Astrid Lindgren, illustrated by Ilon Wikland, translated from the Swedish by Jill Morgan

by Astrid Lindgren

  But then I heard something. Yes, I heard something. I heard a whisper down in the well! A whisper began deep, deep down in the well. It was such a strange voice, unlike any other voice. It whispered fairy tales. They weren’t like any other fairy tales, and they were the most beautiful stories in the whole world. There was almost nothing that I loved more than listening to fairy tales, so I lay down flat on my stomach, leaning over the edge of the well to hear more and more of the voice that whispered. Sometimes it sang too, the strangest and most beautiful songs.

  “What strange kind of well is this?” I said to Totty.

  “A well full of fairy tales and songs. That’s all I know,” said Totty. “A well full of old stories and songs that have existed in the world for a long time, but that people forgot a long time ago. It is only the Well That Whispers at Night that remembers them all.”

  I don’t know how long we sat there. It got darker among the trees, and the voice from the well became fainter and fainter. At last we heard it no more.

  Away in the green pastures I heard Miramis neighing. He probably wanted to remind me that I needed to hurry home to my father the King.

  “Good-bye, Totty. Good-bye, Minonna-Nell. Good-bye, everyone,” I said.

  “Good-bye, Mio. Good-bye, Pompoo,” said Totty. “Come back soon!”

  “Yes, we’ll come again soon,” I promised.

  We called Miramis and climbed up on his back, and he set off for home at a full gallop. It wasn’t so dark now. The moon had risen up in the sky and shone over all the green pastures and over all the silent trees, which looked silver now, exactly like the poplars at home in my father the King’s Garden of Roses.

  We came to the Bridge of Morninglight, but I hardly recognized it. It looked quite different, as if it were made of silver rays.

  “It has another name at night,” said Pompoo as we rode up onto the bridge.

  “What is it called at night?” I asked.

  “The Bridge of Moonlight,” he answered.

  We rode over the Bridge of Moonlight that would soon be drawn up by the guards and far away we saw the shepherds’ fires on Greenfields Island which looked like small lamps. The whole world was completely, completely silent and the only sound was the thunder of hooves against the bridge. Miramis almost looked like a phantom horse in the moonlight and his mane was no longer a golden mane but a silver mane.

  I thought about the Well That Whispers at Night and of all the stories I had heard. There was a special one I liked. It started like this: “Once upon a time there was a king’s son riding in the moonlight. . . .”

  Just imagine, that could’ve been me! After all, I was a King’s son.

  We came closer and closer to Greenfields Island, and Miramis’s hooves thundered on. The whole time I thought of the fairy tale and how beautiful it was: “Once upon a time there was a king’s son riding in the moonlight. . . .”

  He Rode Through the Forest of Moonbeams

  WHEN I LIVED with Uncle Olaf and Aunt Hulda I used to borrow books of fairy tales from the library. Aunt Hulda didn’t like it much.

  “You’ve got your nose in a book again,” she’d say. “That’s why you’re small and pitiful and frail—because you won’t go out with the other children.”

  Of course I went out—I was almost always out. Aunt Hulda and Uncle Olaf preferred that I would never come in. Surely they’re glad now, I think. Now that I’ll never come in any more.

  It was only in the evening that I tried to read a little, and that couldn’t be the reason I was so frail. Aunt Hulda should see how big and strong and healthy I am now. I could beat Johnny with one hand tied behind my back if I were back home now on North Street. But I wouldn’t do that, because I don’t want to.

  I wonder what Aunt Hulda would say if she heard about the Well That Whispers at Night. If she found out that you don’t have to sit with your nose in a book to read fairy tales, but that you can stay out in the fresh air and still hear as many stories as you want. Maybe Aunt Hulda would think it was fine, even though she was never satisfied with anything.

  Yes, if she only knew that in Farawayland there’s a well that whispers fairy tales.

  “Once upon a time there was a king’s son riding in the moonlight. He rode through the Forest of Moonbeams. . . .”

