"'Only come, knight, come and see; I will lead you.'
"So I armed myself, to be ready for anything that might happen, and
followed the child; for, though I could make nothing of her story, I
could see she was a little human being in need of some help or other. As
she walked before me, I looked attentively at her. Whether or not it was
from being so often knocked down and walked over, I could not tell, but
her clothes were very much torn, and in several places her white skin
was peeping through. I thought she was hump-backed; but on looking more
closely, I saw, through the tatters of her frock--do not laugh at me--a
bunch on each shoulder, of the most gorgeous colours. Looking yet more
closely, I saw that they were of the shape of folded wings, and were
made of all kinds of butterfly-wings and moth-wings, crowded together
like the feathers on the individual butterfly pinion; but, like them,
most beautifully arranged, and producing a perfect harmony of colour and
shade. I could now more easily believe the rest of her story; especially
as I saw, every now and then, a certain heaving motion in the wings,
as if they longed to be uplifted and outspread. But beneath her scanty
garments complete wings could not be concealed, and indeed, from her own
story, they were yet unfinished.
"After walking for two or three hours (how the little girl found her
way, I could not imagine), we came to a part of the forest, the very
air of which was quivering with the motions of multitudes of resplendent
butterflies; as gorgeous in colour, as if the eyes of peacocks' feathers
had taken to flight, but of infinite variety of hue and form, only that
the appearance of some kind of eye on each wing predominated. 'There
they are, there they are!' cried the child, in a tone of victory mingled
with terror.
Except for this tone, I should have thought she referred
to the butterflies, for I could see nothing else. But at that moment
an enormous butterfly, whose wings had great eyes of blue surrounded by
confused cloudy heaps of more dingy colouring, just like a break in
the clouds on a stormy day towards evening, settled near us. The child
instantly began murmuring: 'Butterfly, butterfly, give me your wings';
when, the moment after, she fell to the ground, and began crying as if
hurt. I drew my sword and heaved a great blow in the direction in
which the child had fallen. It struck something, and instantly the most
grotesque imitation of a man became visible. You see this Fairy Land is
full of oddities and all sorts of incredibly ridiculous things, which a
man is compelled to meet and treat as real existences, although all the
time he feels foolish for doing so. This being, if being it could be
called, was like a block of wood roughly hewn into the mere outlines
of a man; and hardly so, for it had but head, body, legs, and arms--the
head without a face, and the limbs utterly formless. I had hewn off one
of its legs, but the two portions moved on as best they could, quite
independent of each other; so that I had done no good. I ran after
it, and clove it in twain from the head downwards; but it could not be
convinced that its vocation was not to walk over people; for, as soon as
the little girl began her begging again, all three parts came bustling
up; and if I had not interposed my weight between her and them, she
would have been trampled again under them. I saw that something else
must be done.