Elfpunzel

As Erestor was about to continue, a voice called out, “A stepmother! An evil, wicked stepmother!”

“No,” replied Erestor after a pause. “It does not begin with an evil, wicked stepmother. Or any sort of stepmother for that matter,” he said as Agie and Athos entered the room, each of them finding good spots on the floor to lounge and listen to the tale. Athos fluffed up a pillow and cuddled up with a blanket while Agie sat rather intently as one of the cats nestled into her lap. “Anyone else?” he asked in exasperation as he patiently waited for the rest of the members of his group to find a good spot to sit.

When no one else said anything, he smiled and said, “It begins with ‘Once Upon a Time’.” He stopped when he took note that Agie was mouthing the words along with him. “I’m this close to letting the rest of you do this without me,” he said, but the outcry was for him to stay. “Alright. No more interruptions,” he warned in a hushed voice. Glorfindel pantomimed zipping his mouth and throwing away the key. “Honestly, he’s worse than the twins were,” muttered Erestor as he tried once more to begin his tale.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Once upon a time, there was a young couple, a husband and wife, who were about to have their second child. Only, it wasn’t really their second child, it was their first child over again, but that isn’t relevant to the story. This couple lived in the forest, on the outskirts of Lothlorien, which was, as everyone knows, ruled by the Wise and Just Celeborn, and his evil wife Galadriel, the Witch of the Woods.

One day, when the young couple was sitting on their porch, the lady noticed something in Galadriel’s garden that made her mouth water. Planted between the rows of nightshade and devil’s snare were tiny, delicate, yellow flowers. Golden flowers, one might almost call them. The elleth pointed them out to her husband, and begged him to find some for her, for they looked so delicious.

Alas, he husband searched high and low in the forest, and found none. It would seem that they grew only in the garden of Galadriel, wicked witch of the west. To appease his wife, the ellon snuck into the garden after nightfall and carefully uprooted some of the yellow flowers. He brought a few handfuls back to his wife, who promptly made a salad of them and ate them right up. They were so delectably delicious, that she demanded another dish of the delightful daffodils. Hardly able to know what to do, her husband pleaded with her not to send him back to the garden, but he would get no peace until he returned and brought back twice as many as the first time.

Thinking he could easily sneak a few more, he waited until nightfall of the next night to steal away the flowers. This time when he entered the garden, however, he found himself surrounded by the Galadhrim warriors, and standing in the garden was Lady Galadriel herself. “How come you to be in my garden at so late an hour?” she demanded, though, honestly, it seemed to him that she knew he was coming and why, for she had already readied a satchel full of the yellow blooms.

“Mercy!” he cried, and fell to his knees. “My wife so craves the flowers of your garden, and no where else can they be found! Please, give me what I have come for!”

Lady Galadriel walked to him haughtily, keeping the sack of flowers just out of his reach. “Now you beg me, but the first time, you stole. For that you should be punished. However, I am a fair and kind queen,” said she, though this was misleading for she was perhaps fair in looks and kind in that she, too, was an elf, though queen she ne’er was, “and in trade for these and all the flowers your wife craves, I ask a small thing really.”

The ellon agreed without knowing the terms, so eager was he to receive what it was his wife wanted. The witch grinned and then said, “Upon the birth of your child, you shall turn him over to me. I shall claim him as my own, and love him as my son. You must promise never to interfere, or you will never see him again,” she vowed.

Having already agreed, the ellon bowed his head and nodded. He took the flowers home and from then on until the birth of their son, there were always fresh golden flowers upon their doorstep in the mornings.

When the day came that their son was reborn, Galadriel appeared almost instantly to make her claim. The parents were heartbroken, but what else could be done? The babe was handed over and was raised as Galadriel’s own. On the anniversary of his twelfth begetting day, his parents, unable to take the grief any longer, attempted to make contact with their son. Word reached Galadriel of this before the plan could be carried out, and from that day forward, young Glorfindel was kept in the tallest mallorn tree, on the highest flet, with no doors and no stairs to reach him. It may have seemed to some that he was doomed to spend all the years of his long life there, but that was very soon about to change...