  That’s what the well had said. I couldn’t stop thinking about it. It seemed as if the well had meant something special by that story. That I was the king’s son who had once ridden through the Forest of Moonbeams, and that I must do it again. The well had spoken and sung to me for the whole evening just to remind me of what I must do.

  I asked my father the King if he knew where the Forest of Moonbeams was.

  “The Forest of Moonbeams is in the Land Beyond the Mountains,” he said, and his voice sounded melancholy. “Why do you want to know, Mio, my son?”

  “Tonight I want to ride there when the moon is shining,” I said.

  My father the King looked at me intently. “Oh, so soon?” he sighed, and his voice sounded even more melancholy.

  “Maybe you don’t want me to,” I said. “Maybe you’ll be worried that I’m out riding in the Forest of the Moonbeams at night.”

  My father the King shook his head. “No, why should I be?” he said. “A forest sleeping peacefully in the moonlight isn’t dangerous.”

  He sat silently after that, with his head in his hands and I could see he was unhappy. I went to him and put my arms around his shoulders to comfort him and said, “Do you want me to stay home with you?”

  He looked at me for a long time with sad eyes.

  “No, Mio, my son, you shouldn’t stay. The moon has risen, and the Forest of Moonbeams awaits you.”

  “Are you sure you won’t be worried?” I asked.

  “Yes, I’m sure,” he said, touching me gently on the head. Then I ran to ask Pompoo if he wanted to come with me to the Forest of Moonbeams. But after I’d taken a few steps, my father the King shouted to me, “Mio, my son!”

  I turned around and there he stood with his arms stretched out toward me and I rushed back to him and threw myself into his arms. He held me tightly, tightly for a long time.

  “I’ll come right back,” I said.

  “Will you?” said my father the King, and his voice wasn’t much more than a whisper.

  I found Pompoo outside the Master Rose Gardener’s cottage and told him I was going to ride through the Forest of Moonbeams.

  “Oh, at last!” said Pompoo.

  I didn’t understand why my father the King said, “Oh, so soon?” and Pompoo, “Oh, at last!” when I told them I wanted to ride through the Forest of Moonbeams, but I didn’t worry about it.

  “Are you coming?” I asked.

  Pompoo took a deep breath. “Yes,” he said. “Yes, yes!”

  We called Miramis, who was grazing in the Garden of Roses, and I told him that he must take us to the Forest of Moonbeams. Miramis started prancing as if it was the best thing he’d heard in a long time, and as soon as Pompoo and I sat on his back he shot off like a streak of lightning.

  As we rode out of the Garden of Roses I heard my father the King shout. “Mio, my son!” he cried, and it was the saddest voice I’d ever heard. But I couldn’t turn back. I couldn’t.

  The Land Beyond the Mountains was so far away. Without a horse like Miramis we couldn’t have gone there. We could never have climbed over the high mountains that nearly reached the sky. But for Miramis there was nothing to it. He soared over the mountaintops like a bird. I let him land on the highest summit, where the snow never melts. We sat there on Miramis’s back and looked out over the land that awaited us at the foot of the mountains. The Forest of Moonbeams lay in front of us in the moonlight and it looked so beautiful and not dangerous at all. It’s probably true that a forest sleeping in the moonlight wasn’t dangerous. My father the King was right. Everything was good here, not only the people. The forest and fields and streams and green pastures were good too, and not dangerous. The night was go
od and kind like the day, the moonlight was like a gentle sun, and the darkness was a peaceful darkness. They were nothing to be scared of.

  There was only one thing to be scared of. Only one.

  As we sat on Miramis’s back, far beyond the Forest of Moonbeams I saw a country where it was completely dark, and the darkness wasn’t peaceful. I couldn’t look at it without shuddering.

  “What’s that terrible land over there?” I said to Pompoo.

  “Outer Land starts there,” said Pompoo. “It’s the border country of Outer Land.”

  “Sir Kato’s land?” I asked.

  When he heard this Miramis trembled with fright, and a large boulder broke loose from the mountain and rumbled down into the valley below.

  Yes, there was only one danger—Sir Kato. He was the one I was scared of. So scared, so scared. But I tried not to think about him any more.

  “The Forest of Moonbeams,” I said to Pompoo. “The Forest of Moonbeams is where I want to go now.”

