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One beautiful day, at dawn, Gaetano went to the Magical Stinging Nettle wood with his wicker basket and stick, to pick wild herbs and some mushrooms.
Gaetano liked walking in the forest, listening to the murmur of the trees and smelling the scents of nature that the fresh air transported.
On that day, one scent stood out from all the others and Gaëtan, intrigued, followed it until he came upon a small clearing, inundated with light from the early morning’s sun rays. In the middle of the clearing stood a century old oak tree. Here, the scent became even more intense : suspended on one of the lower branches, a piece of sky blue material was gently swinging in the breeze.
Gaetano went closer, took it gently in his big hands and held it against his face, smiling.
« I recognise it ! It’s the smell of fairies!”
STORY OF THE MAGIC SHAWL
Once upon a time, a long time ago, there was a small village nestled on the slope of the Big Blue Mountains. It’s inhabitants cultivated the land and raised animals ; they were always very cautious and carefully kept their distance from the neighbouring Magic Wood, which, apparently, was inhabited by mysterious creatures.
They say, that on inky dark nights with no moon, spirits would come out of the wood and wander along the village streets, leaving behind them the smell of flowers. No-one knew if they were good or bad, but the inhabitants were afraid of almost everything that they didn’t know and they invented horrible stories to frighten the children and keep them far away from the wood.
Beyond the Magic Wood, in the middle of a clearing, stood a small; grey stone house, where a man and a woman who were deeply in love, had lived for years.
One stormy night, when thunder and lightening were shaking the earth and the sky and the wind was bending the trees, the man and woman heard someone hurriedly knocking on the door. They rushed to open it and found at their feet a bundle of sky blue velvet, in which a new born baby girl was wrapped, crying with hunger and shaking with cold. Around her head, she was wearing a small crown of small white flowers.
The man and woman knew that only fairies wrapped their children in material of that colour and that also knew how much fairies loved these immaculate flowers. They understood straight away that the little girl belonged to the world of fairies.
"It’s a present from the Wood! Our prayers have been answered and we have been given a baby to love and cherish as if she were our own daughter.”
The man and woman, effectively, had always dreamt of having children but had never managed. They welcomed the little girl with all immense love and called her Violette.
The years went by very quickly and Violette grew up beautiful and healthy, she had bright red hair and brilliant emerald green eyes. She played happily in the clearing in front of the house between the flowers and butterflies. To see her, one could imagine that she knew how to speak to the animals and to read the in the skies. She often spent a long time observing the Magic Wood. Her parents had always told her not to get too close because it was haunted by wicked spirits, but her instinct un-explicably drew her to the edge of the wood, but she would always run back to the cottage as soon as she remembered her parents’ warning.
One cursed day, the woman began to feel ill and very quickly she became very sick. One evening she called Violette to her bedside and with her husband she softly spoke to her :
« My child, I feel that I’m going to die very soon but before that happens we have to tell you the truth. We are not your real parents. A desperate soul trusted you to us so that we could bring you up as our own daughter surrounded by love and happiness. We found you wrapped in this blue material. A small crown of little white flowers around your head…… Your real mother is ……” But she died before she could finish her sentence.
The man, in tears, covered his face with his hands and in despair, Violette, in tears, ran away, taking with her the blue shawl. When she’d finished running she found herself, as if by magic, in the middle of the Magic Wood.Everything was calm, immobile, silent. She curled up between the roots of a big oak tree and fell asleep crying.
When she woke up she found herself in the arms of a magnificent fairy with flaming long hair and bright green eyes : « My sweet little girl », she said with a warm and emotional voice “you’ve come back at last”. Violette looked at her fascinated. The fairy started to tell her : You were born on a stormy night, you were a small ball of pink silk – your father was a magnificent young man, the handsomest in the village. Our love was strong and our happiness immense when we learnt that you were coming. But when the people discovered our relationship and the fruit of our unnatural union, in their eyes, they cam hunting for us to kill us. Your father lost his life trying to defend us and I was obliged to abandon you so that you had a chance of survival. I knew the couple to whom I entrusted you and knew that they would love you more than their lives, which was what happened and the magic blue shawl protected you, she concluded hugging the blue material to her chest.
Violette listened and cried in silence. The fairy, stroking her hair, asked her worriedly :
"Why are you crying my dear? Are you not happy that we’ve found each other and that we can stay together forever.”
Violette replied :
"Mother dear, all this has been a lot of emotion and profound happiness …. but the woman that brought me up with so much love is now lying lifeless in her bed and the man who looked after me like a father, with so much affection, is sitting heart-broken next to her. All that sorrows me more than anything else".
The fairy looked tenderly at her daughter and said to her :
"Let’s go home, my daughter, let your magic tears fall onto the woman’s lips and she’ll come to life. Then cover her stomach with the velvet shawl that the fairies wrapped you in such a long time ago, and in nine months she’ll give birth to a child who will fill their lives with love and happiness. It’s my present to thank them for bringing you up and loving you so much”.
Violette rushed back to the house where she crept in without making a noise; the man was still sitting at his wife’s bedside, near the weak firelight coming from the chimney. When she leant over the pallid face of the woman, three tears fell onto the woman’s lips which immediately became pink and her eyes opened.
She looked at the girl with love and when the girl placed the shawl on her stomach she felt a warmth invade her. Violette told her :
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