East of the Sun

The wind roared so loudly in her ears that the girl could no longer hear her own voice. She clung to the broad back straining beneath her, eyes shut tight, both hands numb with cold. Far below, the black sea heaved with wild waves, and now and then a tall wave leapt up and splashed her heels. She was flying high in the sky. Not on the wings of a bird, but on the back of the wind itself.

How a girl came to be flying through such icy air is a story that begins in days long past, in the poor house where she was born. The Norwegians of old told this tale for generations, beside the fire on the longest winter nights, and so it has been handed down to this day.

Once upon a time, there was a poor family with many children, living in a small hut in a northern land where the cold wind blew all year round. The youngest daughter was the prettiest of them all, and with so many mouths to feed, the family seldom had enough to eat.

One evening late in autumn, in wild wind and rain, the family was gathered around the fire when they heard a knock at the door. They opened it and froze in surprise. A huge white bear stood towering outside in the storm. The white bear spoke in a human voice. If they would let their youngest daughter go with him, he said, he would make the whole poor family rich. The parents were overjoyed, but the girl refused at once. The white bear was not angry. He only promised to come back the following week to hear her answer. All that week her father kept telling her about the riches the family would have, and the girl, watching her family struggle and go hungry, thought it over again and again. When the white bear returned, she nodded and agreed to go with him.

She climbed onto the white bear's back, holding tight to his thick fur, and they crossed range after range of mountains until they came to a castle glittering with silver and gold, deep inside a mountain. In the castle there was a small silver bell. Whenever she rang it and wished for something, that thing appeared right before her eyes. By day, no one knew where the white bear went. But every night, as soon as she put out the light, someone came and lay down beside her in the dark, then vanished before dawn. Not once did she see that person's face clearly.

Living alone amid all that wealth, she grew sadder by the day and wept with homesickness. The white bear took pity on her and let her visit her parents for a few days. He warned her of just one thing. She must never stay to talk alone with her mother, or she would bring misfortune on them both. But her mother, seeing her child again, could not hold back. She drew the girl aside into a corner and whispered her questions. Then the mother guessed that the one who lay beside her daughter each night might well be a troll in human shape. She pressed a candle end into the girl's hand. Wait until he is fast asleep, she said, then light it and look closely at his face. Only take care that not a single drop of wax falls on him.

Back at the castle, when night came, the girl lay waiting until she heard slow, even breathing beside her. Quietly she lit the candle end. The light fell on a face so handsome that she held her breath. It was a prince, the finest she had ever seen in her life. She gazed and gazed, and the candle in her trembling hand tipped lower and lower, until three drops of hot wax fell right onto the shirt he was wearing. He woke with a start.

The prince looked at her and spoke, his voice full of regret. He told her that his own stepmother, a troll, had put a spell on him. She forced him to wear the shape of a white bear all day, and let him return to human form only at night. Had the girl waited just one more year without giving in to curiosity, the curse would have broken by itself, and he would have been a man forever. But now, because of those three drops of wax, he had to go back to his stepmother's castle. It stood in a place people called east of the sun and west of the moon, and no one knew the way there. There the troll was waiting to make him marry her daughter, a troll princess with a nose so long that no one could measure it.

The next morning, when the girl woke up, the prince and the whole castle were gone. She found herself lying alone on a little green patch in the middle of a desolate forest, with no house and no family beside her. She cried for a long while. Then she wiped away her tears with both hands, drew a deep breath of the cold forest air, and took her first step. The mistake was her own, so she would have to walk to set it right herself, even though no one in the world knew where east of the sun and west of the moon might lie.

She walked on and on, her feet sore and burning, through forest after nameless forest. One day, at the foot of a cliff, she saw a white-haired old woman tossing a shining golden apple from hand to hand. Its golden light glittered across a whole corner of the forest. When the girl asked the way to east of the sun and west of the moon, the old woman slowly shook her head. She knew only one thing. Not far ahead lived another old woman who might know better. She lent the girl her horse to ride on. When the girl arrived, the old woman said, she had only to pat the horse lightly under its left ear, and it would find its own way home. Before they parted, the old woman also placed the golden apple in the girl's hand, in case she might need it someday.

