up his abode upon the
mountains, his only son (for he had formerly lived as a married man in
the world) would on no account leave him, but lived there also,
assisting his father in his duties as watcher, and in the exercises of
prayer and penitence, fully equalling the example that was now
afforded him as he had formerly done his example as a soldier.
The life led by those two valiant champions is said to have been most
admirable and pious.
Once on a time it happened that the young hero went out to cut wood in
the forest. He bore a sharp axe on his shoulders, and was besides girded
with a great sword; for as the woods were not only full of wild beasts,
but also haunted by wicked men, the pious hermits took the precaution
of always going armed. While the good youth was forcing his way
through the thickest of the copsewood, and already beheld over it the
pointed tops of the fir-trees (for he was close on the Finland frontier),
there rushed out against him a great white wolf, so that he had only just
time enough to leap to one side, and not being able immediately to
draw his sword, he flung his axe at his assailant. The blow was so well
aimed that it struck one of the wolf's fore-legs, and the animal, being
sorely wounded, limped back, with a yell of anguish, into the wood.
The young hermit warrior, however, thought to himself--
"It is not enough that I am rescued, but I must take such measures that
no one else may in future be injured, or even terrified by this wild
beast."
So he rushed in as fast as possible among the fir-trees, and inflicted
such a vehement blow with his sword on the wolf's head, that the
animal, groaning piteously, fell to the ground. Hereupon there came
over the young man all at once a strange mood of regret and
compassion for his poor victim. Instead of putting it immediately to
death, he bound up the wounds as well as he could with moss and twigs
of trees, placed it on a sort of canvas sling on which he was in the habit
of carrying great fagots, and with much labour brought it home, in
hopes that he might be able at last to cure and tame his fallen adversary.
He did not find his father in the cottage, and it was not without some
fear and anxiety that he laid the wolf on his own bed, which was made
of moss and rushes, and over which he had nailed St. George and the
Dragon. He then turned to the fire-place of the small hut, in order to
prepare a healing salve for the wounds. While he was thus occupied,
how much was he astonished to hear the moanings and lamentations of
a human voice from the bed on which he had just before deposited the
wolf. On returning thither his wonder was inexpressible on perceiving,
instead of the frightful wild beast, a most beautiful damsel, on whose
head the wound which he had inflicted was bleeding through her fine
golden hair, and whose right arm, in all its grace and snow-white
luxuriance, was stretched out motionless, for it had been broken by the
blow from his axe.
"Pray," said she, "have pity, and do not kill me outright. The little life
that I have still left is, indeed, painful enough, and may not last long;
yet, sad as my condition is, it is yet tenfold better than death."
The young man then sat down weeping beside her, and she explained to
him that she was the daughter of a magician, on the other side of the
mountain, who had sent her out in the shape of a wolf to collect plants
from places which, in her own proper form, she could not have reached.
It was but in terror she had made that violent spring which the youth
had mistaken for an attack on him, when her only wish had been to
pass by him.
"But you directly broke my right arm," said she, "though I had no evil
design against you."
How she had now regained her proper shape she could not imagine, but
to the youth it was quite clear that the picture of St. George and the
Dragon had broken the spell by which the poor girl had been
transformed.
While the son was thus occupied, the old man returned home, and soon
heard all that had occurred, perceiving, at the same time, that if the
young pagan wanderer had been released from the spells by which she
had been bound, the youth was, in his turn, enchanted and spellbound
by her beauty and amiable behaviour.
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