Shortly before sunrise, a small, deeply hunched woman as old as the hills left a subterranean earth chamber beneath a spreading hazel bush where she used to sleep bedded on soft moss. While she was shuffling her mossy feet over the soil, supported by a knobby cane, her long snow-white hair falling scraggily and disorderedly over her crooked back sparkled brightly in the light of the moon still up in the sky. In a tied up apron from undyed flax the little old woman, who was otherwise only clad in a deep-green dress from spun moss, collected brushwood for a fire.

Of course, the lonesome granny was no ordinary woman living there in the middle of the deepest forest. Adalberga, such her name, was a buschweibchen, a female wood sprite. Since time immemorial, the hoary one lived in this forest, the growth and decay of which she always had witnessed. Only once every hundred years she repaired to outside of the leaf-covered realm of shadows she called her home. In this forest the buschweibchen spent her days in a calm rhythm as if nothing except for time itself could unsettle her. Only when the weather didn’t allow for or when night fell she returned to her dark but homey dwelling which she had to renew several times over the last centuries and millennia.

The reddish sunlight spread slowly through the woods when Adalberga appreciatively drank from her freshly poured caramel-brown coffee at her little fire. The hot drink was chicory coffee from roasted chicory root. Fitting for the bitter morning drink, the old woman ate her bread baked on the previous day or rather the soft heart of it – she couldn’t chew the hard bread crust anymore – together with self-made wild berry jam. A smoke rose from the fire which the buschweibchen with the aid of the elements transformed into a dense fog wafting through the morning forest. This fog was Adalberga’s protective screen against uninvited or hostile visitors.

Only after the elderly woman put out the fire after finishing breakfast and after she sighingly rose from the thick root on which she had sat, the fog slowly started to clear away. Because it was a beautiful day in June promising to get warm, the granny planned to look for birch leaves, fir shoots, and the versatile blue flower neversore to concoct a medicine for her aching joints. During the hot hours of the day she would sit in a shadowy bush and there she would spin new yarn from fibers of tree moss on her spindle. Adalberga couldn’t surmise yet that this shouldn’t happen like that.

At last the buschweibchen had found the flower neversore. The blue-blooming plant was very rare and could only be found at a few spots in the forest. Furthermore, for it was slightly early for the bloom of the medicinal herb, the blue blossom there showing itself to her was truly a godsend. The healing flower was surrounded by irrkraut all around though. This fern, appearing harmless by itself, released its spores if anybody stepped on it or shook it otherwise. Those spores had the nasty effect to confuse the unfortunate’s senses so that he couldn’t recognize his path or way. The seasoned Adalberga could indeed distinguish irrkraut from common fern with ease but had, stiff as she was, nevertheless problems to maneuver through the unloved herb without touching it. With much patience and attention she managed all the same. Carefully the old woman picked the coveted medicinal herb and placed it in her apron. After she finally had left behind the clearing covered with irrkraut, she wanted to address herself to the easier obtainable ingredients for her medicine before it got too warm for it. In the meantime, the sun was already well up in the sky.

Suddenly the eerie sound of hunting horns rang out in the forest. Barking and calls like “Yoicks!” and “Hey!” could also be heard in the distance. An icy scare ran down Adalberga‘s spine. In the deepest forest no human hunting party would ever be seen. Thus it could only be the wild hunt. This ghost army didn’t preferably hunt some game of the forest but rather buschweibchens and other wood sprites which they had already brought to the brink of extinction centuries ago. The old woman, who had successfully escaped from the merciless hunters of past times, didn’t want to fall victim to the demonic host in her later years. She rather didn’t want to know why the wild hunt, contrarily to its habit, didn’t chase through the forest at night but in the daytime instead.

As fast as her old bones allowed for, the granny staggered away, supported by her knobby cane. Luckily, the wild hunt still appeared to be far. Adalberga didn’t just run away heedlessly – while her pattering locomotion hardly could be called running – but looked for something very particular. There specifically existed certain places in the forest which the demonic hunters had no might over. They became, however, increasingly rare in the last five hundred years.

Even if the sight of the moss-green eyes had dropped heavily over time, the buschweibchen knew what she had to look for. The old woman determinedly headed for thorn bushes without caring about the thorns scratching her skin and her dress getting caught up in them. In the midst of the thorns there could be found what she had looked for. It was a heavily weathered tree stump overgrown with moss and lichen the bark of which was engraved with certain symbols. Distressfully sighing, Adalberga dragged her scratched and aching body up on the stump. How good that she had seen this tree stump here some eighty years ago. At this consecrated place she was save from the wild hunt and was additionally protected through the briars from the gaze of the wild huntsman and his entourage.

It didn’t take too long then appeared a slim, tall woman. Clad only in a simple but elegant dress made of white fabric, she ran barefoot over the forest soil covered with fireweed, wood sorrel, foxglove, and geranium. Her long blonde hair blew after her like a golden veil. There was fear in her big amber eyes while she desperately pressed a bundle against her chest. The beautiful young lady looked around hurriedly and then turned towards the briars in where Adalberga had hidden herself. The buschweibchen’s heart almost stopped in fright, had it appeared it to her that their eyes had briefly met. Still, the elderly woman moved no bit away from the tree stump she was on. The danger posed by the wild hunt was not over yet after all.

The human woman indeed pushed aside the thorny branches and approached the granny with an imploring gesture and a careworn beautiful face.

“I beseech you!” she spoke “Take my child and hide it with you. His father wants his still young life.”

