished Wendell were with me, which was completely irrational, of course—he would not be of any practical help, and was needed in Faerie.
“The central problem,” I said, “is that the realm has two monarchs. Queen Arna has not formally abdicated the throne, nor has she been killed. As a half-mortal woman, she is no match for Wendell, but as a monarch of Faerie, she has access to magics other Folk might not even comprehend. Thus the strength of her curse.”
“Fascinating,” Farris said. I did not take offence to the excitement in his voice, recognizing it for scholarly enthusiasm and nothing more. “Other realms have fallen into states of decay due to curses and suchlike, but this situation strikes me as unique.”
I frowned as a thought occurred to me. “You must have left Cambridge directly after reading my letter.”
“Naturally!” he said, becoming preoccupied with the sugar. “What could be of greater scholarly interest than the inner workings of the Silva Lupi?”
If I hadn’t known him better, I would have thought he was being dismissive; but Farris, I know now, often gives off an impression of rudeness when he is flustered. I looked down at my own cup, blushing a little and feeling dreadfully awkward. He had abandoned his own research, as well as the graduate seminar he was teaching on Renaissance faerie art, and come all this way in the hopes of assisting me, and he had done so at the drop of a hat. And here I’d been worried about whether I would be taking liberties in writing him a letter.
“It is—an intriguing conundrum,” I finally said lamely.
Farris affected not to notice. “Indeed! Your travails in the Silva Lupi are rivalled only by Blake’s wanderings in Orkney.”
And just like that, we were back on ground more comfortable to the both of us. “Poor Blake,” I said. “It is a pity he never finished his book.” [*1]
“We should locate Ariadne,” Farris said. “She would be disappointed to be left out of this conversation.”
“She’s here?”
“Naturally. Since your foray into the Silva Lupi, she has become something of an expert on the subject—reads everything she can get her hands on. She is talking of specializing in Irish dryadology, though I have warned her against deciding on such things so early in her career…Anyhow, I could not very well leave her behind, all things considered.”
He made a dismissive gesture at the end of this vague statement, and I understood. Ariadne too had been eager to help me! Here I had thought that Wendell and I were navigating this path alone, with his magic and my ingenuity our only defences against a realm teeming with monsters. Yet here were two people who had crossed a sea to assist us.
I took a swallow of tea. “Where is the girl, anyway?” I said in a gruff voice.
“The museum,” Farris replied. “They have a fine collection of faerie stones and other artefacts—she had an idea that the stones might function as weapons against this Queen Arna. Several stories from that part of the country feature them, and why leave any stone unturned, pun intended. Let us go and seek her out.”
—
It took only a quarter hour or so to locate Ariadne—Trinity’s Museum of the Good Folk is a tall, narrow building [*2] of stone and ivy a short walk from the library, with an entire floor dedicated to the realms of the country’s southwest. The girl was hunched over a notebook on a flat bench across from the faerie stone display, a pensive look on her round, freckled face. She gave a cry of delight and astonishment when she saw me, and needed several reassurances that I had arrived by train, in the human fashion, and had not stepped out of one of the dozen or so faerie doors on display in the museum.
“Come,” Farris said, “let us go somewhere more private before we continue our discussion.”
We made our way to Farris’s lodgings in Scholars’ Square. He had been given one of the larger suites, as is customarily afforded to the most eminent visiting scholars, which included a sunny reception room facing another handsome library, this one dedicated to literature and the humanities. Ariadne had a childhood friend studying at Trinity, and was staying in her flat.
Farris made tea in his small kitchen—we had just had it, of course, he and I, but I made no objection and sipped mine gratefully, warming my chilled hands against the cup. “So,” he said, settling himself by the fire, “these corrupted groves may be healed with a little bloodletting. Well, that has precedent in the literature, doesn’t it? ‘The Winding Ways of Tatty Tom,’ for instance.”
“That is a Scots tale,” I said. “It is often attributed to the Irish due to its erroneous inclusion in Baker’s Evergreen Ballads. [*3] Wendell’s blood will not heal his realm, for by now there is too much corruption in it, and each time he heals one grove, his stepmother will poison another.”
Farris’s wiry white eyebrows had pushed closer and closer together until they were touching. “You are not thinking of ‘The Shoemaker and His Lost Queen’?”