The second old woman sat at the foot of another cliff, holding a carding comb of shining gold, the kind used to comb wool. She squinted as she listened to the girl's story, then sighed. That place was farther away than anywhere she had ever heard of. But she too lent the girl a horse, she too pointed the way to another old woman farther on, and she too pressed her golden comb into the girl's hand. The third old woman, the oldest of the three, sat turning a golden spinning wheel that hummed steadily. When she had heard the question, she stopped her work and was silent for a long time. In all her life she had never met anyone who knew the way there. But high in the sky lived four brothers, the winds, who flew all over the earth the whole year round. If even those four brothers could not help, then no one in the whole world knew. She gave the girl her last gift, the golden spinning wheel, lent her the family horse as well, and pointed toward the house of the East Wind.

The East Wind, the lightest of the family, could only give an awkward smile when he heard her question. Never in his life had he flown so far. But the East Wind cheerfully carried the girl on his back to his elder brother, the West Wind, who had blown across many wide seas. The West Wind listened and had to admit defeat as well. That place was even farther than the farthest places he had ever been. Better let their brother the South Wind try, he said. The South Wind was warmer and much stronger than his two younger brothers, and he roamed the four corners of the sky all year long. Yet even he fell silent at the name east of the sun and west of the moon. There was just one left who might know. The eldest brother, the oldest and strongest of the four, was the North Wind.

The house of the North Wind was bitterly cold, and his voice rumbled like rolling stones. He listened to the girl, then nodded slowly. Once, long ago, he had blown an aspen leaf all the way to that place, and it had left him exhausted for many days afterward. But looking at this small girl, who had crossed nearly the whole world to stand before him, he decided to carry her on his back and make that long, hard flight. He roared across the sky, over the mountains and across the dark sea. On the land below, the trees bent flat, and out at sea the ships rocked and tossed. This was the very flight from the start of the story. But the farther he flew, the weaker the North Wind grew. He sank lower and lower, so low that the rearing waves splashed over the girl's heels, and it seemed they would both sink into the deep sea. Luckily, just as his last breath was about to run out, he set her down on a rocky shore before the gate of a strange castle. Only then did he let himself collapse and rest.

Before the castle gate, she met none other than the long-nosed troll princess, the one waiting to marry the prince. The girl took out the golden apple and sat playing with it before the gate. Seeing such a pretty and unusual thing, the troll princess at once demanded to trade for it. The girl named her price. She would give the golden apple for one night sitting beside the sleeping prince. The troll princess agreed at once, but that night she secretly gave the prince a drink that made him sleep so deeply that nothing could wake him. All night long the girl called him and shook him, but the prince never woke. The next night she traded the golden comb for one more night, but it ended exactly the same way, with the prince fast asleep and knowing nothing. Two nights in a row it went like this. She had crossed nearly the whole world to reach this place, and yet all she could do was sit and weep beside a man who would not wake.

But in the castle there were people held captive by the trolls. They had heard the girl weeping and calling for two nights running, and they told the prince. On the third night, when the troll princess brought the drink, the prince pretended to swallow it and secretly poured it away. The girl traded the golden spinning wheel to get into his room, and she was overjoyed to find the prince wide awake and waiting for her. The two embraced, laughing and crying at once, and told each other the whole story from beginning to end. Then together they worked out how to escape from the trolls.

The prince announced before the whole troll castle that he would marry only the girl who could wash out the three spots of candle wax on his old shirt. It was the very shirt that had caught those three drops of wax that night in the castle inside the mountain. The troll princess eagerly washed it first, but the wax would not come out. The spots only spread larger and darker. The troll stepmother snatched the shirt to try, and did no better at all. Then came the girl's turn. The moment she dipped the shirt into the water, the wax vanished, and the shirt was as white as freshly fallen snow.

The troll stepmother was so furious that she burst with a bang and vanished on the spot. The long-nosed troll princess met the same fate right after. From that day on, no one ever saw so much as the shadow of a troll around that castle again.

The prince took the girl by the hand, and together they opened every dungeon door in the castle. They set free all the people the trolls had seized and locked away for so long. The two gathered up the gold, the silver and the jewels, and left the troll castle forever, without once looking back.

On the way home, now and then a great wind blew past them, cool and gentle, no longer howling wildly as it had that night. The girl looked up at the sky and smiled softly. She knew that somewhere in that kindly breeze was the old friend who had once given all his strength to carry her across a whole dark sea, and to bring her to the very place she needed to reach.