The Realm of Wishes

The Realm of Wishes. Fairy Tale. 

Im Reich der Wünsche. Märchen

Louise Brachmann, 1813

Im Reich der Wünsche tells the cautionary tale of a poor German fisherman, who finds a fish that turns into a beautiful spirit princess. He falls in love with her and she grants him many wishes, but soon he becomes obsessed with the riches and glory that these wishes offer him. 

In the early 1800s, new typographical developments were offering more and more opportunities for women to become not merely passive consumers of literature, but active producers in the role of editors and authors. These developments enabled ever increasing numbers of newspapers, journals, almanacs and, most importantly, paperback books to be printed and shared among the German market. Between 1800 and 1820 around a third of the fairy tales in this paperback form were written by female writers, including Louise Brachmann. 

In this period a particularly common theme in fairy tales was the typically feminine elements, especially water, which was often connected to German rivers and seas. This helped to further the patriotic motive of fairy tales to establish a German literary identity. 

Louise Brachmann was born in Saxony, and her family friends included the celebrated poet Novalis. Louise's mother introduced her to Novalis, who recognized Brachmann's talent and recommended her to Friedrich von Schiller. Brachmann contributed to Schiller's journals Die Horen and Musenalmanach. In 1800, four years after her first suicide attempt, her parents, sister, and three close friends died. She met Sophie Mereau in Jena, where she published poems and short stories in modern journals, yet she failed to find a publisher to sponsor her work. Brachmann's attempted suicide a second time but failed and, a few days later, drowned herself in the river Saale in Halle, Germany. It is perhaps a peculiar coincidence that her tragic death occurred by water, the home of the magical spirit princess of her fairy tale. 

The Realm of Wishes

Translated by Eve Mason

The sea howled fiercely; like a monster, the storm blustered around the small, defenceless huts, right where Edwy was sitting by the fireside eating his meagre evening meal. He looked sadly into the dwindling embers and said to himself in a muted tone, “If there aren’t any fish caught in the net tonight, then I don’t know how I’ll get through tomorrow.” 

Shortly afterwards he walked out to the seashore to check over the net one more time and position it more carefully. As he hoisted it up, it was heavy, as if a tide-dweller were already trapped within; a powerful gust of wind scattered the thick clouds that were covering the moon, whose full radiance now fell over the haul that lay before the eyes of the astounded youth: behold, there was a magnificent fish, unlike any he had seen before, golden and azure and crimson. For a long time Edwy did not know if he were awake or dreaming, but then he exclaimed joyfully, “Ha, you are most welcome! I shall you take to the great royal city tomorrow, where you should fetch me a handsome sum!” 

With these words he wanted to take the fish back to his home, when, all of a sudden, he heard a soft, wondrous voice with a dulcet yet plaintive tone.  

“Edwy,” she called, “take pity on me! And do not take me to the city to my cruel death! Oh, do not let my poor life bleed away and my colours fade in the blazing heat for the sake of disdainful profit! Cast me back instead to my peaceful bed in the waves.” 

The compassion in the youth’s heart then overpowered any other impulse and before he knew quite what he was doing, he had already thrown the fish back into the sea. With a hollow whoosh, it sank down into the waves, which closed over it at once, whilst poor Edwy, half mourning his swiftly lost fortune, looked on: - at that very moment, a miraculous, stupefying magical power engulfed the still bewildered youth; an enchanting, mellow light enveloped him and, once the blinding light had subsided and he could gaze freely around him, he found himself in a beautiful grotto which was festooned with verdant vines and suffused with the sweetest aroma. Yet he saw standing before him a lady of such beauty as he had never dared to dream of. She wore a long, gently flowing azure robe that was ornately embellished with golden clasps and held together with a crimson girdle. Roses seemed to bloom amongst delicate lilies upon her face and golden tresses billowed down to her shoulders in waves. She looked at the astounded Edwy with such a wondrously sweet smile that he was forced to cast his eyes downward, as if he had looked into the sun; at the same time she addressed him in an enchanting tone: “Let me welcome you, my saviour! Know this, that you bestowed life upon me in that sorrowful fish guise;  I am a powerful spirit princess, yet due to some form of transgression, I am condemned always to spend a portion of the year in that miserable metamorphosis, until someday I am able to successfully gratify the heart of a man who loves me truly and to grant his every wish; if you love me now, noble Edwy, then wish freely! For nature’s realm is at my command. – But this love must be true, for the invisible forces search into one’s heart, and my magic will be in vain for he who endeavours to deceive me.”   

Edwy did not respond to this speech; he had fallen at her feet and continued to listen to her words, as if to the voice of a distant deity, even after she had ceased to speak. He had had not the faintest notion of love and now felt the unfamiliar ardour course through his veins with twice the force. He could not speak, yet all his movements expressed the most fervent love in the most powerful fashion. The lady then tenderly bowed to him, whispering: “Edwy! My fair Edwy! If you love me, speak it so and make a wish!” 

