ELLEWOMEN

A question many Ringstetten Saga readers may have asked: what species is that plot-relevant Sidhe? Many Anglophone readers, who haven't read the Swedish version (available on Scribd), may have wondered about her species, but I hadn't found any English-language resources until now:

They were fair, fair and smiling; and, at first, such pleasant
 faces. 

But their pleasant faces never changed, and there was always the same smile on their lips.

When they turned their backs, they were hollow behind; they were, in truth, Ellewomen, who have no hearts, and can never pity any one. Their pleasant faces never changed, and there was always the same smile on their lips.

"their smiling faces..."

It is very sad to live among Ellewomen when one is in trouble.

"the smiling Ellewomen: 

 an Ellewoman, were they ever so free or happy."

The Sidhe is one such Ellewoman, and Swedish peasants and gentry used to give them offerings in exchange for good luck. Most querents gave the Ellewomen a few copper coins, a draught of brandy, or something else precious to them. The Ringstettens are wealthy gentry, so they offered their most precious valuable: their male heir. The idea was that the Sidhe/Ellewoman should receive Gustav Adolf's soul in payment. However, his parents and two older sisters managed to trick this fairy time after time, both before and after the child had been baptized (baptism weakens the powers of the fair folk, but does NOT render them powerless). This explanation lows a relevant question out: If the Sidhe is an Ellewoman, why would she fall for Gustav Adolf? The answer is that Ellewomen love to seduce young mortal males and strip them of their souls and life energy (spiritual vampirism) through intercourse, even through a kiss. The victim becomes "a soulless husk", without any willpower of his own, often mentally challenged and/or terminally ill. Such would have been young Ringstetten's fate without Katinka... if he hadn't pulled out his rapier or pistols. Or turned his coat inside out, which would have helped as well.

Picture of Ellewomen. 

