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Encounter with Wood Elves

“Wood elves don’t normally range this far up into our territory,” said our guide, “but there’s clear evidence here that they have”.

I couldn’t see at first what he was talking about, but it didn’t take him long to make clear to me the unmistakeable signs.

“First, you don’t get these rainbows showing up in the underbrush like this, unless it’s a wood elf crossing that’s occurred”.

He showed me the rainbows, now clearly visible through his “compass” of sorts, that had already accurately shown traces of other “impossible” species, in our twenty acre wood.

“I really don’t believe in”wood elves” being real,” I told him defiantly. “You’re going to have to introduce me to the actual being first!”

“That can be done,” he responded, “but I can’t guarantee you’ll survive the encounter!”

“What exactly do you mean?”I said, quickly following him as he started up his restless pace again.

“I’ve told you before, if you encounter these beings alive, they will transport you into their world instantaneously, and there’s no knowing when or if you’ll ever return!”

We trudged on in silence as I considered his words.

“How do you know this will happen?” I asked him. “It’s been recorded in our history books many times”, he replied. “Maybe you should’ve lookedup the old stories beofre coming out here!” “I thought your elders had already brought you up to speed on this, or I wouldn’t have allowed you on this excursion!”

I was silent.

I guess we were getting close to something, because then he said, “I need you to be as quiet as you can, now.” “No more questions or discussions”.

We crept through the dew soaked underbrush. He seemed to be tracking the almost invisible signs of wood elf passages. Finally, as the sun was sliding into the west, we heard them. It was a sound unlike any I’d ever heard a wild animal make.

Now thinking back on it, perhaps we had already been subjected to the mind altering beams of their rainbows, and it was that which gave us the vision to see and hear them.

“Many a day we’ve passed this way, wending our way through the wood, many a peer, we’ve slain this way, dancing in the hood.”

“Come and join us, one and all, do not be afraid, for we’ve adventures, given to all, unless you are a maid.”

“Your life in payment, is all that’s due, forever we’ll take you, through the blue, you’ll never spy your land again, with us, there’s naught a pain.”

We heard them singing this rousing tune, then yoddling and howling like fiends. They must have known we were near; they seemed deliberately to be enticing us onward. Finally, when we had lost all sense of caution, there suddenly came a violent thunderstorm. Lightning, thunder and rain poured over us and the wood, till everything glistened with raindrops and rainbows.

The sunlight returned and shone through the green a fertile smelling jungle. Everywhere, the birds were twittering and talking, telling us fantastical stories of everywhere in this world that they had flown. When they dived into the stream, and swam with their wings, underwater, I knew that we were no longer on our old familiar planet.

This was a new place, and I would forever call it, the enchanted land of the wood elves.

Writing by Regina Stemberger
Photo “WET, WET, WET” by Niffty..