A true friend may have to stand between a man and the thing he thinks he wants.
ChatGPT about a fairy tale
There is an interesting story synopsis:
Historical province: Värmland
Parish: Eskilsäter
Told by: Anders Petter Svensson, born in 1855, in Eskilsäter
Recorded by: Ragnar Nilsson, 1928West Swedish Folklore Archive
Subject of the account: The skogsrå — the forest spirit
The forest spirit had gained power over a man. Evening after evening, he went into the forest. He was tormented and thin.
But then, on one occasion, a group of men had consulted together and agreed that they would hold him back when the time came for him to leave. The forest spirit called, but he did not come. Then she came closer and closer. And he became completely wild, so that he bit and even chewed froth.
Then one of the men went out and shot at her. But immediately several other forest spirits appeared, took hold of her, and dragged her away into the forest.
The man who shot her became one-eyed. The eye with which he had aimed was gone.
The other men did not dare to shoot, but the man who did said that he was so old that it made no difference to him.
“Karlen var nödd att gå till skogsrået,” told by Anders Petter Svensson, collected by Ragnar Nilsson in Eskilsäter, Värmland, 1928. Institutet för språk och folkminnen, IFGH 1220. Licensed under CC BY 2.5 Sweden.
I liked it, so I turned it into a fairy tale, well kinda fairy tale. First by discussing the idea with ChatGPT, then creating a content outline and using it to write the draft, and then discussing that draft again. Especially for the English idioms, grammar and spelling.
The Forest Spirit
A forest spirit had gotten hold of a young man. He had spent years learning the smith’s craft and had a young wife and child at home, yet evening after evening, he went into the forest. And each morning, he returned weaker for it. He could not remember what happened when he was gone, but he grew gaunt and tormented.
One winter afternoon, he made his way to the tavern to meet his friends. Over drinks, they began to talk.
«Your hands shake,» said Sten.
«I’m tired,» replied the young man.
«You’ve been tired for three weeks,» remarked Halvard.
«I work,» said the young man.
Then he noticed that the oldest man at the table was giving him a long, level look.
«What are you looking at me for, old man?»
«You have not worked much lately,» replied the old man. «You left your forge cold again this morning. So where is your strength going?»
The young man took another sip and looked away.
«I’ve seen you returning from the forest some mornings,» said Eirik. «Why do you spend your nights there?»
The young man did not look at them. Instead, he took another sip.
«I don’t know why,» he finally said. «Every noon I swear I’ve had enough of those woods, and every night, I seem to have found my way back.» Then he looked at them and laughed. «Must be the air.»
He took another swig of his drink.
«That’s bad,» said the old man.
The young man bristled. «What’s bad?»
«Not knowing why,» replied the old man. Then he added, «And things that take only the night seldom stop with the night.»
«We can’t all be made of withered wood, old man,» the young man snapped back.
But the old man just held his gaze and said nothing.
«Well, I’m going home,» the young man said at last. «My wife and child are waiting for me.» And he meant it.
After he had left, the men put their heads together.
«He looks worse every time I see him,» said Eirik.
«And it is not like him to stay away from home at night,» said Sten.
«It’s not just about him,» added Halvard. «His wife goes looking for him after dark often enough. Sometimes with the child.»
«He’s neglecting his craft,» said the old man, «and smithing while exhausted is dangerous business.»
Eirik lowered his voice. «There are spirits in the forest. One might have gotten hold of him, sapping his strength.»
«And his tomorrows,» added Halvard.
«We cannot fight such a cursed thing directly,» whispered Eirik. «Whatever wound is dealt to such a spirit is also dealt to the one who deals it.»
«Yes,» said the old man in a low voice. «That much is known.»
Sten brought his fist down on the table. «We are his friends. If a spirit has got him, then we must stop it, or him, or both. We cannot let him destroy his life.»
The old man nodded gravely.
«Dealing with spirits is dangerous business,» said Eirik. «We might fall into their clutches, too.»
