11.12.2019

Reading Notes: Celtic Tales, Part A

Gold-Tree and Silver-Tree by John D. Batten


A king had a wife named Silver-Tree, and a daughter named Gold-Tree. One day the two were out in the glen when they happened upon a well with a trout in it. Silver-Tree asked the trout if she was the most beautiful queen in the world, and he said no-Gold-Tree is.



This made her angry, and so she decided to pretend to be sick until she was able to eat the organs of Gold-Tree. She told her husband, and he got organs from a goat, She ate them, got out of bed, and went back to the well to ask again.

The trout said no, and when Silver-Tree said that Gold-Tree was dead he replied that she was very much alive. By this time, Gold-Tree had gotten married to a prince. 

Silver-Tree persuaded the king to take her to see Gold-Tree. When she did, Silver-Tree pricked Gold-Tree's finger with poison through a key-hole. Gold-Tree fell dead, and the prince kept her body in a locked room. He remarried, and one day his new wife found the key to the room and opened the door. When she saw the poison stab in Gold-Tree's finger, she took it out and Gold-Tree came back alive.

In the meantime, Silver-Tree went back to the well to ask again. The trout replied that Gold-Tree was the most beautiful and was very much alive. 

Again, Silver-Tree went to visit her daughter. When she arrived with a poisoned drink for Gold-Tree, the second wife of the prince told her that it was custom in their country for the person who brought a drink to take the first drink. As the mother brought the drink up to her lips to pretend to take a sip, the second wife hit it so that some of the drink went down Silver-Tree's throat. Silver-Tree died, and the three lived happily ever after.

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