“I am,” I said. “As well as ‘The Winter Gardener.’ [*4] In theme, the two tales are nearly identical, despite their differing origins—Wendell’s situation makes three. It seems clear that the only way to end the curse the old queen has inflicted upon Wendell’s realm is for him to sacrifice himself. To die. A little blood may heal half an acre; only his life will heal the realm.”
There was a silence.
“It is a neatly constructed vengeance on Queen Arna’s part,” Farris said slowly. “One cannot argue with that. The faerie rulers of old would applaud her.”
I gave a ghost of a laugh. It was relief I felt, more than anything else, to be able to discuss this ghastly revelation with my fellow scholars, as if it were merely some academic riddle to be scribbled upon a blackboard and coldly analyzed. “I have no doubt.”
“I suppose, as she has somehow tied herself to the land, she would be healed as well,” he continued in a musing voice. “And, with her stepson out of the way, free to assume the throne once more.”
“That I cannot say for certain, but it is plausible.”
“It cannot be,” Ariadne burst out. She had been watching Farris and me, seeming to grow more and more astonished by our detachment. “Professor Bambleby must be able to heal his realm some other way. He—” She broke off, biting her lip.
Now, Wendell is not really a professor anymore; though he was granted leave from Cambridge, supposedly to conduct an in-depth investigation of the Hidden Ones of Ljosland—a plausible story, given that he and I were the first scholars to conclusively document their existence—this was mainly to provide an explanation for his eventual disappearance from the mortal world, hopefully preventing anyone from going looking for him. But I did not correct her.
“I don’t believe he can,” I said. “In fact, Wendell has come to the same conclusion—that only by giving his life will he drive out his stepmother’s poison, and stop it from destroying the realm.”
Farris rubbed his face. “Then there is no other way for the curse to be lifted.”
“I do not believe that is the correct concern,” I said. “Yes, Wendell’s life is the antidote, but what is more effective than finding antidotes?”
Ariadne’s face lit up. “Stopping the poisoner.”
“Precisely. The problem is that Queen Arna has spirited herself away so effectively that none of our scouts have been able to track her. She is somewhere within the Silva Lupi, of course, or she would not be able to damage it so, but the Silva Lupi is vast, and not merely in the mortal sense, for it is full of shifting landscapes and layered in enchantments. It would take Wendell years to scour it all. So that is the mystery I am attempting to unravel: Where has she gone? How can we find her?”
I opened my briefcase and removed the book I had smuggled out of the special collections section. (I am aware that I am getting into a bad habit with this sort of thing, but I would be returning the volume before I left Dublin; also, I looked through the records, and not one scholar has requested it in over a year.)
“I have been combing through the folklore of County Leane, from which we have most of our tales of the Silva Lupi,” I said. “It took some time, but I believe I have come across a tale that describes a situation similar to our own. From what I have been able to glean, it was first recorded in 1480 by a theologian named Geoffrey Molloy—this was before the invention of dryadology as a discipline, as you know, and thus many of our sources are from the Church.” [*5]
I handed Farris the book, and he opened it to the page I had marked. “The only problem,” I continued, “is that Molloy was recording from the oral tradition, and many such tales are fragmentary. Including this one.”
“?‘Kinge Macan’s Bees,’?” Farris read. “I’m not familiar withit.”
“Few are, I suspect. But I must try to track down the complete version; perhaps more fragments have been preserved by another theologian.”
“Hm!” Farris said. He adjusted his glasses on his nose and peered at the book. Ariadne read over his shoulder. There followed a few moments of quiet, the only sounds coming from Shadow snoring by the fire and the boards creaking overhead as another lodger walked about. I restrained myself from tapping my foot in impatience.
“Interesting,” Farris said at last. He handed Ariadne the book so that she could continue reading. “I see why it caught your interest. The curse, the former monarch being chased out by a new one, etcetera—it certainly follows the pattern of current events. Then you think it might provide you with some clue for locating Queen Arna?”
“That is the hope,” I said. “You know the importance of stories to the Folk.”
He murmured assent. “Well! We shall see if we can’t find the rest of it.”
“I should—you need not—” I began, stumbling to a stop. At last I said simply, “Thank you.”