“Alas, my most beautiful princess,” the youth finally began to speak: “see, I am a poor mariner; friends left me behind here on this foreign shore because I strayed too far from the ship; I wanted to wait for their annual return and sought to sustain myself through fishing in the meantime; now I behold you; now tell me yourself, what else is there to wish for? I wish for nothing but to see you again every day.” 

“Well then, my beloved,” the lady said, as she induced him to sit down beside her upon a beautiful bank of roses, “you have expressed my very own wish. Yes, indeed, I share your sentiment! For a long time now I have delighted in your beauty as I watched you on the shore; your noble compassion won you my wholehearted love. Yet to see you for as long as yearning may well demand, my Edwy, is not granted me; I will appear to you merely once per day. So go around evening time to the seashore and call for me with these words that I shall teach you: 

Delphine, Delphine!

You’re called with the wind 

By your suitor, the bold one

Oh manifest at once!! 

and so the present moment will occur again unaltered. – Oh, but farewell for now, my beloved! – The forces of time call me back into the waves.” 

Amid tender caresses she parted from the rapturous Edwy, who at that moment found himself once more in his hut upon his simple bed made of rushes. At first, when he woke the following morning, he thought it must have been no more than a dream; however, since everything remained clear in his mind, above all his magic spell, he was no longer doubtful of the sweet reality. In the evening he went back to the shore and called, as she had told him to, and at that instant he was surrounded once more by the magically illuminated grotto, suffused with its sweet scent, and the beloved enchantress’ greeting was, if it were possible, even more beautiful and tender than the day before. 

Every day his luck recurred and their love grew into the most blessed union – His life caused him little worry. Due to the secret power of his protectress he always found sufficient berries and wild fruits close by to his hut, so he no longer had need of the troublesome fishing which now, for the sake of his metamorphosed beloved, he found abhorrent. The day passed in joyous hope for the evening; then he would go to the place of his fortune and repeat his magic spell which called his beloved to him at once. He had, however, imperceptibly given the words a more endearing form and, instead of the former spell, called out:  

“Delphine, Delphine!

 You heavenly child!

 Whom I lovingly serve; 

 Oh manifest at once!!”

which the beauty also implicitly approved of. 

He lived in this most fortunate way for several days. “Oh you star of men!”, Delphine cried, embracing him, “who already finds in the possession of his beloved the upmost limit of his wishes!” 

However, this rare contentment did not endure for too long; a mere few days later the sharp-sighted look of love discerned the brow of the fortunate youth to be overcast with many murky shadows. “Are you no longer happy, my beloved?”, Delphine asked in the very fondest of tones. 

Edwy sighed; and as the beauty urged him, he spoke with a diffidence that infinitely accentuated his charm: Oh goddess, do not be angry that my foolish heart can harbour a desire for something other than you!” 

“My dear Edwy,” the fair enchantress responded, “do not blush to let me look into your core! How could I expect a man that a man should entirely forget his love for his homeland! It wouldn’t be fair! You long to greet your familiar fields once more, and more than that, you long for your brave companions and for the life of bold activity in their midst. This is worthy of the man I love!”

“Oh, heavenly beloved,” cried the youth, “how clearly you have read my innermost being! Yes, I crave activity! Since knowing you, I have felt all my energies stir more joyfully; it is as if they were spreading their wings in order to raise themselves out of the darkness that covered my earlier days.”

“Your wish is noble, my chosen one!”, replied Delphine. “That you are of noble descent, unbeknownst even to you, is evident from your aspiration. – Tomorrow morning you shall awake on your native shore and find your companions’ ship awaiting you by the sea. Then follow your chosen path!”

“But you?” – it occurred to Edwy, turning pale, horrified, as it were, by his own wish, “I will scarcely be able to see you, as I traverse the desolate sea?” 

“Ease your mind, my faithful one,” Delphine answered, “wherever you are, your spell of love will always summon me. If you stand at the ship’s prow in the lonely evening hours, then call me—but out of strangers’ earshot—and your loving Delphine shall stand before you.” 

The youth sank to her feet, overcome with joy and gratitude; she weaved the fog of slumber around him, and as he awoke the following morning, his gaze roamed over the beloved, familiar fields of his fatherland. A bright, youthful, rosy red enlivened the wood and the valley and amid the joyous glow shone the white sails of his ship from the sea. The friends, hastening to meet him, welcomed him with uproarious joy and urged him to return to the ship, which moments later set sail anew. 

Merry once more, he flew with them through the broad stretches of water, but by evening was eagerly waiting for everyone to retire to bed. When the silent night had descended, when everyone was asleep and only the half moon, still waning, cast a flickering light over the waters, only then did he approach the ship’s prow and call the magic spell in a hushed tone; and behold, the beautiful spirit princess stood before him afresh, unchanged. The enchanting light which always enveloped her presence was today greatly mellowed; a gentle mist drew itself around the two lovers to obscure them from stranger’s eyes. 

Edwy was now very happy during the following days. The intellectual gifts that he had cultivated through his company with his divine beloved secured him high regard upon the ship; he was consulted at every opportunity by the superiors, and when it came to fighting with the enemy, he always had an eminent position. 