  Miramis neighed and it echoed wildly between the mountaintops. He dropped slowly down through the air toward the moonlit forest at the foot of the mountain. From the forest came an answer to Miramis’s call, like a hundred horses neighing in the darkness.

  We went lower and lower until Miramis’s hooves touched the treetops . . . so softly, so softly we sank down between the leafy, green branches. And so we arrived in the Forest of Moonbeams.

  I haven’t been in many forests in my day, but there can’t be another one like this. The Forest of Moonbeams had a secret. I felt there was a great and important secret there, but the moon had thrown a mist over the forest, so that I wouldn’t know where it was. Not yet. The mist swirled through the trees, whispering the secret, but I couldn’t understand it. The trees stood so still and shimmered in the moonlight and they knew the secret, but I didn’t.

  Suddenly in the distance we heard thundering hooves. It sounded as if a hundred horses galloped through the night, and when Miramis neighed, it sounded like a hundred horses neighing in reply. The thundering hooves came closer and closer, the neighing grew louder and louder, and then they were all around us—a hundred white horses with flowing manes. Miramis galloped right into the herd and they ran off together through an open field in the forest. Pompoo and I jumped off and stood under a tree and we saw all the white horses, with Miramis in the lead, rushing wildly here and there in the moonlight.

  “They’re so excited,” said Pompoo.

  “Why are they excited?” I asked.

  “Because Miramis has come home,” said Pompoo. “Didn’t you know that Miramis used to live in the Forest of Moonbeams?”

  “No, I didn’t know that,” I said.

  “There’s a lot you don’t know, Mio,” said Pompoo.

  “How did I come to have Miramis?” I asked.

  “Our lord the King sent a message that one of his white colts should come to Greenfields Island to be your horse.”

  I watched Miramis galloping in the moonlight and was very happy and then I became concerned.

  “Pompoo, do you think Miramis is sad staying with me?” I asked. “Maybe he’s homesick for the Forest of Moonbeams.”

  When I said that, Miramis came running up to me. He placed his head on my shoulder and stood still for awhile, neighing softly.

  “There you see, he loves being with you,” said Pompoo.

  I was so glad. I petted Miramis and gave him a lump of sugar. His nose felt so very soft against my hand when he took it.

  We rode farther through the forest, and the hundred white horses followed us. I felt the secret in the air. The whole forest knew it, every tree, all the green lindens and aspens that rustled so gently over our heads as we rode. The white horses knew it, and so did the birds that were woken by the trampling hooves. Everything knew it except me. Pompoo was probably right when he said, “There’s a lot you don’t know, Mio.”

  I set off at a gallop through the trees, and the white horses galloped with us. We rode very fast. My red cloak caught in the branch of a tree. Maybe the tree didn’t want to let me go, maybe it wanted to tell me the secret. But I was in such a hurry. I galloped on and a large gash was torn in my cloak.

  In the middle of the forest we came to a cottage, just like in a fairy tale, a little white cottage with a thatched roof. Pretty apple trees grew around it, the white apple blossoms glistening in the moonlight. A window stood open and I heard a pounding noise inside. It sounded like someone weaving.

  “Should we see who is weaving?” I said to Pompoo.

  “Yes, let’s do that,” he said.

  We jumped off Miramis and followed the path between the apple trees to the cottage. We knocked on the door and the pounding stopped.

  “Come in boys,” said a voice. “I’ve been expecting you for a long time.”

  We went into the cottage and there sat a Weaver working at her loom. She looked so kind and she nodded at us.

  “Why do you stay up at night and do your weaving?” I asked.

  “I weave the cloth of dreams,” she said. “It must be done at night.”

  The moonlight shone through the window and fell on her cloth and it shimmered beautifully. I’ve never seen such beautiful fabric.

  “Fairy cloth and dream cloth must be woven at night,” she said.

  “What do you weave with to make it so pretty?” I asked.

  She didn’t answer, but started weaving again. She pounded the loom and hummed quietly to herself,

  “Moonlight, moonlight and heart’s red blood,

  so silver, silver and purple,

  and apple blossoms, to weave the cloth

  so smooth and soft.