“Thank yourself!” Farris said, smiling. “Our foray into the Alps has advanced our understanding of Faerie by a decade or more; I should be pleading with you to allow me to help. I am beginning to feel, Emily, that simply following you about from place to place would afford me enough scientific discoveries to make my career all over again. Well, Russell-Brown and Eliades had their hangers-on, did they not?” [*6]
I affected interest in stirring my tea. Certainly I am proud of my achievements, but I am no Russell-Brown or Eliades, and the idea that Farris placed me in the category of those luminaries was overwhelming. I decided to assume, for my own comfort, that he was flattering me.
Ariadne had been watching both of us. She had not touched her tea and was wringing her hands in her lap. I looked at her, waiting. Finally, she burst out, “But you must tell us about the Silva Lupi!”
I laughed, surprised. “You have seen it yourself, Ari!”
“I know,” she said, laughing sheepishly along with us. “But—I only saw it from a distance, if you understand me.”
“I do.” I took up one of the biscuits on the tea tray and tapped it absently against my cup. “Where shall I begin?”
Skip Notes
*1 William Blake (a distant cousin of the poet of the same name) was a Scottish dryadologist born in 1655. Dryadology was in its infancy then, particularly in this corner of the world, and little was known about the Scottish faerie kingdoms, at least eleven of which have been documented today. In 1690, Blake had the misfortune to stumble into the darkest of these, the Oram Pluvia, which to this day has been so little studied that some scholars argue its existence remains in question. There the mad queen took a fancy to him and made him her consort, forcing him to share her throne. From his letters to his sister Jane, also a dryadologist, which he managed somehow to smuggle out of Faerie, Blake seems to have initially viewed his capture as a triumph for scholarship. As the years passed, however, he attempted escape multiple times, sometimes with the assistance of the mortals of the region, finally succeeding in 1699. He spent a year travelling much of Europe, speaking of his experience at the most august institutions. His health, however—both mental and physical—had declined to such an extent that it is difficult to know how much of his account is truth, for he often contradicted himself, weaving elaborate tales of both revelry and torment that he would later disown. Against the urgings of his friends and family, Blake returned to Orkney in 1700 to collect faerie stories from the locals, likely in the hopes of refuting his critics. He spent a comfortable night at an inn on Orkney Mainland and departed the following morn for a “short stroll” in the countryside, from which he never returned.
*2 The building’s construction was predicated on an old belief that the Folk dislike stairs, which likely arose from the fact that many household brownies in Ireland sleep in the walls adjacent to the hearth, which is generally found on the ground floor.
*3 First edition: Cambridge University Press, 1741.
*4 Both tales are commonly told throughout Ireland, though “The Winter Gardener” is thought to be a French import. In “The Shoemaker and His Lost Queen,” a humble but talented shoemaker is abducted into Faerie by boglelike creatures before being rescued by the queen of the realm, initially out of admiration for his craft, though they eventually fall in love and are married. The queen’s realm is dying, however, for in her youth the queen had denied hospitality to a travelling peddler, who later revealed himself as a powerful and ancient member of the courtly fae and placed her realm under a curse. Initially, the queen’s kindness towards the shoemaker seems to lift the curse, but eventually the queen tires of him for shallow reasons and casts him out. At this point, she learns that the shoemaker was only another guise for the vengeful traveller, who had returned to see if the queen had improved her character. He informs the queen that only her death can lift the curse now, and so the queen takes her own life, which heals the realm.
“The Winter Gardener” is a similar tale, with the titular gardener replacing the shoemaker, but in this story, the gardener is merely a mortal woman who does not possess a secret identity. After the queen sacrifices herself to save her realm, the gardener plants a snowdrop over her grave, which grows as large as a tree and scatters its seeds across the realm; the tale is often used as an explanation for the perceived advantages of Irish snowdrops over those of other countries.
*5 Due to the medieval belief that the Folk are rebel angels who managed to escape from Hell.
*6 Robert Russell-Brown (1832–1880) proposed the classification system for the Folk that is still in use today, took the first photographs of a faerie market, and stole a goblet from one of the kings of Yorkshire, among other exploits, though today some argue his contribution to scholarship has been exaggerated due to contemporary admiration for his derring-do. Nikos Eliades (1551–1610), considered by many to be the father of dryadology, was the first scholar to establish a working relationship with one of the Folk, a dryad named Lani, who gave him several faerie stones and a poem written in Faie, among other enchanted trinkets, all of which are currently housed in Athens’s Museum of Faeries.