Sweetheart Roland

Once upon a time in a village nestled between dark forests and rolling hills, there lived a woman with two daughters. One was her own child—sharp-featured and sharp-tongued like her mother. The other was her stepdaughter—fair, gentle, and kind despite the cruelties she endured daily.

The woman, who was secretly skilled in the darker arts of witchcraft, favored her own daughter excessively while heaping chores and abuse upon her stepdaughter. As the years passed, her hatred for the girl grew, for the stepdaughter’s beauty and goodness only increased, while her own daughter remained unpleasant in both manner and appearance.

In the same village lived a young musician named Roland, whose melodies could stir the heart of even the coldest soul. When he played his flute in the village square, everyone would gather to listen—everyone except the witch and her daughter, who found beauty distasteful.

The stepdaughter, however, would linger at the edge of the crowd, her heart swelling with the music and with affection for the musician who created it. Roland noticed the quiet girl with wondering eyes and began to seek her out, playing special melodies just for her. Their love blossomed in secret, for both knew the witch would never approve.

One night, as darkness wrapped around the cottage like a cloak, the witch turned to her daughter with gleaming eyes. “Tomorrow, while she sleeps,” she whispered, “I shall end her life and take her heart and tongue. These will transfer her beauty and sweet voice to you, my precious one.”

The stepdaughter, returning from drawing water at the well, overheard this chilling plan. Trembling with fear, she crept to her small bed and waited until the witch and her daughter were sound asleep. Then she hurried through the darkness to Roland’s cottage at the edge of the village.

“My stepmother plans to kill me at dawn,” she gasped, tears streaming down her face. “She wishes to take my heart and tongue to make her daughter beautiful.”

Roland, horrified, took her hands in his. “We must flee before sunrise,” he said firmly. “I will protect you with my life.”

“But she is a witch,” the girl whispered fearfully. “She will pursue us with her dark magic.”

“Then we must be cleverer than she is,” Roland replied. “Return to the cottage and take her magic wand. Without it, her powers will be greatly diminished.”

The stepdaughter did as Roland suggested, creeping back into the witch’s chamber and carefully extracting the crooked wand from beneath the woman’s pillow. With the wand secured, she slipped out again and hurried back to Roland.

As the first hint of dawn touched the eastern sky, the lovers departed the village, the magic wand hidden in the folds of the stepdaughter’s cloak.

When the witch awoke and discovered both her stepdaughter and her wand missing, her rage shook the little cottage to its foundations. “She will not escape me!” she snarled, her eyes glowing with malevolence. “No one steals from a witch and lives to tell the tale!”

Meanwhile, the fleeing couple had reached the edge of the great forest. “We must use the wand,” Roland said. “Your stepmother will be pursuing us already.”

The stepdaughter, who had observed the witch’s spellcasting over the years, raised the wand. “I shall transform you, my beloved Roland, into a lake,” she said, “and myself into a duck swimming upon it. She will never recognize us in these forms.”

With a flick of the wand and words remembered from her stepmother’s incantations, Roland transformed into a vast, shimmering lake, while the stepdaughter became a beautiful white duck gliding across its surface.

When the witch reached the spot, she saw only the lake and the duck. Suspecting trickery, she knelt at the water’s edge, preparing to drink the entire lake dry. But as she bent down, the duck swiftly swam over and pushed the witch’s head beneath the water, holding her there until she drowned.

After the danger had passed, the stepdaughter used the wand to restore them both to human form. “We are safe now,” she said, embracing Roland. “She can harm us no more.”

“Then let us continue to my mother’s distant cottage,” Roland suggested. “There we can rest before deciding where our future lies.”

“Go ahead of me,” the stepdaughter replied. “I will follow shortly. First, I must return to collect a keepsake of my true mother—the only thing of value I possess.”

Roland was reluctant to part, but he understood her wish. “I shall await you at my mother’s home,” he promised. “Look for the tallest oak at the forest’s far edge—the cottage stands beneath its branches.”

They shared a tender kiss, and Roland departed. The stepdaughter, after watching him disappear among the trees, returned to the village. In the witch’s cottage, she retrieved a small silver locket containing a portrait of her mother. As she prepared to leave again, the witch’s daughter confronted her.

“You’ve killed my mother!” she accused, her eyes blazing with hatred.

“She sought to kill me first,” the stepdaughter replied calmly. “I did only what was necessary to survive.”

“You have always taken what should be mine,” the witch’s daughter hissed. “My mother’s attention, the villagers’ admiration, and now even her life!”

Before the stepdaughter could respond, the witch’s daughter snatched up a handful of herbs from her mother’s workbench and threw them into the stepdaughter’s face. The magical herbs caused the girl to forget Roland and their love.