«Pah,» exclaimed Sten. «We all die, but a man’s name may outlive him.»
«That is easy for you to say,» replied Halvard. «I have two children at home and a third on the way.»
Before Sten could reply, the old man said to Halvard, «Then you know what’s at stake.»
After a moment, Halvard nodded grimly. Then Eirik nodded as well.
At that, two other men rose to leave.
«If he wants the forest, let him have it,» said one. «I’ll not get myself cursed dragging a grown man home.»
«Grown man?» said Halvard. «Which one gets his way? The man who curses the forest by daylight, or the one who crawls back to it at night?»
«He never asked for our help,» said the other.
«He needn’t,» said Sten.
But the two men put on their coats and left.
«He said he was going home,» said Sten when they were gone. «Let’s see where he is.»
So they put on their coats, and the old man took his bow. Then they went to find him.
The early night air was cold, and snow covered the ground, but the moon was almost full. After a short while, the old man spotted him in the distance. They crossed a field to reach him quickly.
«Where are you going?» asked Sten.
The young man looked surprised, as if he had not heard them coming.
«Nowhere. Just going for a walk,» he replied.
The men looked around. The forest was visible in the distance, and the young man’s footprints led directly to it.
Now the young man noticed how close he was to the bare trees of the forest, and for a moment he seemed genuinely surprised.
«You wanted to go home,» said Halvard.
The young man looked toward the road home. For a moment he seemed uncertain. Then he said, «What’s it to you if I walk to the forest once more?»
«Once more?» asked Halvard. He looked toward the forest and realized that a particular birch seemed closer than it had been, now near enough that he could distinguish its bark. The other men looked around as well. While they had been speaking to the young man in the open snow, the pines behind him seemed darker than they had a moment before.
And nearer.
Each of the men noticed it. None said anything, for what could not be could not be.
«I’m going,» said the young man, and took another step.
‹Home?› Halvard wanted to ask, but the young man’s steps had already answered him. He was walking faster and faster toward the forest over the frozen ground.
They started to follow him when the forest spirit emerged from the trees.
She was thinly dressed and barefoot. On that they could agree.
But to Sten she was just a woman, and he asked himself, ‹For this?›
Halvard saw in her disgust, ruin, and the end of everything he held dear.
Eirik felt the spirit looking at him.
She began to smile differently, as if testing for a hold or purchase, learning him. He too began to see her differently. Her body seemed more pleasing, promising ease and pleasure, and with every breath he felt himself more drawn to her.
So he turned and ran.
«Craven!» cried Sten when he saw Eirik running away.
«Let him save himself,» said the old man. «She saw him. That gives his fear a different measure.»
And what the old man himself saw when he looked at her was only his to know.
Now the spirit looked intently at the young man and extended her arms. He giggled in delight and walked toward her, stumbling over the frozen ground, not minding his step. His coat caught in a thornbush, and though the thorns cut him and blood dripped onto the snow, he simply shrugged out of it and walked on.
The three men looked at him and then at each other.
«Come,» said the old man.
They caught up with the young man, grabbed him, and began to drag him away.
They had scarcely pulled him a step when he began to protest.
«Let go!» he cried, then louder, «Let me go! What are you doing? Leave me!»
«No,» said Sten. «We won’t let you go to her.»
«She has done nothing to you!» he cried. Then, «I hate you! Let me go!»
«You may hate us tonight,» replied Sten, «but we will not let you go.»
As they dragged him backward toward the village, the young man started to fight. Had he not been exhausted by his nightly visits to the forest, he might have cast them away easily. But the three managed to drag him, step by step.
‹If this is him wasted,› more than one thought, ‹what was he before?›
But as his struggles grew wilder, the trees pressed nearer. They had not dragged him far before they saw that the forest had closed around them, leaving them at one end of a clearing. Trees stood all around, bare of leaves and covered with snow.
At the other end of the clearing waited the forest spirit.
Her arms were still open. She smiled and took a step toward them. Her feet did not sink into the snow. Slowly, step by step, she came closer, as if she had all the time in the world.
