The woodcutter cuts the wood
to survive his family
Answers
Answer:
•One summer, near noon on the longest day of the year, a woodcutter noticed a vine of poison oak growing up the side of a young tree. He cut through the finger-thick vine, careful not to mar the bark of the slender ash on which it grew, and the next day when the leaves of the ivy had dried and curled he pulled its grasping tendrils from the tree’s side.
That evening as he stacked wood under the eaves of his small cottage he saw a shape moving at the edge of the clearing. A young woman with copper-green hair stood between the trees, naked where the light of the evening touched her. There were dark freckles on her yellow-white skin.
“My father the ash has seen you save his youngest son this day,” she said. Her voice rose and fell with the breeze that tossed the leaves above. “He would grant you a boon.”
The man stared.
“Is there nothing you desire? Do not fear my father thinks ill of you because you are a hewer of wood.”
“Lady,” he finally said, finding his voice. “I desire many things.”
She smiled. “I know a bower beneath the willows. My sisters will say nothing, and my father will not see.”
He shook his head. “My sons. They are twins, and they were born not a week past in the cottage behind me. I would that when the woods spoke, they would speak clearly to them.”
Her smile faded, but her eyes grew bright. “Do you know what you ask?”