Long ago, in a small valley beneath a great mountain, there was a small forest. And in this forest there lived a man. The man was not very rich, all he had to his name was an ax, a cabin, and an old hound. The man lived a simple life. In the spring, he would go hunting with his loyal hound, bringing back hares and quail to cure. Sometimes, if he was lucky, he'd get a wild hog, but his meals were usually very meager. In the summer, he would forage for roots, fruits, nuts, and mushrooms. If it was a rainy summer, he rejoiced. If it was dry, he bemoaned. In the fall, he would chop down trees to store for firewood and construction, keeping the wood on stones to dry for a year. The wood he harvested the year before was primed and ready for splitting, and so he would do so. And in the winter, the man and his dog would sit inside the cabin, burning logs in the fireplace and eating slivers of jerky and dried fruits, sipping hot earthy beverages made from roots and leaves. So his life went on for many years.
One particularly hot summer day, when the man and his dog were worn out and tired from aimlessly searching for fruit to forage, he heard the trickle of water. He had never heard water in these parts of the woods before, so he thought perhaps the summer heat had cracked open the earth and a spring had come forth. He followed the sound and came to a clearing, and in the middle of the clearing he saw something glimmer. He told his loyal hound to heel as he cautiously approached the glimmering object.
No sooner had he come within five feet of it did the object become clear to him - it was a fountain made of crystal stone running with water. Adorning the fountain was a crystalline statue of a woman draped in thin revealing linens with a hand outstretched to the man, water pouring from her palm as though it were a spout. The man stepped back in awe, and as he did, the statue came to life and spoke to him, not in words but in a whisper like that of running water. He did not understand what she said, but he knew that if he were to accept her proposal it would change life as he knew it forever. Tentatively, the man reached out and took the crystalline woman's hand.
All of the sudden, water flowed from it and began surrounding him. As his loyal hound barked incessantly, the torrent of water engulfed the struggling man, as he heard a piercing crystalline screech coming from the woman's mouth. He tried to say something in return but it was as though his mouth was sewn shut. And just as quickly as the water had come, it receded, and the man stood in an empty clearing, drenched in water, as the dog whimpered. The man and his dog returned home, empty handed. But he knew that something was different now, he just had to wait to see what new changes awaited him.
That very autumn, a surprise awaited the man. As he journeyed through the woods carrying his ax in search of a fine tree to chop, he happened upon a dead snag covered in conks. He looked it over and decided to fell it for next year's firewood. But the moment he raised his ax to strike the tree, a swarm of bats flew from the tree and right at the man. As he swung through the air, covering his eyes, he felt a sharp pain in his left leg. As the swarm receded, he looked down and saw that he had struck his own leg with the ax. He bound his leg with a splint, cursing as he did it, and returned home. He nurtured his leg for the rest of autumn, splitting some wood from day to day, and waited for the winter to come.
Winter finally came, and it was colder and more bitter than any winter that had come before. The man wondered as he huddled by the fire with his hound, whether or not this was a punishment for his recklessness in harvesting the snag. He listened to the frosty winds billow outside his window, as he sipped warm broth and wondered whether this would be his last winter with his hound, who had curled up around him with his back facing the embers of the fireplace. He watched as snow mounds built up and up, blocking first his cellar, then his door, and finally his windows. He hoped that his roof, made from bark and hay laid over heavy logs, would hold under the weight of the snow. But day by day the winds subsided, the cold faded away, and the snow mounds melted. Even his aching leg began to heal, and he could finally walk with barely as much as a limp.
That spring, the man felt that everything was different. The winter had changed the forest, not just its landscape but its very soul. The man did not recognize his forest anymore, and as he went off with his hound in search of drowsy game he felt like he was exploring a new world, a world filled with tree stumps he did not remember cutting, hollows he had never seen before, and most of all - streams and water. As he walked, hearing the water flowing throughout the woods, he remembered the fountain he had encountered last summer. He wondered if the waters in the woods were all that the crystalline maiden brought him. And just as he wondered that, he heard splashing in the water up ahead of him. He walked forward to the sound of the stream and saw a strange sight.
Standing up to her knees in the stream there was a woman. She was washing some clothing on a washboard, soapy water flowing around her downstream. As the man stepped out of the woods, the woman looked up at the sudden sound and their eyes met. She called out to him, and he answered with silence. He stared at this newcomer in his woods, unsure what to think or feel, and then he turned around and left. The woman stood and watched him leave, as the suds flowed down the river.
The man did not catch anything that day, and so he returned home empty handed once again. But his thoughts were filled with thoughts of the mysterious woman in the river. For a fortnight since then, the man explored his new woods and searched for game to hunt. He tried to empty his mind, but each day he returned home empty handed with his mind full. But on the fifteenth day, the man returned to the river where he first saw the woman. The river trickled quietly as he crossed it, his hound trailing close behind. He searched the other side of the river and found a path leading away from the river. Pausing for a moment, the man followed the path.