As she came nearer, the young man went into a rage. He started to bite, to kick. He threw his head backward into Sten’s face, then tried to wrench a hand free even though it hurt his wrist. His strength seemed to have returned, redoubled even, and now he was dragging them toward the spirit.
The three men managed to force him onto the frozen ground and keep him there. There was nothing in his eyes but pure want, and froth was at his mouth.
The forest had now closed around the men. Only the stretch between them and the spirit was still bare of trees.
Slowly but steadily, one carefully placed step at a time, the spirit came closer. She watched the struggle indulgently and smiled at them.
«Let me go!» cried the young man again, struggling desperately to break free. «You don’t know what it’s like!»
«I know,» replied the old man quietly.
He told the other two to hold him fast a moment longer.
Then he stood, took his bow, nocked an arrow, and drew.
«Hold!» he said.
The young man gave no sign that he had heard. He tried to free himself now that the old man was no longer helping the others hold him. Sten grunted and held fast with all his might. Halvard looked at the old man and shouted,
«No, don’t shoot. It will hit you too.»
The forest spirit just smiled and took another step, for she knew the old law as well as they did.
And she knew that men love themselves more than they love one another.
The old man looked at the young man on the ground, at the desperate eyes, the froth at his mouth, the bare wanting, the craving.
And for a moment he saw himself on the ground, and another man where he stood.
Then he closed his eyes. When he opened them again, his gaze was fixed upon the spirit.
He drew farther than he had ever dared. The bow creaked in the winter air. Wood bent, string groaned, and his shoulders shook.
«Don’t,» Halvard cried again. «You know …»
«I know,» said the old man, and released the arrow.
The snap of the bowstring cut through the night.
The spirit was jerked backward, her feet leaving the ground. For a moment she looked surprised. Then pain crossed her face. The invitation vanished from it, and she stared at the old man with the outrage of one betrayed.
For a moment she hung in the air, badly hurt.
Then other spirits came out of the forest and into the clearing. They got hold of her and dragged her back among the trees. One of them looked a moment longer at the old man, who stood motionless at the end of the clearing.
And though she looked young, it seemed as if she knew him from long ago.
Then they were gone.
The young man’s struggles suddenly weakened. He gave a long moan before he collapsed and began to cry.
Sten held him steady while Halvard looked at the old man. He still stood with the bow in his hand, straight-backed and motionless.
«Old man?» he asked.
Then the bow fell from the old man’s hand and his knees gave way. He lifted no hand when he fell forward onto the crusted snow.
For a moment the clearing was still, save for the young man’s quiet weeping.
Then Halvard cried out again, «Old man!» and crawled to him.
When he turned the old man over, he saw that he was still breathing. But the eye with which he had aimed at the spirit was gone. Blood covered his face and dripped onto the snow.
The trees did not seem so close anymore.
The old man took a ragged breath. He took Halvard’s hand, and they rose slowly.
«The boy?» he asked.
The young man had stopped crying and managed to stand as well. He looked at the old man.
«Your eye …» he began.
But the old man only shrugged.
«I knew the cost,» he said.
The young man nodded. His arms hurt where the thorns had cut him, and he was freezing. He saw that he had given Sten a bloody nose and Halvard a bloody lip, yet he had no memory of striking them.
Sten picked up the young man’s coat and held it for him. The young man hesitated for a moment, but Sten only stepped closer.
So he put it on.
As they walked away, the forest was where it had always been, and would always be.
After a few steps, the young man heard his name from the forest. He stopped, and for a moment one foot turned back toward the trees. Then he set it forward again. He took one step, then another.
The old man put his arm around him, and they marched on.
The young man went home to his wife and child.
In the days that followed, the forge burned again. He worked while there was light, and when evening came, he banked the fire and went home.
Yet there were nights when he stood too long at the door after sunset, when the forest seemed nearer or he found himself listening for its call.
On such nights, one of his friends stayed with him until morning.
They had no need to speak of why.