The despair written all over the young mother’s face touched Adalberga. Without asking any further she signaled to her opposite that she was willing to care for the child. She, who herself was no taller than a four or five years old child, received a baby wrapped in a cloth which was slightly less as half as tall as herself. A last time the eyes of the old buschweibchen and the young woman met; the green eyes quietly assuring that no harm would come to the child, the amber eyes filled with gratitude and wrench. Then the blonde lady disappeared from the brushwood as if she never had been there, leaving the peacefully sleeping baby with the old woman.

The barking of dogs, blowing of horns, and hunter calls came closer and closer. Whip cracking and hoof beats too sounded through the air. Shortly afterwards, the demonic hunting party also came in sight how it broke through the tree tops with the wind. A large host of ghostly pale, sometimes even headless or all-bone riders moved along on black or white and sometimes even headless horses. They were accompanied by a yapping and whining pack of big black hounds with big fiery eyes.

Ahead of all, a broad-shouldered giant rode on a fire snorting black horse, his feet in spur-wearing black boots, a hunting dagger at his belt, and a crossbow in his hand. On top of his long black hair sat a plumed hat and his dark eyes flashed viciously above his full dark grey beard. This giant, knew Adalberga who watched the whole event tremblingly from her hiding place, was no ordinary man but the wild huntsman Wode, leader of the wild hunt. Wode was actually a fallen god. Worshipped in mythical times as a god of war, of hunting, and of storm, his person, descended into the demonic after the war of gods, was only called upon by a few daredevils who committed themselves in body and soul to the wild huntsman to henceforth never miss a target again with their bows and crossbows. After their deaths those freeshooters then ended up as eternal participants of the wild hunt.

It didn’t take long before the demonic hunting party caught up with the fugitive woman. Surrounded by scornfully laughing hunters and growling hounds all around, the lady surrendered to her destiny.

The wild huntsman stopped his steed only directly in front of the woman so that it initially seemed as if he wanted to run her over. The fiery sparks spraying from the black horse’s nostrils ignited the young mother’s gold blonde hair in some places. None of this appeared to impress the white lady though. In contrast to the desperate face that she had worn just recently when she had entrusted her child to the unknown old woman, her expression now looked calm, almost stoic.

When Wode noticed that all this left the woman completely unfazed, he jumped down from his black horse and planted himself directly in front of her with all his superhuman height. Then he bellowed with a thundering voice: “Woman! Where is the child?”

Thereupon, the questioned woman burst into joyless laughter. “You want to know where my child is?” she replied defiantly “Not here. And I will never reveal you where. You will never get him!”

“I asked where my child is!” the giant railed.

When the buschweibchen in the briars heard this, she flinched in alarm and took a cautious look at the bundle in her arms. Frightened from the roar, the child began to whimper and appeared not a bit different than other babies too. Quietly Adalberga rocked the little being in her arms and calmed him down. Given that she knew now who the malevolent father of the poor child was, by no means she wanted to call his attention to herself and the bundle with her.

“As if I would tell you!” the young mother screamed into the face of the wild huntsman “You have abducted me from my parent’s house, forced marriage on me, and raped me. That I can’t change anymore. But that you want to butcher and roast my child, this I can and I will prevent as long as there is still breath in me!” Then she straightened up as tall as she could and stepped back a few steps without minding the snarling pack of hounds around her. As soon as she gained enough distance, she gathered all her disdain for her demonic husband and spit straight into his face.

Boiling with rage, Wode raised his hand and gave a slap to the face of the young woman who had escaped with his child so boldly and, to his dishonor, had even spit on him. The wild huntsman might be a fallen god but the slap that he gave her with full power wasn’t to be underestimated. Because the bride of the wild huntsman had nothing to oppose his brute force, it downright tore the head from her shoulders. Her head was sent flying through the air, surrounded by a billowing veil of long blonde hair. Her body, however, collapsed on the spot and was torn to countless small pieces by the present pack of hounds on the giant’s order. When Wode then collected the deformed head of his bride like a trophy he was not spared even the last ridicule. The young woman’s face, as far as still recognizable, showed an unspeakably satisfied expression in the moment of her death. Not only had the wild huntsman lost his wife – no doubt he could and would likely rob a new bride – but also the last trace of his child who was now forever lost for him, but likely would have been lost itself in his clutches. Ultimately, the leader of the ghost host mounted his black horse again and gave the signal to return. Somewhat quieter than it had come, the wild hunt disappeared again on the wings of tempest in the vastness of the woods.

Adalberga remained even longer on top of the protecting blessed tree stump in the midst of briars, her heart full of respect for the anonymous young mother who had sacrificed her life for that of her child without hesitation. The buschweibchen once had been a mother herself and had raised several children, even if this was over three thousand years ago.

When the child in her arms finally cried out with loud weeping, for the first time the granny really turned her attention to the bundle entrusted to her. Wrapped in white cloths, there lay a lovely little boy with the big amber eyes of his mother and the night-black hair of his father. Even if this might have been the child of the wild huntsman, Adalberga couldn’t bring it to heart to leave the innocent little being to his fate and decided to accept him.

“Are you hungry, dearie?” she asked, her wrinkled face twisted into a languishing smile while the little boy sucked longingly on one of her bony fingers. “Unfortunately, I am too old to give any milk but I know where to find a wisent cow that has lost her calf to wolves. I can try to milk her for you.”

As if the child had understood the old woman, it smiled at her happily. Touched, she chuckled. Then she climbed down the tree stump, always holding the baby protectively in her arms, and staggered away, supporting the child but also supporting herself on her cane at the same time. She wished the poor dearie, who she had taken into her care, only the best. That expressed itself in the name she gave the boy later on and which much later should become widely known: Friedbert. Who shines with peace.