The Water of Life — Obscure Fairy Tales

There once were four siblings who lived together in a small cottage in the countryside. They loved each other very much and lived in harmony as a family.

On day, the eldest brother, who was usually more on the lazy side than the hard-working one, came up with an idea.

“Brothers and sister, lets all work very hard and make a name for our family. We should build a palace for our descendants!” he said.

The siblings loved the suggestion and came up with a plan to save money and build the palace. After a few years of strenuous work, the last stone was finally placed on the palace and the residence was adorned with the most grandiose of furniture. When the palace was finally ready, people travelled from afar to tour the construction. All were astonished that such a palace even existed!

No one could find the residence a fault. That is, until an old lady visiting the palace told the siblings the palace was missing a place of worship. Thus, the three brothers and teh sister worked hard for many more years and built a temple stone by stone to completion.

Now, no one could find a fault to the palace… or so they thought!

An old man touring the palace had a puzzled look on his face, as if he was looking for something obvious he couldn’t find.

“Your palace is missing something crucial to its longetivity,” he said. “You need to climb up the mountain that far off yonder and bring back three things. First, you must fill a pitcher with the water of life. Second, you must bring a branch of the three with the flowers whose scent gives eternal beauty. Thirdly, you must domesticate the talking bird.”

The siblings were dubious but eager to follow the old man’s instructions, as he gave off an aura of benevolence.

“I will do it!” said the eldest brother. “This palace was my idea, so it is my responsability.”

“But how will we know if something goes wrong on your trip if you go alone,” asked the sister.

The other two brothers nodded, their worry showing on their faces.

“I can help with that,” said the old man. “Here, take this dagger.”

The man moved his hand over the rusty blade and teh dagger suddenly looked brand new again.

“As long as the blade remains white, your brother will be safe. If any evil befalls him, the blade will turn red.”

The young woman picked up the dagger and thanked the gentleman profusely.

The next day, the eldest brother set ou to leave the palace to find the requested items. He brought enough suplies for a round trip to the mountain and hugged his siblings goodbye. And off he went!

It took the young man many days to reach the faraway mountain and climb it up. As he reached the middle of the trail leading to the mountaintop, he encountered a giant. The friendly creature asked him what he was looking for, so far from home. Hearing the young man’s answer, the giant’s face darkened.

“On your way up, you will walk through a field of stones. No matter which noises you hear, you mustn’t turn around to look. Good luck!” finished the giant.

The young man showed his gratitude in a low bow and kept going up the mountain. As he walked through the field of stones, he started hearing whispers. With every step, the voices were getting louder. Confused from the deafening noise, the eldest brother stumbled a bit and looked behind him.

As soon as his gaze shifted to the back, his body turned to stone and shrank, leaving no living trace of him.

Back at the palace, the younger siblings were keeping the dagger by their side, anxiously looking at it for many days. The blade was always white, of course, until it wasn’t. As soon as they saw the red blade, they gasped. Something bad had happened to their beloved older brother!

Right away, the second-born son left the palace and went after his brother. The young man encountered the same friendly giant who confirmed his brother had taken the same path.

“But he did not come back,” said the giant, warning the man before him the same way he had his brother a few days earlier.

The second-born thanked the giant with a bow and followed the trail leading to the mountaintop. As he walked through the stones, the young man kept his composure, remembering the giant’s advice. That is, he only looked ahead until he heard his older brother’s voice calling him from behind. He turned around and was turned to stone just as switfly.

At the palace, the two siblings left behind were walking around the hall like tigers in a cage. After a few days of anxiously waiting, the dagger’s blade turned red again.

“Our brother must have fallen into the same trap!” cried the youngest brother to his sister.

They agreed the youngest brother would seek out their missing siblings and bring them home. Before leaving,the young man picked up a sword, hoping to defeat any evil on his path. He hugged his sister and left.

The young man travelled to the mountain even faster than his brothers had. He met the same giant and asked him if his brothers had passed by. After giving a positive answer, the giant told the young man his brothers never came back down. Then, he warned him about the peculiar stone path.