  Softer than the evening wind

  through the grass,

  as Sorrowbird sings over the forest.”

  She sang with a quiet, toneless voice, which didn’t sound so pretty. When she stopped, I heard another song outside in the forest, one that I’d heard before. What the Weaver had said was right—Sorrowbird sang over the forest. He sat in the top of a tree, singing so sadly that it hurt when you listened to it.

  “Why is Sorrowbird singing?” I asked the Weaver.

  She began to cry, and her tears fell on the cloth becoming bright little pearls, so that the fabric was even prettier than before.

  “Why is Sorrowbird singing?” I asked again.

  “He is singing about my little daughter,” said the Weaver, crying more bitterly. “He is singing about my little daughter who was stolen.”

  “Who has stolen your little daughter?” I asked. But I already knew without being told. “Don’t say his name,” I begged.

  “I won’t,” replied the Weaver, “because the moonlight will die down and the white colts will cry tears of blood.”

  “Why will they cry blood?” I asked.

  “For the little foal that was stolen, too,” said the Weaver. “Hear how Sorrowbird sings over the forest!”

  I stood there in the middle of the floor in the cottage and listened through the open window, as Sorrowbird sang outside. He had sung to me for many nights in the Garden of Roses, but I hadn’t understood what he was singing about. Now I knew. He sang about all the stolen ones, of the Weaver’s little daughter, of Nonno’s brothers and Totty’s sister and many, many others whom the cruel Sir Kato had captured and taken to his castle.

  This was why people mourned in the little cottages on Greenfields Island and in the Land on the Other Side of the Water and Beyond the Mountains. They mourned for their children, for all the children who were gone. Even the white horses in the Forest of Moonbeams had one they mourned, and they cried tears of blood if they heard the thief’s name.

  Sir Kato! I was so scared of him. So scared, so scared! But as I stood there in the cottage, listening to Sorrowbird, something strange occurred to me. Suddenly I knew why I had ridden through the Forest of Moonbeams tonight. Beyond the forest the border country to Outer Land began. It was there that I actually must go. I must go there to fight Sir Kato, though
I was so scared, so scared. Yes, I wanted to cry when I realized what I must do.

  The Weaver had gone back to her weaving. She hummed the dull tune to herself about “Moonlight, moonlight, heart’s red blood” and she didn’t pay any more attention to Pompoo and me.

  “Pompoo,” I said, and my voice sounded rather strange. “Pompoo, I’m going to Outer Land now.”

  “I know that,” said Pompoo.

  I was so astonished. “How could you know? I just realized it right now.”

  “There’s a lot you don’t know, Mio,” said Pompoo.

  “But you . . . you know everything,” I said.

  “Yes, I do,” said Pompoo. “For a long time I’ve known that you would go to Outer Land. Everyone knows.”

  “Everyone knows?”

  “Yes,” said Pompoo. “Sorrowbird knows it. The Weaver knows it. The hundred white horses know it. The entire Forest of Moonbeams knows it, the trees whisper it, and the grass and the apple blossoms outside, they all know it.”

  “Do they?” I said.

  “All the shepherds on Greenfields Island know it and play of it on their flutes at night. Nonno knows it. His grandmother and Totty and his sisters and brothers know it. The Well That Whispers at Night knows it. I tell you, they all know it.”

  “And my father the King . . .?” I whispered.

  “Your father the King has always known it,” said Pompoo.

  “Does he want me to go?” I asked, and I couldn’t help the little quaver in my voice.

  “Yes, he wants it,” said Pompoo. “He mourns, but he wants you to go.”

  “Yes, but I’m so scared,” I said and I began to cry. Now, for the first time, I realized just how scared I was. I took Pompoo’s arm.

  “Pompoo, I can’t,” I said. “Why does my father the King want me to do it?”

  “A boy of royal blood is the only person who can,” said Pompoo. “Only a boy of royal blood can do it.”

  “But what if I die?” I said, gripping Pompoo’s arm.

  He didn’t answer.

  “Does my father the King want me to go, no matter what happens?”