Confused and disoriented, the stepdaughter wandered from the cottage. Without memories to guide her, she found work with a kindly miller and his wife in a neighboring village, living quietly and simply, the magic wand tucked forgotten in her trunk alongside the silver locket.

Roland, meanwhile, waited anxiously for his beloved. Days turned to weeks, and weeks to months, but she never arrived at his mother’s cottage. Grief-stricken, he eventually resumed his travels as a musician, playing melancholic tunes that brought tears to listeners’ eyes.

Time passed, and Roland’s reputation as a musician grew. He was invited to perform at the court of a powerful duke, where he caught the eye of the duke’s daughter. Impressed by Roland’s talent and charmed by his gentle nature, the duke’s daughter pursued him relentlessly until, believing his first love lost forever, Roland agreed to marry her.

News of the betrothal spread throughout the land, eventually reaching the village where the stepdaughter lived with the miller and his wife. Though she did not recognize Roland’s name, she felt a strange pang in her heart upon hearing it.

The night before Roland’s wedding, the stepdaughter experienced vivid dreams filled with fragments of memories—a wand, a lake, a duck, a promise. She awoke in tears, overcome with a sense of profound loss without understanding why.

That morning, while cleaning her small room, she discovered the magic wand in her trunk. The moment her fingers touched it, her memories came flooding back—her stepmother’s plot, her escape with Roland, their transformations, and their promise to reunite.

“Roland, my beloved!” she gasped, clutching the wand to her heart. “How could I have forgotten you?”

Without delay, she bid farewell to the miller and his wife and set out for the duke’s castle, the wand safely tucked in her belt. As she journeyed, she pondered how to approach Roland without disrupting the ceremony and causing a scandal.

Upon reaching the duke’s lands on the eve of the wedding, she used the wand to transform herself into a beautiful red flower at the edge of a field. When a young shepherdess discovered the extraordinary bloom, she carefully picked it to present to the duke’s daughter as a wedding gift.

The duke’s daughter was delighted with the unusual flower and placed it in a crystal vase beside her bed. That night, as the castle slept, the stepdaughter resumed her human form and stood beside the sleeping bride-to-be.

“I will not harm you,” she whispered, “but I must speak with Roland before the wedding.”

Using the wand once more, she cast a deep sleep upon the duke’s daughter to ensure she would not wake, then made her way through the moonlit corridors to Roland’s chamber. She found him sitting beside an open window, playing a mournful melody on his flute—the very tune he had once played just for her in the village square.

“Roland,” she called softly from the doorway.

He turned, his flute falling from his fingers as he beheld the woman he had believed lost forever. “Can it be?” he breathed, rising unsteadily to his feet. “Or is this a dream sent to torment me further?”

“It is no dream,” she replied, stepping into the chamber. “I am here, though I come too late, it seems.”

Roland crossed the room in three strides and gathered her into his arms. “What happened?” he asked, his voice breaking with emotion. “I waited at my mother’s cottage as promised.”

The stepdaughter explained everything—her return to the village, the enchantment cast by the witch’s daughter, her years of oblivious servitude at the mill, and the dreams that had finally led her to recover her memories.

“But now you are to wed another,” she concluded sadly. “I have no right to disrupt the happiness you have found.”

Roland shook his head firmly. “My heart has known no true happiness since we parted,” he confessed. “I agreed to this marriage believing you lost to me forever, but my heart has remained yours alone.”

As dawn approached, Roland went to the duke and his daughter, explaining the situation with complete honesty. Though initially angered, the duke saw the undeniable love between Roland and the stepdaughter and, being a fair-minded man, released Roland from his betrothal. His daughter, after her initial disappointment, graciously accepted that one cannot force love where it does not naturally exist.

“As compensation for this disruption,” Roland offered, “I shall remain at court for one full year, playing music for your celebrations and teaching others my art.”

The duke accepted this arrangement, and Roland was free to reunite with his true love. Together, they traveled to Roland’s mother’s cottage, where they were warmly welcomed. Using the witch’s wand one final time, the stepdaughter transformed it into a flute of extraordinary beauty, which produced music so enchanting that listeners claimed it could heal ailments of both body and spirit.

Roland and his beloved were married beneath the great oak tree beside the cottage, with flowers blooming out of season and birds singing in harmonious accompaniment to Roland’s new flute. They lived simply but happily, their love stronger for having endured separation and trials.

And sometimes, on summer evenings when the air was still, villagers from miles around would gather to hear Roland play his magical flute while his wife sang beside him—her voice as clear and pure as the lake she had once become to save them both from a witch’s vengeance.