The Power of Love

Once upon a time, in a land far, far away, there lived a young man in a noble household. Now this young man was a younger son, so while he had learned all he needed to run his father's estates, he had no inheritance coming to him.

It so happened that as the young man started thinking about going out into the world, he started receiving dreams of a beautiful princess. The dreams came night after night, and in them the princess called out for her one true love to come help her save her kingdom. She was always in her bower, but moving around as if she were trying to get out. As the weeks wore on, the princess started to address the young man personally, and begged him to help her. The dreams tugged at the heart of the young man, and he decided to set off on a journey to go help the princess.

The night after the young man had made his decision, the princess appeared in his dreams again, but this time gave him a set of directions: “go east, east, and further east” she called. “Walk towards the rising sun until you reach the great forest. You will need to go through the forest to reach my kingdom, but I can help you up until there.” With a last pleading look, the princess and her bower faded from the young man's dream.

And so the young man woke up before the dawn, packed his bag, and started walking into the rising sun. He walked for days, sleeping cold in his bedroll, but the princess visited his dreams every night urging him “east, east with haste”. Late one afternoon, the young man finally reached the edge of the forest. Looking at the setting sun, he decided to camp on the edges and start his way through in the morning.

That night the princess visited his dreams again, but this time she expressed worry for the young man, and not for her kingdom. “You have been brave to come this far” she said, “but I fear this forest will test your courage as nothing has every done before. Make haste to the other side – you only have until the third sundown after you enter to reach the other side of the forest, and you will not walk unopposed. I may not guide you, and I will not see you again until you enter my realm.” Leaning down, the princess kissed the young man and left two objects beside him. The young man slept peacefully through the rest of the night.

Waking just before the light of false dawn, the young man rolled over to find the two objects the princess had left him in his dreams. He picked them up, and stared with confusion at the sparkly rock and the cluster of small red berries. Shrugging, he pocketed the items and set off into the forest.

The day passed fairly uneventfully, but still the young man was jumpy. He took a short break for lunch and dinner, but kept walking until sundown. Following game trails, he slowly wound his way deeper and deeper into the forest.

As the sun went down, the forest started to transform. Shadows lengthened and animals called to one another, startling the young man. The trees seemed to come alive and grow claws which reached out to grab him. He panicked, beginning to run blindly through the forest. Tree branches tore at his cloak and clothes shredding them to pieces. He crashed through the brush, completely loosing the trail and all sense of direction. Owls and bats swooped out of the darkness and seemed to try to tear the hair straight out of his head. The young man finally tripped over a root and went flying, the rock the princess had given him falling out of his pocket.

As soon as the young man hit the ground, the rock started to glow. Scrambling along the ground, too scared to stand up, the young man grabbed the rock only to have it's glow increase. In moments the surrounding area was lit to a comfortable brightness, and the natural night sounds ceased to cause the young man to panic. Much calmer, he found a hollow between two tree branches and curled up to sleep until morning.

The next morning dawned with a red sky, and the young man started off early, determined to get to the princess as fast as possible. By mid-morning, however, it had begun to rain. Starting off as an incessant drizzle, it slowly increased to a downpour as the day wore on. The young man forced himself to keep moving, knowing that he had only until sundown the next day to make it through the forest. He started clambering over a rocky hill, trying to take the quickest and most direct route possible to the far side of the forest.

The rain, however, has made the rocks more slippery than normal. Although the young man tries his best to keep his balance, he slippes many times and adds to the collections of cuts and scrapes he had gotten from his blind run through the trees. He climbs up, up and up, and then begins the descent down the other side. He's almost sitting down to keep his balance, when suddenly he slips. His leg goes into a crevasse, and then is jerked swiftly out when the young mans slips again. Looking down, he noticed a deep cut streaming blood.

Desperately, the young man pulls out the princess's other gift. Staring blankly at the small red berries, he almost gives in to despair before the most curious thing happens. A tingling starts in the young man's fingers, where he is holding the berries, and he is shocked to notice the cuts on his hand closing up where the juice from the berries has touched. Quickly, he crushes the berries and rubs the juice over the cut on his leg and on as many other cuts as he can find. Watching the berry juice do its work, the young man crawls into a shelter in the rocks, pulls his cloak about him, and goes to sleep hoping the princess would visit him in his dreams.

The next dawn arrives and passes and the rain stops, with no movement from the young man. It isn't until mid-morning that he awakes and is startled to see how much of the day has already passed. The forest feels different to him though, and for the first time he realizes that he might actually make it through the forest before sundown. Starting out into the forest, the young man adopts a brisk pace to try to make up for oversleeping.

Mid-afternoon the young man comes to a wide river, swollen from the previous day's rain. Knowing he will not be able to swim across, the young man turns to find a path along the river only to see that he is surrounded by a pack of wolves attracted by the blood on his clothes. Startled and scared, the young man backs up to the edge of the cliff as the wolves advance towards him, bellies low to the ground in a hunting position. Just as the first wolf is about to pounce, the cliff, sodden from the rain and the swollen river, collapses beneath the young man taking him and the foremost wolf down into the river. The young man's last action before the world goes black is to pull himself onto a passing branch in the swirling current.



The young man has no recollection of the next days. He vaguely remembers being picked up and moved, and then placed back down onto something soft, but the world was overwhelmingly hazy.

Three days after his fall into the river, the young man awoke to find himself in the exact same bower he had been dreaming about, with the princess sitting in a chair by his bed. Looking over, the princess noticed he was awake and started in surprise. “My love!” she exclaims, “you've come to save us! I knew you would do it.”

Uncertain of what to do, the young man nevertheless rises from his bed, takes the princess's hand, and sets off to settle the unrest in her kingdom. During the many years of hard work the young man and the princess fall in love, and finally marry when they have made their kingdom safe again. They retired to their castle to live out theirs years in peace and happiness, governing wisely and raising their flock of children.