Beyond the mountains and valleys there was a small, old wooden cottage where the witch Helga lived. The witch was very beautiful, with black hair as thick as a raven and eyes as blue as the brightest sky.
She used her herbs to help all the animals in the forest. She lived alone in her cottage in the middle of the pine forest, with only her little black cat, Felicia, to keep her company.
Whenever the witch Helga went to the nearby village with her cat on her shoulder to buy food or herbs at the market, the villagers would shiver in horror. Although she was beautiful, they were very afraid of her beauty and magic. For it was said that it was because of her beauty that she had cursed her friend, a young boy named Erik, who had disappeared and was never seen again.
But Helga only healed with herbs, she couldn’t really cast a spell. But no one believed the young girl that it wasn’t true. The girl had her heart in the right place and she loved the boy very much. The boy, Erik, who had disappeared, was young, fit and strong, and he and Helga had grown up together in the village. Everyone wondered how someone as beautiful as Helga could be that evel and attributed every bad thing that happened in the village to her. The whole village blamed Helga for the fact that she was responsible for Erik’s disappearance. Out of grief, the young black-haired girl escaped to the forest, where she lived out her sorrow at the condemnation of the villagers and the loss of her best friend Erik, alone in a small cottage. Only her faithful friend, Felicia the cat, believed in her. She had no one who really believed that she loved Erik and would do nothing to him.
One day Helga was in her cottage mixing medicinal herbs to try to cure a wounded bird she found in the woods near her cottage that morning. She mixed rosemary, chamomile, added a mixture of all sorts of herbs and rubbed it on the little bird’s wounded wing.
“Thank you for saving me,” the little bird suddenly spoke. His wing was slowly healing. Helga was frightened, ruffled her thick black hair and looked at the little bird she still held in her hand. “You can talk?” The girl asked in surprise, stroking the bird’s feathers. “Yes,” the little bird answered, chirping, and began to tell the surprised Helga and her cat Felicia his story. Many years ago I went in search of a diamond to give to my dearest girl. But the diamond was guarded by an evil witch who cursed me into a bird,” the bird sadly replied. Helga decided that she had to help the bird.
And how did the story of the injured bird that the beautiful witch Helga tried to help turn out? That, curious children, we will find out in the next part.
