Виктория Холт: On the Night of the Seventh Moon

“Yes. I mean just that. It’s the way we live. We have met in the mist; you are here; we can talk together while the mist lasts. Let us not think beyond that. “

“I’ll try,” I said.

“Because quite frankly I find it very depressing to contemplate all the fuss there’ll be when I get back.”

“Then you see I am right.” He lifted his glass.

“Tonight,” he said.

“The devil take tomorrow.”

I drank with him. The wine warmed my throat and I felt the colour flushing my cheeks.

“Although,” I said severely, ‘it is not a philosophy of which the nuns would approve. “

“The nuns are for tomorrow. We mustn’`t let them intrude tonight.”

“I can’t help thinking of poor Schwester Maria. Mutter will scold her.

“You shouldn’`t have taken that Helena Trant,” she will say.

“There is always trouble where she is” “

“And is there?” he asked.

“It seems to work out that way.”

He laughed.

“But you are different from the others. I’m sure of that.

You were telling me that your mother was here. “

“It was a beautiful story; and now it has become a sad one. They met in the forest and they fell in love and lived happily ever after until she died, that is. There was great opposition to the marriage but they overcame it, and it all turned out so right. But she is dead now and Father is alone.”

“He has you when you are not far away at the Damenstift or roaming the forest in the mist.”

I grimaced.

“They were always lovers rather than parents. Lovers don’t want intruders and even children can be that.”

“The conversation is growing a little sad,” he said, ‘and this is a time for gaiety. “

“What! With me lost and the nuns frantic and wondering how they are going to break the news to my father that I am lost in the forest.”

“You’ll be back with them before they have time to send the message.”

“But I hardly think we should be gay when they will be so worried.”

“If we can do no good by worrying we should be gay. That’s wisdom.”

“I suppose you are very wise, Siegfried.”

“Well, Siegfried was, wasn’`t he?”

“I’m not so sure. It could all have worked out so much better with Brynhild if he had been a little more clever.”

“I suppose your mother told you the legends of our forests.”

“She talked about it when we were together sometimes. I loved the stories of Thor and his hammer. Do you know the one where he went to sleep with his hammer beside him and one of the giants came and stole it and they said that they would only give it back if the Goddess Freya became the bride of the Prince of the Giants? So Thor dressed up as the Goddess and when they laid the hammer on his lap, he grasped it, threw off his disguise and slew them all. So he came back to the land of the gods with his hammer.”

He laughed with me.

“It was not strictly honest, I must say,” I went on.

“And those giants must have been rather blind to have mistaken Thor for a beautiful goddess.”

“Disguises can deceive.”

“Surely not to that extent.”

“Do have some more of this. It’s Hildegarde’s very special sauerkraut.

Do you like it? “

“Delicious,” I said.

“I’m delighted that you have such a good appetite.”

“Tell me about yourself. I’ve told you about me.”

He spread his hands.

“You know that I was in the forest hunting boar.”

“Yes, but is this your home?”

“It’s my shooting lodge.”

“So you don’t actually live here?”

“When I am hunting in this area I do.”

“But where is your home?”

“Some miles from here.”

“What do you do?”

“I help look after my father’s lands.”

“He’s a sort of landowner with an estate to look after. I know.”

He asked me about myself and I was soon telling him of Aunt Caroline and Aunt Matilda.

“The ogresses,” he called them. He was amused about the greyhound story.

He talked about the forest and I knew that it fascinated him as it did me. He agreed that there was an enchantment about it which comes through so clearly in the fairy stories. From my childhood I had been aware of the forest through my mother’s accounts of it and he had lived near it; so it was agreeable to be with someone who understood my feelings as he so clearly did.

He was interested that I could recount stories of the gods and heroes who, long, long ago, legend had it, lived in the forests when the lands of the north were one and the gods ruled in the days before Christ was born and brought Christianity to the world; then the heroes of the north lived and died-men like Siegfried, Balder and Beowulf, and one could often believe that these spirits still existed in the heart of the forest. His conversation fascinated me. He told me the story of Balder the beautiful who was so good that his mother the Goddess Frigg made every beast and plant of the forest take an oath not to harm him. There was one exception the evergreen plant with the yellow-green flowers and white berries. The mistletoe was hurt and angry because the gods had condemned it to be a parasite and Loke the mischievous god had known this, and had thrown the twig of this parasite sharp as an arrow at Balder. It pierced his heart and killed him. The lamentation of the gods was great.

I sat drinking in his words, glowing with the excitement of the adventure, a little light-headed from unaccustomed wine and more excited than I had ever been in my life.

“Loke was the God of Mischief,” he told me.

“The All-Father often had occasion to punish him, for Odin was good and it was only when his wrath was roused that he was terrible. Have you visited the Odenwald?

No? Then you must one day. It’s Odin’s Forest and in this country we have this Lokenwald which is said to be Loke’s Forest. And here in this neighbourhood only we celebrate the Night of the Seventh Moon when mischief is abroad and is routed with the coming of dawn. It’s an excuse for one of our local celebrations. You’re getting sleepy. “

“No. no. I don’t want to be. I’m enjoying it all too much.”

“You have ceased to fret about tomorrow, I’m glad to notice.”

“Now you have reminded me.”

“I’m sorry. Let’s change the subject quickly. Did you know your Queen quite recently visited our forest?”

“Yes, of course. I believe the forest enchanted her, but this is the home of her husband. She loves the Prince as my father loved my mother.”

“How can you know-you who are so young and inexperienced?”

“There are things one knows instinctively.”

“About devotion?”

“Love,” I said.

“The great love of Tristan and Iseult, of Abelard and Heloise, of Siegfried and Brynhild.”

“Legends,” he said.

“Real life may not be like that.”

“And my parents,” I continued, ignoring him, ‘and the Queen and her Consort. “

“We should consider ourselves honoured that your great Queen married one of our German princes.”

“I believe she felt herself honoured.”

“Not by his position, by the man.”

“Well, there are so many German princes and dukes and little kingdoms.”

“One day there will be one mighty Empire. The Prussians are determined on that.” He went on: “But let us talk of more intimate matters.”

“I have the wishbone,” I cried.

“Now we can wish.”

I was delighted that he had not heard of the custom, so I explained it to him.

“You each take an end by your little finger and pull. You wish and the one with the larger portion gets the wish.”

“Shall we try it?”

We did.

“Now wish,” I said. And I thought, I want this to go on and on. But that was a stupid wish. Of course it could not go on and on.

The night had to pass. I had to go back to the convent. At least I could wish that we met again. So that was what I wished.