The young man bowed to the giant and ran towards the mountaintop. He maintained a gaze locked in front of him the entire way — or, almost. A few steps before the last stones laid, he not only heard his brothers’ voices, but their screams for help. In a moment o0f weakness, the young man turned slightly back around towards teh stones behind him and became one of them.

With only the sister left of the four siblings at the palace, the young woman only allowed herself to look at the blade twice a day: once in the morning and once at night. A few days after her third brother left for the mountain to go after their older siblings, the sister was getting restless. As the baby of the family and the only daughter, she didn’t know what she would do if she lost her beloved brothers. A thousand scenarios, each one grimmer than the other, was going through her head, poisoning hert mind with worry for her every waking moment.

Before going to bed on the fourth night, the woman looked at the dagger again. It was red. The blade seemed to taunt her pain by mimicking the colour of blood. Tears of panic filled her eyes. She lied down on her bed and cried herself to sleep.

The next morning, their sister got ready and followed her brothers’ path to go rescue them. She made sure to bring the special dagger, a pitcher for the water of life, and a small cage for the talking bird.

She walked for days under the hot sun before arriving at the giant’s lair afoot the mountain. The creature greeted her. She asked him if he had seen three young men pass by in recent days.

“I have, but none of them came back,” answered the giant, giving her a pitiful lo9ok.

He then proceeded to warn her about the stones, insisting she mustn’t look back, no matter what she heard. The sister bowed to the giant and went on her way.

It wasn’t long before she noticed the stones and started hearing whispers. She took the dagger in her hand and kept going, wary of her surroundings. She expected a person or an animal to jump at her at any time. As her brothers had went through before her, the whispers grew into speech, speech into screams, and screams into shrieks for help. The woman stopped and closed her eyes. She tore a piece of fabric off her dress and used it to wrap around her head, blocking her sight.

She kept advancing blindly, holding on to the wall, her ears hurting from the noise. Her palms were so sweaty, she almost dropped the dagger. Suddenly, she heard her brothers call out her name in pain. She p;anicked and immidiately turned around.

With her eyes covered, she couldn’t look at the stones, which gave her a chance to turn back to the front again without evil befalling her. She took a deep breath in and started singing a nursery rhyme at the top of her lungs. It couldn’t quite cover the cacophony of voices surrounding her, but it would at least blurr out the distinct screams.

Finally, the younger sister took another step forward and the screaming stoppe daltogether. She became quite as well and removed herblindfold. In front of her was the fountain of the water of life.

Water as clear as crystal was floating in a diamond structure filled in from above by a tall waterfall the colour of a rainbow. The young woman cupped her hands and quenched her thirst with the pure liquid. It revitalized her body instantly. She then filled the pitcher with the water.

Behind the fountain, she found a talking bird sitting on the branch of a golden tree. The creature kindly greeted her by her name.

“Come on, little birdie, do you want to come home with me?” she said as she opened the cage.

The bird let out a small chuckle-like sound and flew into the cage. The sister then cut a piece of the branch it was sitting on previously and used it to make a perching stick in the cage.

Having gathered all the items, the young woman now only had to look for her brothers to rescue them. She sat down on one of the stones to think, spilling the pitcher in her bag on a stone on the way. To her surprise, the stone grew and became… a human being.

“Thank you for saving me,” said the man, bowing down to her.

The young woman helped him up and asked for his assistance in spilling water on the other rocks.

Among the people returning to their true form, she found her three missing brothers! They all hugged each other tightly and helped her finish turning the other stones back.

The saved vowed to make the young woman their queen and to serve them until their death, as she had liberated them from a great curse. The lady blushed, not knowing what to say, but her brothers encouraged her to accept the offer, before vowing to serve her themselves.

The sister gathered another pitcher of the water of life for the palace and brought her family and retinue home. The saved became maids, servants and workers, hustling and bustling around the palace and the small town now surrounding it. The three brothers became the queen’s personal guards and advisors.

The queen and her people all lived a long and prosperous life, filled with decades of peace and health.

The serie Obscure Fairy Tales encompasses an array of tales, myths and legends from around the world. To read more, visit this page dedicated to fiction writing.