Page 3 of 8 "I'd better start at the beginning. Forty-odd years ago he was the Baron de Swandle, a respected if not universally admired noble of the region I'm from. He already had a couple of sons when a daughter was born to him - my mother. Unbeknownst to many, even then he was tending towards evil and had been neglecting the customary offerings to the damsels of the Lady of the Lake. We having a naming ceremony in Bretonnia where some lake water is poured over the baby to bring the blessing of the Lady upon them, and at this ceremony a prophetess appeared. "She was not one of the local damsels, nobody knew where she had come from, yet she delivered a prophesy that ran 'Marc de Swandle, Marc de Swandle, you have been measured and found in want. By this babe's child shall the Lady take vengeance upon you, by your own grandson shall you be felled. Your heart is black, Marc de Swandle, as black as the carrion crow, yet this babe is pure, washed in the water of the Lady's lake. Harm her you may not, for before the blow should fall you would be dead.' "She vanished then, ad de Swandle stood staring at where she had been. It turned out that none had heard the prophecy but him..." "So how do we know about it?" interrupted Johannes "My mother heard it as well, but nobody knew till later because she was a babe then and could not speak. Later she was able to understand it though, and remembered it clearly. Where was I? Oh yes, no one had head the prophecy but him (and my mother) and he thought long about what to do. He dared not kill the child, for his heart was fearful, yet he knew that as she came to adulthood her beauty (for she was already surpassingly beautiful) would attract many suitors, and one would win her hand and take her off to have a son, who would kill him. "He resolved that the only thing to do was to hide her. He built a tower in the centre of a deep forest and placed her in the top chamber. The door was bricked up except for a small hatch, through which she was given food by an old lady who lived in the lower part of the tower. "When she was sixteen she was wonderfully beautiful, but could hardly remember what a man looked like - she had lived in the tower with only the old lady for ten years. Her clothes were good quality and in good condition, for the old lady cared for her well, save that she could never leave her chambers. "But the one thing you are almost guaranteed to find in deep, dark woods in Bretonnia, and this is a fact that de Swandle had seemingly forgotten, is knights errant. One happened by shortly after her sixteenth birthday, and made to rescue the fair damsel whom he had heard singing. Yet this the old lady could not permit, and he was transformed into a frog - for she was a witch. Another came by and was treated in the same way. Then my father came along, but he was not caught for my mother saw him approach and changed her song to words of warning. "To defeat the witch, he held vigil all night out of sight in the woods. He then summoned all his faith and his courage and rode purposefully forward. When she emerged from the tower he was already charging, and before she could aim her wand accurately, he had lopped off her head.
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