The Fairies and the Money Tree

The Fairies and The Money Tree

The stories begin as early as 12th century England when Gervase of Tilbury recorded one of the first mentions of enchanted places with animals possessing human characteristics along with spirits that were either good or evil. At that time, people feared these fairies and grouped them with witches who could cast curses and wreak havoc in a town. In Ireland, these creatures were called the Little People and were feared and treated with respect. Common among all stories, fairies had paths in the woods that were forbidden to be crossed and forests that were considered hallowed.

Fairies appeared in later stories such as Canterbury Tales, Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, and Edmund Spenser’s The Faerie Queene. Geoffrey Chaucer described “faeries” in The Wife of Bath’s Tale as an “Elf-queen with her jolly company, dancing full oft in many a green mead.” Flitting about, the fairies were as tiny as motes, and had free reign of the forest. In Romeo and Juliet, Mercutio speaks of Queen Mab as the fairy’s midwife who causes mischief. In The Faerie Queen, the Faerie is an allegorical Queen Elizabeth.

According to Chaucer, fairies disappeared, frightened as monks would wander through the woods chanting in prayer, and none were found again. The Fay, as fairies were called, reappeared in children’s literature with the likes of a Fairy Godmother in Cinderella, Thumbelina, and Tinkerbell. Fairies have been around for centuries, and parents have delighted generations of children with stories of these tiny creatures and their magical presence in the woods.

This folklore was not unique to Britain. In Germany, Jacob Grimm recorded stories about woodwoses and Scheusal with settings based in the Black Forest, so named because the canopy of trees cast the forest in utter darkness. The woodwoses, or wood people, were described earlier by a 11th century bishop named Burchard of Worms. These creatures were described as Holzleute (wood folk) or Waldleute (forest folk). All trees were venerated by the Fay.

Stephanie remembered stories of the Moosleute (moss people) told by her German grandmother. The Moosleute would ask people for help and then repay the kindness with more generosity. The darker creatures, the Heimchen, would scare children with tales of terror. Each night, Stephanie begged for another story; her Oma would embellish another story to enchant and lull her granddaughter to sleep.

As Time directed its course, Stephanie became an adult with a young son of her own. Her Oma and Mutter had long been gone, and she was alone in the world with her son, Jaye. Her husband mysteriously disappeared months ago, nowhere to be found. Money was tight, and she barely had enough to keep her life together. Her isolation led her to take walks in the woods near her home, baby Jaye strapped on her back, and she thought about the stories her Oma would tell her. “Silly old woman,” Stephanie smiled, “those made-up stories were just a ploy to get me to sleep.” She felt a connection with nature and walked in the woods when she had the time.

Laughing aloud, she carefully made steps around a small creek. She heard another sound, a tiny one, and thought Jaye was hungry. Pulling the boy around to the front, she sat on a large moss-covered stone and fed her baby. The small sound continued, almost as if she were listening to a distant conversation or music on a radio. Looking around, she saw nothing. She gazed down at Jaye, and in the corner of her eye she caught a fluttering diamond-sheened object near her. A dragonfly? The hair on her arms stood up, and she tried to focus on what she saw.

It was just as her Oma described. A small fairy no more than five cm long, covered in dark moss and unkempt hair, had appeared in the willow tree near the creek. The sun reflected off the translucent wings. “Ich muss müde sein,” she thought, and rubbed her eyes. When she opened them, the fairy was still there in front of her. In a tiny voice, the fairy squeaked out, “Haben Sie etwas zu Essen? Ich bin hungrig.” She flitted onto another branch and added, “Mein Name ist Orlanta.”

Stephanie knew she had some food tucked away and immediately searched a pocket on her small baby bag, pulling out a small vanilla wafer and offering it to the fairy. “Ich bin Stephanie.” Orlantha flew close to her and grasped the small cookie from Stephanie’s hand, taking it to the top of the tree. Amazed, Stephanie surveyed the tree toward the top, and saw some branches moving, agitated leaves, and many squeaks of delight. It was a family, she surmised. Then silence. Perhaps the Fay were gone now that a meal had been eaten. She thought about her Mutter, Oma, and her husband Johan. “Oh, Johan, where are you? Jaye and I can hardly make ends meet and we miss you so much. Jaye looks for you every day, but every day the door doesn’t open.” She looked up and cried. “Ich suche dich jeden Tag und jeden Tag verliere ich mehr Hoffnung.” Her tears fell down her face onto the mossy ground.