He traveled onward, through woods he did not recognize, and after a dozen hundred paces, he came to a small clearing. In the clearing, he saw a covered wagon with a worn out donkey grazing nearby. A small campfire smoldered on the other side of the wagon next to a small tent. As he approached the wagon, the donkey brayed at him lazily, and he saw the woman from the river emerge from the tent. She smiled at him and beckoned him to approach, which he did.
As he walked closer, he saw that the wagon had a wheel detached with some broken spokes and tears in its cover. He saw the donkey's leg was lame as it waddled towards the woman who held out an apple to it. He saw the woman's clothes were worn and tattered, despite being clean. The woman looked upon the man and she herself saw his beard was long and shaggy and unkempt. She saw his clothes were stained with blood and smoke, and his boots were tough and muddy as though they had hardly ever seen anything but the forest floor. She saw the hound's fur was dirty and tangled, growing over its eyes and paws. She knew that he needed her help even if he did not know it, and he knew that she needed him the same way.
They spoke subtly and quietly, about their lives and their struggles, about their successes and achievements. The woman had traveled from a distant land beyond the valley, across rivers and mountains, through storms and droughts, with her donkey and a fat old hen who was too lean to lay even half a dozen eggs. The man fixed the wagon and tended to the donkey's leg, while the woman took care of the hound's shaggy mane and repaired the man's boots. Within a week, they traveled together back to the man's cabin, where he made a place for her to stay. By summer's end he fashioned a coop for the hen, a fenced in patch of grass for the donkey, and a small barn for the wagon. By fall, the hen had begun laying eggs, happily clucking away in her coop, and the man and the woman had grown very close.
Winter came, cold as ever, but for the man and the woman it was not so cold. Though their food stores were strained, they shared every meal together, they huddled by the fire with the hound and the hen, and they slept by the warm hearth. By the first thaw, neither of them remembered the loneliness of cold winter nights on their lonesome.
But as spring came, something was wrong. The woman had fallen strangely ill in a way the man had never seen. He sought medicinal herbs poking through the thawing snow, but nothing seemed to help. He traveled further and further from his home, worrying about leaving the woman alone but knowing that she needed his help. Then, one day when she was feeling particularly ill, he returned late from an expedition carrying a rare herb he could hardly come across near the cabin, when he heard a strange sound. He heard a cry, but not the cry of the woman. This was a high pitched cry, one that didn't sound beastly but not quite human either. As he entered the cabin, he saw the woman sitting on the bedside cradling something swaddled in white linens. She smiled at him with tears and turned the bundle to him, showing the origin of the cry - a small baby with barely a tuft of golden hair.
The man and the woman, now father and mother, began a new life together. The man hunted more as the woman made the cabin a home, with the old hound standing guard at the chicken coop which too was now full of the peeping of young chicks. The baby grew and began to crawl, as the woman wove fibers into little garments for the tyke and the man carved wooden toys for him to play with. One day, the man brought home a mountain goat, its legs tied and its horns chipped. The goat brought them milk and wool, though it did not always do so willingly. But by autumn's end, they had a wool blanket and the young child was growing stronger and bigger.
Winter came and left without much of note. A few of the young chicks perished and were fed to the hound. But in the spring, the woman had once again fallen ill in much the same way. Soon enough, another child was born, this time a girl with piercing blue eyes, blue as the sky which shone through the leaves of the forest canopy.
That summer, while on a hunt with his hound, the man happened upon a large rock in a clearing. He had seen the stone before, but he had never paid any attention to it. He saw atop the stone there was a sapling growing, its roots forming small cracks in the stone. He thought about this and wondered how something so small could affect such a large and steadfast object to such a degree. He approached the stone and saw that the seedling's root had nearly reached some soil near the stone, but was just short of it. Feeling merciful, he took a handful of soil and piled it up so that the root touched it. The sapling seemed to shake in gratitude, but the man paid no mind to this and went on with his hunt.
Autumn brought winds which shook the very foundation of the cabin, but once they had subsided the man found that many trees had been torn down. He harvested the lumber and formed a sizeable stockpile behind his cabin. That winter, the woman fell ill once again, but this time the man worried about her health. The child born that winter was frail and could not keep warm enough, thus by winter's end it had perished. At the first thaw, the man buried his second son beneath a young oak a hundred paces from his cabin. The man and the woman cried for a long time at their loss, but eventually their sadness was replaced with the warmth of spring.
It was that very spring that the man happened upon a traveler with a heavy rucksack stuck in a small ravine, perhaps formed by thawing snow. The man helped the stranger out, who thanked him. When asked what he was doing in such a remote place, the stranger spoke simply and plainly that he was an artisan, exiled from his home by plague and ill fortune, searching for a new place to call home. The man invited the artisan to his domicile and introduced him to his family. The artisan was grateful and offered gifts and services to the family. That year, the man built the artisan a home from the logs last autumn's winds felled, while the artisan made new clothes for the whole family, new toys for the children and tools for the man and the woman. His skills were so impressive that the man could have sworn it was magic.
