The Will-O-the Wisp is in the Town, Says the Moor Woman

The Will-O-the Wisp is in the Town, Says the Moor Woman is a short folk tale by Hans Christian Andersen. The story involves a conversation between a Moor-woman and her son about the elusive Will-O-the-Wisp. Meanwhile, the Will-O-the-Wisp yearns for a place among the other elements – earth, fire, water, or air. After many trials, he realizes his place and identity in the grand scheme of nature. This story is an allegory on self-realization, acceptance, and the interconnectedness of all elements in nature.

• Children

								
There was a man who once knew many stories, but they had slipped
away from him--so he said. The Story that used to visit him of its own
accord no longer came and knocked at his door. And why did it come
no longer? It is true enough that for days and years the man had not
thought of it, had not expected it to come and knock; and if he had
expected it, it would certainly not have come; for without there was
war, and within was the care and sorrow that war brings with it.

The stork and the swallows came back from their long journey,
for they thought of no danger; and, behold, when they arrived, the
nest was burnt, the habitations of men were burnt, the hedges were all
in disorder, and everything seemed gone, and the enemy's horses were
stamping in the old graves. Those were hard, gloomy times, but they
came to an end.

And now they were past and gone--so people said; yet no Story came
and knocked at the door, or gave any tidings of its presence.

"I suppose it must be dead, or gone away with many other
things," said the man.

But the story never dies. And more than a whole year went by,
and he longed--oh, so very much!--for the Story.

"I wonder if the Story will ever come back again and knock?"

And he remembered it so well in all the various forms in which
it had come to him, sometimes young and charming, like spring
itself, sometimes as a beautiful maiden, with a wreath of thyme in her
hair, and a beechen branch in her hand, and with eyes that gleamed
like deep woodland lakes in the bright sunshine.

Sometimes it had come to him in the guise of a peddler, and had
opened its box and let silver ribbon come fluttering out, with
verses and inscriptions of old remembrances.

But it was most charming of all when it came as an old
grandmother, with silvery hair, and such large, sensible eyes. She
knew so well how to tell about the oldest times, long before the
princesses spun with the golden spindles, and the dragons lay
outside the castles, guarding them. She told with such an air of
truth, that black spots danced before the eyes of all who heard her,
and the floor became black with human blood; terrible to see and to
hear, and yet so entertaining, because such a long time had passed
since it all happened.

"Will it ever knock at my door again?" said the man, and he
gazed at the door, so that black spots came before his eyes and upon
the floor; he did not know if it was blood, or mourning crape from the
dark heavy days.

And as he sat thus, the thought came upon him whether the Story
might not have hidden itself, like the princess in the old tale. And
he would now go in search of it; if he found it, it would beam in
new splendor, lovelier than ever.

"Who knows? Perhaps it has hidden itself in the straw that
balances on the margin of the well. Carefully, carefully! Perhaps it
lies hidden in a certain flower--that flower in one of the great books
on the book-shelf."

And the man went and opened one of the newest books, to gain
information on this point; but there was no flower to be found.
There he read about Holger Danske; and the man read that the tale
had been invented and put together by a monk in France, that it was
a romance, "translated into Danish and printed in that language;" that
Holger Danske had never really lived, and consequently could never
come again, as we have sung, and have been so glad to believe. And
William Tell was treated just like Holger Danske. These were all
only myths--nothing on which we could depend; and yet it is all
written in a very learned book.

"Well, I shall believe what I believe!" said the man. "There grows
no plantain where no foot has trod."

And he closed the book and put it back in its place, and went to
the fresh flowers at the window. Perhaps the Story might have hidden
itself in the red tulips, with the golden yellow edges, or in the
fresh rose, or in the beaming camellia. The sunshine lay among the
flowers, but no Story.

The flowers which had been here in the dark troublous time had
been much more beautiful; but they had been cut off, one after
another, to be woven into wreaths and placed in coffins, and the
flag had waved over them! Perhaps the Story had been buried with the
flowers; but then the flowers would have known of it, and the coffin
would have heard it, and every little blade of grass that shot forth
would have told of it. The Story never dies.

Perhaps it has been here once, and has knocked; but who had eyes
or ears for it in those times? People looked darkly, gloomily, and
almost angrily at the sunshine of spring, at the twittering birds, and
all the cheerful green; the tongue could not even bear the old
merry, popular songs, and they were laid in the coffin with so much
that our heart held dear. The Story may have knocked without obtaining
a hearing; there was none to bid it welcome, and so it may have gone
away.

"I will go forth and seek it. Out in the country! out in the wood!
and on the open sea beach!"

Out in the country lies an old manor house, with red walls,
pointed gables, and a red flag that floats on the tower. The
nightingale sings among the finely-fringed beech-leaves, looking at
the blooming apple trees of the garden, and thinking that they bear
roses. Here the bees are mightily busy in the summer-time, and hover
round their queen with their humming song. The autumn has much to tell
of the wild chase, of the leaves of the trees, and of the races of men
that are passing away together. The wild swans sing at Christmas-time
on the open water, while in the old hall the guests by the fireside
gladly listen to songs and to old legends.

Down into the old part of the garden, where the great avenue of
wild chestnut trees lures the wanderer to tread its shades, went the
man who was in search of the Story; for here the wind had once
murmured something to him of "Waldemar Daa and his Daughters." The
Dryad in the tree, who was the Story-mother herself, had here told him
the "Dream of the Old Oak Tree." Here, in the time of the ancestral
mother, had stood clipped hedges, but now only ferns and stinging
nettles grew there, hiding the scattered fragments of old sculptured
figures; the moss is growing in their eyes, but they can see as well
as ever, which was more than the man could do who was in search of the
Story, for he could not find that. Where could it be?

The crows flew past him by hundreds across the old trees, and
screamed, "Krah! da!--Krah! da!"

And he went out of the garden and over the grass-plot of the yard,
into the alder grove; there stood a little six-sided house, with a
poultry-yard and a duck-yard. In the middle of the room sat the old
woman who had the management of the whole, and who knew accurately
about every egg that was laid, and about every chicken that could
creep out of an egg. But she was not the Story of which the man was in
search; that she could attest with a Christian certificate of
baptism and of vaccination that lay in her drawer.

Without, not far from the house, is a hill covered with

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