And so did Orlantha’s. The tiny fairy had heard her sad story, and it moved her to tears. Across all cultures, the common thread through all the Fay stories is that they all carry magic within them. Fay tears fell and mingled with human tears; magic was sown. Stephanie headed home, wondrous of the things that had happened that day. Her Oma’s stories were coming true.

She made the trek out into the woods each day hoping to see Orlantha again. Each day she was made more aware of how alone she was, even with Jaye at her side or on her back. She sat down upon the stone and looked around her. The willow was still there, the bubbling creek, the cool moss, but another thing had started to grow near her feet. A tiny lunaria plant broke through the earth, with its tiny round leaves that looked like silver dollars. A smile broke through on her face, and for just a moment, she was happy again thinking about the irony. She could desperately use the money, and here was a tree with imaginary money.

Each day, she came back out to watch the lunaria grow. It was nearly two meters tall and had quite a few stems. She enjoyed watching the round leaves reflect the sunlight, but one nearly blinded her. Reaching around to the back side of the tree, she found a leaf that was gold, not just in color, but in substance. Gingerly she picked it off the tree and examined it. It was a little more than a gram, she surmised, but enough to pay for food for the week. “I cannot believe this. Das ist unmöglich.” She found three other coins on the tree in the back and plucked them off as well.

In the marketplace, Stephanie was able to find the food and staples she needed for the next two weeks, and had money left over. She gave it to a poor family begging on the side of the road. “They can use it more than I,” she thought to herself. “I don’t want to be greedy.” Bringing in the bags of food, Stephanie laid out her groceries and needed items, and set little Jaye on a blanket so she could put things away. Jaye began to giggle and laugh; Stephanie looked around the room but could see nothing out of the ordinary. Oma had told her that babies could see fairies, and Stephanie wondered if one found its way into her home. Once she was done, she took a small piece of cloth and wrapped an assortment of cookies and fruit in it.

Down the path she walked with little Jaye on her back. When she got to the stone, she noticed the willow tree was no longer upright. Panicking, she looked around to see if it were chopped down or fallen. The base of the tree had rotted, and the weight of the branches pulled it down into the water. The top of that tree is where she last saw the family of Orlantha. Perhaps they had fallen into the creek; she needed to find them.

Stephanie walked along the swollen creek bed and wedged by a group of rocks, she saw them: myriad multicolored beings, wet and cold from the water, huddled together in fear. Never having picked up these creatures before, she scooped them up out of the water and set them on the dry ground protected by the roots of a large oak. “Hopefully, they’ll be safe here,” she said to Jaye. “And I have food for them.” She opened the piece of cloth and set it by the little family she hoped she had saved. Feeling they would be better in the woods, Stephanie left them, making sure they were well-concealed by the tree’s roots.

The Holzfräulein were watching and had noticed the kindness of the human. They were a different group of Fay who overlooked the others; they flew down to the Orlantha’s family to tend to them. Upon finding the gifts that Stephanie had given them, food, love, and security, the Holzfräulein knew what to do next. The Wood Ladies, as they were sometimes called, knew how to undo many curses and could often work miracles. They usually stayed hidden from humankind because they found men could be cruel; sometimes a special Moosleute tribute was deemed appropriate.

On the way back to her home, Stephanie saw the dollar tree was still there, shining and full of coins. Beside it appeared a log of some length, leaning next to the stone. It wasn’t the willow tree; of that she was certain. She sat down on the stone and tried to move the log out of the way, perhaps something lay under it. The moment she touched the log, it moved. It became human. Johan stood before her, dazed. He looked down and saw Stephanie; he picked her up and said, “Meine Liebe. Ich habe dich vermisst,” and they embraced passionately.

Stephanie wept, overcome by the happiness of her husband being returned to the living after being changed by a Schrätlein. Johan had made the mistake of removing a tree sacred to the Fay at the edge of the forest to use for firewood and had angered the Schrätlein. Stephanie’s actions saved not only a family of Fay, but her own family as well. The money tree continued to provide for them, and they never took more than they needed. Their deeds of kindness were repaid unfailingly, proving that generosity is reciprocated in ways never thought possible.