Story Week 10: The Tale of Brita

I will tell you a tale about the land of Faeries.  This is a time of magic.  In this land there lived a Duke and his daughter, Brita.  Brita was an only child.  Because of this, her father provided her the best schooling and training that he could, both in how to be a lady of the court and how to be a knight.  Brita spent many years training to be the best fighter in the land.  However, she never had any interest in going on quests. 

One day, Brita was poking around the vast library in her home. She found an old, dusty book labeled “Prophecies.”  Intrigued, she opened the book up to the table of contents.  She scanned the chapters until she saw one that said “True Love.” 

“This could be interesting,” she thought, and, ignoring the warning label next to the title of the book, she flipped to the “True Love” chapter. 

She picked a prophecy at random and started reading outloud;

“Your true love is close at hand,

You must travel to another land.

Rescue your love from the glass,

To find where they are you need only ask.

In three weeks’ time you have to spend,

Before your love meets an untimely end.”

When she finished reading, the book snapped shut and the warning label started to glow red.  It said, “BEWARE: What is read aloud is set in stone!  You have claimed this prophecy as your own!”

“WHAT?!” Brita shrieked, “This can’t apply to me, it is an anonymous prophecy!” 

She flipped back to the prophecy and underneath it now read, “Brita’s Prophecy”

“Shoot,” she thought, “If I don’t go on this quest, then this person might die. But how do I find where they are?” 

Brita looked at the words, “just ask.”  Hesitantly, she asked aloud, “Where do I find the person from the prophecy?” 

“Malesata probably has him,” said a voice behind her.  Brita turned around to find herself staring at an owl. 

“Who are you?” asked Brita.

“I am Pheobus, Merlin’s most trusted owl.  He left me here with his prophecy book to answer the questions of the foolish mortals to decide to read from the book.  Your love is probably being held by Malecasta.  You must endure many tests on your journey to her castle.”

“But what if I don’t want to go,” Brita wailed, “I don’t want to have to leave my home.”

“Well tough,” said Pheobus, “maybe you should read the warning next time.  Because you read this, there is now a person trapped and you must save them.”

“But I can’t do this on my own! Can you come with me?”

Pheobus begrudgingly looked at Brita and said, “All right, I should probably go to make sure that you don’t do anything foolish again.” 

Brita and Pheobus packed for their journey, and headed out to Malecasta’s castle.  Her father never heard from her again, and to this day her family wonders what became of Brita. 

Owl with book by mimooh.svg, Source: Wikimedia Commons

Author’s Note:  I took elements of this story from the tales of Britomart.  In the stories, Britomart is very brave and valiant.  In this story, I wanted to give Brita the same training, but she is not looking forward to the prospect of a quest.  I changed the magic mirror in the story into a prophecy book, because I thought that it would be more fun to write about.  The owl tales the place of Britomart’s nanny, who takes the place of her squire on their journey.  The never seeing Brita again thing came from the end of the Britomart stories where she lost her friend Lady Amoret and they never saw her again. 

The Faerie Queene, by Mary Macleod