“Now are you entirely satisfied, my beloved?”, asked Delphine, after a while of searching his eyes, once filled with his light, now clouded with a murky haze. Alone, far more boldly than the previous time, Edwy replied: “Beloved, well have I seen how you can understand my innermost heart and how you have the power to help me: why then conceal myself from you? That is to say, my powers are summoned daily, while others rest,”; “and does that not please you?”, Delphine interrupted him. 

“It pleases me,” Edwy responded, “only when it is genuine, in that people often flatter me, for their own gain, as it were, but if these capabilities really lie within me, then why should I obey? I want to command! And to bask in the glory of war! — Let me be the most superior of all the war leaders on the ships! And give me unsurpassable glory!” 

“Edwy!”, said Delphine, this time with a sterner look, “you could be wholly satisfied with handsome, noble activity and truly acquired honour, without its blinding glamour. Yet so be it!” 

And already from the second day onwards Edwy rose from rank to rank, higher and higher, until he was the most superior commander of the ship. Victory and glory at every venture was his share. 

“My Edwy, now are you satisfied?”, said Delphine, tenderly clasping the hero, crowned with success, in her arms. “Beloved,” Edwy countered hastily, “it is true, naval power is subordinate to me; the sea is like a large ballroom, where all the ships dance to the rhythm that I beat out; — but by land? — will anyone recognise me there too? — and what is this monotonous realm of the waves if it is not combined with the other?” “Edwy! Edwy!”, Delphine replied, “how quickly untamed wishes run rampant! — Now then, let it be! Land tomorrow! Attack the most powerful enemy army! You shall not find a commander’s spirit lacking, nor the glory of victory.”

Everything that the sovereign lady promised took place. A mighty enemy ravaged the land; then in the morning light an army shone resplendent from the shore; it was Edwy with his faithful followers, equipped by magic with wisdom in land warfare too. Their victory was unparalleled. The leader was lavished with praise; the nation chose him as their ruler. 

“My Edwy, now are you satisfied?”, Delphine asked at length— “Beloved”, Edwy retorted, “it is true, luck accompanies my weapons, the people worship me; —but do I not have to put up with my army setting forth against my will? That my most profound decisions are thwarted by the caprice of others?” “Now then!”, Delphine replied, her expression and tone of voice yet sombre, “you ought to be the most powerful king, and nothing ought to occur against your will. – But Edwy, beware yourself, watch that you do not push against the sacred boundary where the mortal bows before the divine. – Oh Edwy,” she continued more softly, “I fear that our farewell is imminent, that a long, if not infinite separation approaches!”

With these final words Edwy saw a tear gleam in her heavenly eyes and at the sight his affection for this sublime beloved, which his thirst for glory had for some time suppressed, awoke once more; he clasped her in his arms with the most tender, ardent caresses and tried to dispel her sorrowful doubts. Yet soon the glee over the granting of his wish returned with full force and overpowered the delicate wistfulness of love. The sun’s splendour resided in his soul, blinding him to every object before his eyes. “Oh, if only the sun’s lustre would stay in your soul at the very least!”, said the sad Delphine, as she departed, “beware, Edwy, that your sky does not cloud over again!”

Everything happened as the beautiful enchantress foretold; Edwy was soon the most powerful ruler across the world; and it was not the glitter of the gemstones that adorned him, nor all the splendour of the throne, but the greater gleam of glory that was his happiness, which followed his actions everywhere. The nations venerated him as if he were a god; the very greatest heroes stood around him like stars and directed their paths of light according to his pace. He was delighted; —and yet, little by little, weakened by habit, his joyful inner gleam faded. One evening he wandered towards the sea to glance his beloved again. The sky had cast over with so many black clouds, as bleak as his very soul, confronting him, as it were, with a prefiguration full of ill portent, and lightning flashes blazed from afar like signs of warning. The water was high as it came to the shore; no star brightened her dark waves; with a muffled roar she spoke in his ear. A shiver ran down his spine; a dark sense of foreboding stirred in his soul; all alone in the darkness and not strong enough to vanquish the storm of passion within himself. 

With difficulty he battled to hold the sinister spirit with its alluring voices at bay, while Delphine anxiously entwisted him in caresses; unable to resist, the bleak mood subsided. 

The long winter’s night was almost over; Edwy had already looked about himself with unease; the shadow across his brow intensified into a black cloud of discontent, and he leapt up vigorously. Tremulous, Delphine nestled her beautiful head against his breast and gently put the question to him that fate compelled: “My Edwy, now are you not satisfied all the same?” 

“Beloved,” Edwy replied, his wild passions unbound all at once, like an untamed lion, “look, I had a fixed undertaking, which was to outshine all my previous ones—but who can undertake anything when the night will never end? Look, it’s all still pitch-black outside! —I don’t want that! The sun must go up!”, he cried wildly into the night. 

A tremendous, booming clap of thunder answered his cry and plunged him, stupefied, to the ground; he could still hear Delphine’s wails of lamentation; —the water was high; the storm roared ferociously. As he woke from this terrifying stupefaction, the grotto, his beloved and his entire kingdom had disappeared; and he found himself once more by the dull shore, where the derelict little hut was his only possession.