In the ancient days of the ancient stories, under the midnight stars of the old magics and the breaking dawn of the spell of people, there was a kingdom so large it is said that the sun never set upon its borders. From the silver sands of the frozen West to the flooded temples of the Eastern jungles, the whole of the kingdom knew peace and prosperity. Its king was wise and kind and loved by all of its subjects, both human and not. Even the cantankerous and judgmental dragons had a healthy respect for the king who had fought by their side in his youth against the demon bands of Darkness itself.

The wise king had a beautiful queen who was known to be fair in looks but quick to anger. With a temper as fiery as her ginger hair, it was rumored that she was more than simply human and might have blood ancestors from the salamanders in the ancient Great Wood that bordered the edge of the king’s keep. The king and queen were very much in love and it wasn’t long before the queen gave birth to an heir.

The young prince grew up quickly and was very energetic. Living at the edge of the ancient Wood, he would often hunt pixies in the thorny horn-nettles or explore its shady footpaths for hours on end, though always under the watch of an armed member of The Watch. The young prince learned early on that his destiny was to be the future king and that his minders would one day be his subjects. Very much his mother’s son, he had a precocious streak, a deepening ribbon of rebelliousness that his father would often laugh at and call passion while the castle guard secretly whispered to each other that it was trouble. In time the prince grew from precocious and ardent to be spoiled and selfish.

One day while hunting, the young prince decided to slip past the watchful eyes of the armed Watch and seek the kinds of adventures a young boy can only find on his own. He ducked behind rocks. He bounded across creeks. He scrambled up hills and slid down muddy banks. Before he knew what had happened, the young prince was lost within The Great Wood. He wandered for hours without any idea of how to find his path home.

As twilight lengthen and deepened the shadows around him, the young prince stumbled his way into a beautiful clearing with a bubbling spring where the fireflies of early evening winked to each other in the night blue air. Much to his surprise, the prince found a young female nymph drinking from the spring. With long, chestnut locks that covered her nakedness and skin as pale as birch bark, he had never seen anyone as beautiful as the young nymph and the young prince was instantly smitten.

“Hello, Prince,” she said to him as he entered the clearing.

“You know who I am!” he exclaimed.

“Of course, your highness. These are your woods.”

“May I share in some of your water? I’ve been lost and walking for many hours,” he said to her.

“Of course, your highness. This is your spring.” The young prince walked cautiously up beside the beautiful nymph and began to share in the water of the spring. They barely spoke, but they smiled at each other a great deal and enjoyed the coolness of the water together. The prince felt embarrassed and exhilarated, unable to stop looking at the nymph’s face and yet incapable of staring too long into her piercing blue eyes. It wasn’t long, though, before another nymph hurried into the clearing.

“Come, sister!” cried the second nymph. Dark haired and just as beautiful as the first but noticeably older, the sister nymph seemed angry and distrustful of the prince. “We must away to home. The elders will be waiting.”

“Wait, no! Don’t go, please! I’m lost and don’t know how to get home!” cried the young prince. At that, the older sister reached to the ground and plucked from the clearing’s grassy carpet an acorn that she then tossed his way.

“Here, Prince,” said the stern sister. “These are your woods and so this is your acorn. Simply tell it where you wish to go and then remove the cap from atop the acorn. You shall instantly be taken home. Come, sister!” and with that, the older nymph pulled her younger sister from the clearing before the prince could protest or follow.

The prince, now left alone and lost in The Great Wood, took one last drink of water from the clear spring and turned his attention to the acorn the sister nymph had given him. “I wish to return home, Acorn,” the prince said out loud and then reached to tear the cap from off of the acorn’s top. Before he did so, though, he stopped and a scheming smile crossed his lips. “If I only remove half of the cap, then perhaps I can use this acorn again to come back.” And so, with a glance over his shoulder and a careful cut from his hunting knife, the prince only removed half of the acorn’s cap. Instantly, there was a swirling and sparkling of magics, and the prince found himself whisked away to the edge of The Great Wood beside his father’s keep, just as the older sister nymph had said. When he checked the palm of his hand again, the prince found exactly one half of the acorn remained. Delighted to be home, he ran excitedly off to tell his parents of his grand adventure. The king and queen were very happy to have their lost prince back, and that night a great feast was held in his honor.

Days went by, then weeks, and then months. In time, the prince grew older and the memory of his chance encounter with the beautiful nymph in the clearing faded like a half-forgotten dream. One day, years later, while rummaging through an old trunk in his room, the prince – now an impulsive and rash young man – discovered the rest of the magical acorn hidden deep within a box of mementos from his youth. What had seemed a dream from a long forgotten childhood nap immediately came flooding back to him in full detail. A grand idea took root in his mind and the prince quickly packed a bag with all of his adventuring essentials – a torch, flint, and a net – and belted his sword around his waist. Ready to go, he pulled out the magic acorn, spoke aloud the words “I wish to return to the spring, Acorn,” and proceeded to tear off the second half of the acorn’s cap.

