When the King of Sweden gave orders to cut down the haunted wood, no man had courage enough to carry them out. But I wasn’t afraid. I took my axe and went into the Tontlawald.

I struck a tree, and my blow was followed by a stream of blood and shrieks as if a human creature were in pain.

So much for my bluster! I fled as fast as my legs would carry me, and after that, neither orders nor threats would drive me to enter that cursed place.

Woodcutter in an Enchanted Forest in A Tale of the Tontlawald, Violet Fairy Book. Illustration by H.J. Ford.