Autumn came once again, closely followed by winter. The artisan's clothes kept them all warm, his tools came in handy for repairs caused by heavy snows, and his toys kept the children quiet and occupied. That spring, a new child was born, another boy. The artisan made him a pendant for the day of his birth out of seashells he had kept on hand for such an occasion.
As spring flowed into summer, and as berries began to ripen in the woods, the man went out with his aging hound in search of fruit for jams and preserves for the winter, for he could feel in his bones that this one would be as cold as the mountaintops. He came upon a clearing which he had not been to before, filled to the brim with strawberries. However, as he began to pick them, he heard a whinny and saw a beautiful stallion gallop across the field, kicking up red pulp with its hooves. He stood in awe and wondered if this sort of majesty had always been here and if he had just been too blind to see it. He followed the horse with his gaze before it disappeared into the distant woods. Gathering his thoughts and a basketful of strawberries, he returned to tell his family of his tales. The artisan then promised the man a saddle, should he manage to bridle the horse and make it his steed.
In the fall, the eldest son began to roam the woods with the hound, taking care not to tread too far. His father warned him of dangers, and his mother swaddled him and made his meals warm and delicious, but he still yearned for adventure. It was this yearning which the man understood all too well, thus he did not stop his son from venturing too far. And one day, he did not return. For a week the man and the artisan searched in vain, but they could not find him. The man had almost lost hope, when he heard the braying of his hound in the distance. The man set forward to see his old friend whimpering, asking him to follow. The man followed the hound and after a day's travel he came to a small thatch hut with a faint light coming from the doorway.
The man entered the hut, and there he saw his son laying on a bed of furs, his face white and pale, his breath faint and sparse. As he approached him, a woman emerged from the shadows of the hut, holding a wooden bowl. She spoke to the man and said she was a witch from the mountains and she did not mean his boy harm. She said his malady was an illness of natural origin and she had been curing him of it. The man asked what she was doing in the valley when she lived in the mountains, to which she replied that she had been driven out of the mountains by ravenous wolf packs. She warned they may be coming to the valley as well, to which the man said he would be ready.
The man rested in a tent outside while the witch worked her magic to cure the boy. In a day's time, the boy was well enough to travel. The man offered the witch refuge outside of the wilderness, to which she replied with apprehensiveness. But the man insisted to repay her for her good deed, thus she said she would find her way to the cabin before winter.
The man and the boy returned with the hound, to the relief of the woman and the artisan. The man told them of the witch, only for them to respond with suspicion and fear. But the boy lived and was healthy, so even the woman's concerns were abated. Before the first snowfall, the witch had come, bringing dried herbs and jars of medicinal draughts. She did not stay long for she felt her presence was unwelcome, but she told them that she would never be too far away, should they need her help again. And thus another winter came and went, and the following spring a new child was born to the woman, another girl. The witch came to visit her birth, bringing herbs to ease the woman's pain, along with a talisman for her when she comes of age made of mountain jade. The witch promised the talisman would protect her from evil of all sorts, so long as she is true and faithful herself.
Summer was long, hot, and dry. Autumn began much the same way, and so the man traveled with the donkey to fetch water from a nearby river. On the way, the man found a man dressed in brown robes with a small ox-pulled cart stuck in the river. The stranger asked for help and the man obliged. Upon rescuing his precious cargo, the robed man introduced himself as a traveling monk, carrying a cargo of barley and ale. He said his family had farmed many acres for generations but he himself left to study at an abbey. One day, the abbey was threatened by bandits, so he and the other monks fled with as many supplies as they could carry to one day rebuild it somewhere safe. The man invited the monk to stay with his family and the artisan, to which the monk obliged, promising to teach his children what he knew.
And so the monk helped the man construct a small cabin, the artisan created a shrine and began laying the foundation for a monastery, and the children began learning how to read and write from the monk's scrolls. Another year went by and the monastery slowly began taking shape. Three more wanderers decided to stay with the man and his family - a carpenter, a miller, and a weaver. The settlement grew the next year as well, as the miller had a child with the weaver, and four more travelers decided to stay - a mason and his wife, a young milkmaid with her cow, and a farmer. Over the years, the settlement grew and grew, becoming a cozy hamlet, then a quaint village, and finally a bustling town. The man's hound passed away, and the mason created a statue to remember him by. The man's eldest son chose to lead the town to prosperity, and it was named Woodsboro. The streets were paved first with dirt, then with cobbled stone. The monastery was built, and around it was built an abbey. A wall was erected around the town's borders, outside of which lived the Witch of the Valley. Though she was still visited by the elders of the town, over time the youth forgot about her and her magic. The artisan formed a guild of craftsmen who created fine works of art and handiwork, tools of the trade and arts of the ages, famous throughout the entire valley. The farms prospered and so did the orchards and berry fields. The man's youngest son bridled the strawberry stallion and dubbed it Golden Wind, and so the artisan fashioned him a beautiful saddle as promised. The youngest daughter married a merchant, keeping true to him, and so her pendant protected her in her life. Decades passed and the town grew and grew, but with its growth came change. The valley was left untouched by the dangers and worries of the world, but not for long. Change was coming to Woodsboro, change which would affect it forever.