Just as before, there was an instant swirling and sparkling of magics and when his vision returned, the prince found himself standing among the same sylvan clearing beside the same bubbling spring that he had seen so long before within The Great Wood. Nothing had changed in the all years that he had been absent.

Alone in the pristine clearing, the prince began to search in earnest for the reclusive nymph from his memories. He knew that clans of nymphs lived within The Great Wood and he knew the stories of the nymphs’ fabled longevity. Surely his beautiful maiden with the long, chestnut locks and skin as pale as birch bark had to still be somewhere within, and he vowed to not to leave The Great Wood until he found her.

At first, he used all of his years’ expertise hunting within The Great Wood to try and find the maiden’s tracks, but the forest nymphs knew better than to leave signs of their passage and so he found no clues that she might be nearby. Then he tried searching high and low for the telltale signs of a nymph village, but the trees in The Great Wood were friends with the nymphs and they knew better than to give away the nymphs’ secrets. So, search as he might, the prince found no clues that a village might be hidden nearby. Lastly, as he began to grow hungry and tired, the impatient and hotheaded prince simply began stomping through The Great Wood calling for the maiden at the top of his voice.

“Nymph maiden!” he cried. “Come to me! It is I, your prince!”

It was not long before the nymph maiden stepped gracefully from the shade of a copse of trees to greet the young man. Just as the prince had grown, so too had the nymph grown into an enchanting woman more beautiful than his memory had done justice and the prince nearly swooned when she spoke to him.

“Hello, my prince. Do you search again for water?” Her voice was music and light.

“No,” said the young man as he stepped closer to the nymph. “I do not thirst, for all of the water in The Great Wood belongs to me.”

“Do you search again for your way home, my prince?”

“No,” said the human, once more stepping closer. “I do not wander lost, for all of the lands of The Great Wood belong to me.”

“Then how may I help you, my prince?”

“You will come with me, nymph, for all that live within The Great Wood belong to me and I have decided to take you as my bride,” and with that, the prince pulled out his net and reached towards the beautiful nymph. The maiden was startled by the prince’s advances and in a flash of panic she bolted into the dense trees like a startled doe. A hunter at heart, the prince tore off into the thick brush, hacking a clear path through the horn-nettles and cling vines in the wake of his sword.

The more the nymph maiden ran, the more determined the prince became and their frenzied chase covered many miles of the twisting paths within The Great Wood. She ducked behind rocks, but he was always quick to find her. She bounded across creeks, but he was always quick to cross after her. She scrambled up hills and slid down muddy banks, but the prince was always close at heel. Just when at last the nymph maiden felt she could run no more, her elder sister called to her from a nearby grove of oak trees.

“Come, sister! I shall hide us both.” No sooner had the nymph maiden joined her older sister in the middle of the oaken grove than her sister spoke a string of ancient words, full of power and protection. Instantly a veil of sparkling magics sprung up around them. Mother Nature herself bent to enshroud them and the two sisters were transformed into a pair of grand oak trees, indistinguishable from the rest of the trees in the grove.

Panting and sweating, frantic from the chase, the prince followed the maiden’s flight right to the edge of the oak grove, but there her footprints disappeared. The prince searched high in the branches. He searched low in the shady brush. He searched all around the outside of the grove but the oaks were too thick for him to enter. Convinced that she was hiding from him, the prince grew angry.

“Enough of this, my bride! I tire of your foolishness! Come out or I shall be forced to come in and find you.” But the oak trees held their secrets and the prince could not find a way in through the thick trunks.

Used to a lifetime of getting his own way, the oaken silence stung the prince’s pride. He grew angrier and this time yelled, “Enough of this, my bride! I tire of your foolishness! Come out or I shall be forced to cut my way in!” But the oak trees did not answer, and slash as he might with his steel sword, the prince could not force his way into the oaken grove.

Throwing his sword down to the ground, the prince at last completely lost his temper. “Enough of this, my bride! I tire of your foolishness! Come out or I shall be forced to smoke you out of your hiding place!” But the oak trees still refused to answer the human prince. Mad with rage and wild from rejection, the prince took the flint from his bag and struck it with his hunting knife until a pair of embers bit into the peat moss carpet beneath his feet.

The embers grew into wisps of smoke. The smoke grew into flames that quickly spread to the oaken trunks and were soon licking the highest branches of the grove, but there was no sign of the nymph maiden, and so the prince held his ground. More smoke and ash filled the air of The Great Wood with each passing moment while drifting embers helped the flames to leap from tree to tree. Soon, the prince was completely surrounded by fire and fell to his knees coughing. Still the flames spread.

With an uncontrollable rage, The Great Wood was ravaged and it is said that, while it smoldered, the sun never set on the monstrous cloud of ash and blight that belched forth from its boughs. When at last the flames died out many days later, the human prince was never to be seen again. At the heart of what had once been a grand and ancient forest, in a field of charcoal blacked timbers and crusted white ash, there was a clearing of torched peat moss. In the center of the clearing near a small pool of cooling steel, stood only the torched remains of two twin oak trees, their blackened branches intertwined and holding each other up among the smoking bones of The Great Wood.