THE RINGSTETTEN SAGA - ARC II GLOSSARY EXPLANATIONS

THE RINGSTETTEN SAGA - ARC II GLOSSARY EXPLANATIONS

• Värmland: the landlocked hinterland province of Sweden where The Ringstetten Saga is mostly set. Life revolves around the lakes, of which the largest is the Vänern. On the shores of the Vänern stands many a whitewashed noble estate, such as Vänersvik (Vänern's Creek), the ancestral home of the Swedish Ringstettens. Most of the province is wooded and mountainous, its residents relying largely on forestry, fishing, and mining. The Wallonian settlements (see "Walloons" below) and the local community of Karlstadt (Charlestown) feature a minority bourgeoisie, of foreign descent, second in importance to the lords and gentry of the province. The Governor of Värmland resides in Karlstadt during most of the year. In summer, his family resides on one of the noble estates by the Vänern.
• The Crown and estate lords: Nearly all the noble estates in Sweden were gifts made by Queen Christina to veteran officers, as payment for their services to Crown and state, and Vänersvik is no exception. The impressive whitewashed chateaux with their ordered French gardens offer a stark contrast to the cottages of the common people and to the Walloons' steel mills. In the late seventeenth century, absolute monarch Charles XI claimed vast tracts of land from the lords and gentry of the Swedish provinces. Said lands started to depend directly from the Crown. Decades later, the war on Russia called up most of the blue-blooded youth of the kingdom to battle. Few officers returned from that campaign, having been either killed in action, died of inflicted wounds, or died in captivity in Siberian prisons and camps.
• Walloons in Sweden: In the Flemish/Dutch theatre of the Thirty Years' War, Jean 't Serclaës de Tilly persecuted many of his countrymen on religious grounds, Flanders and Wallonia being Spanish provinces under Habsburg rule. The surviving Protestant Wallonian refugees found sanctuary in Sweden, where Gustavus Adolphus was delighted to give them asylum. The Walloons opened steel mills, around which real industrial colonies/villages, mostly with an all-Wallonian population, were founded. Sweden could finally, with access to Wallonian, Flemish, and Castilian metalworking technology added to its mineral resources, produce weapons (guns and blades) on a massive scale, which partly explains the Swedish victories in the Thirty Years' War. The van der Heide foundry was such an industrial complex. Its purpose in the narrative being to explore noble/bourgeois relations, said dynamics have been completely explored (initial rivalry, arranged marriage, friendship) in the second story arc.
• Classical myths were in vogue in the eighteenth century, especially those of Ovid's Metamorphoses, such as "Echo and Narcissus", "Salmacis and Hermaphroditus", and "Orpheus and Eurydice", all three of which are quoted in the story arc and mirror its plot.
• Old Gewehr: the veteran of the Polish Wars is based upon a real-life phenomenon. During the absolutist reign of Charles XI, every shire in Sweden (Baltic conquests included) was compelled by royal decree to lodge a soldier, who would represent the Crown at a lower scale than the province governor. Depending on the wealth of the local lord, the soldier would have higher or lower rank. A scarred Ensign Johan Gewehr, assigned to Vänersvik before he could receive his lieutenancy and be titled, came over from Poland with his camp follower wife Kerstin and their children, as married "quartered soldiers" always did.
• Old Gewehr's rank? Referred to as "ensign" in English, he is actually a "fanjunkare" ("Fahnenjunker" in German), a Germanic/Nordic rank in between sergeant major and ensign. Since there seemed to be no corresponding rank in the Anglosphere, he was made "assistant ensign", later shortened to "ensign". A true ensign ("fänrik"/"Fähnrich"), just below lieutenant, would have been a far younger (adolescent) commissioned officer, with an aristocratic surname (for instance, young Gerhard von Ringstetten upon joining the Swedish ranks in 1631).
• Charles XII never married or had any children, he was rather close to his own generals... In fact, all of the Swedish royals (Gustavus Adolphus, Christina, Gustavus III... and Charles XII) featured in the Saga were at least bisexual. Charles XII appears to be strictly queer (a more feminine queer would be Gustavus III in Arc 3).
• Carolean culture of self-restraint: reminiscent of Spartans, Romans, Cromwell's Ironsides, and twentieth-century Fascist dictatorships like the Third Reich. Painful punishments (the cat of nine tails) and war trauma helped the values defended by Charles XII (emotional restraint, and keeping cool, but also strength, prowess, and camaraderie).
• A Saxon Oberyn: Indeed, Augustus the Strong von Wettin was heavy-set, with a passion for ladies, big game, strong drink, warmer climates, warfare, and feats of strength.
• Aurora von Königsmarck: impoverished and comeback court lady, poet, musician, polyglot, electoral mistress, in love with King Charles XII... such a powerful and badass lady, and a countess to boot, existed in real life! After Augustus replaced her with the Austrian lady, when Aurora spent her twilight years in Quedlinburg, she devoted herself to her vassals; to her passion, writing poetry (which became a true solace for her); and to her little boy Maurice. Furthermore, Aurora von Königsmarck kept her wit and her good looks with the pass of decades.
• Philipp Christoph von Königsmarck and Sophia Dorothea: It should be remembered, that the young Count had become not only one of the handsomest men of his time, and was possessed of immense wealth that made the very costly style in which he lived the theme of general admiration; but that he was a remarkably intelligent man, apparently a finished gentleman, a graceful courtier, and a brave and skilful officer. The Count had already distinguished himself in a manner that had brought him no slight degree of fame wherever he had shown himself. His handsome person, graceful manners, and sparkling conversation had combined to make him a great favourite with both sexes; but his principles were very unsettled, and his life was disgraced by a tendency to the licentiousness so common at this period. Aurora’s and Amalia’s guardian, brother, and role model casts one of the longest shadows ever in the Saga. The dashing young count and colonel in command of the Braunschweig Electoral Guard, a great officer and courtier of his days, cultured, learned (even at Oxford!), well-travelled, and inured to war, attractive and popular at court, had a love affair with his childhood friend, kindred spirit, and liege lady, who was out of his league and unhappily married, trapped in an abusive relationship and oppressed by her mother-in-law. Then, when Elector George of Braunschweig, the betrayed husband, found out (from an older court lady whom Königsmarck had scorned), the dashing count went missing, as if into thin air, at the Leineschloss, the spouses’ residence. Sophia was accused of his disappearance, separated from her children (said to be her lover’s) and banished by her spouse to the provinces, confined to Schloss Ahlden, for a lifetime, until she died there more than three decades later. His disappearance let his two sisters, who were also his wards, to fend for themselves, kickstarting Aurora’s ambition. In an Easter egg narrated by Countess Clara Elisabeth von Platen née von Meisenberg, the schemer behind it all, the fate of Count Königsmarck is finally revealed: he was stabbed in the back at the Leineschloss by his own drunken men, plied with liquor, at the Elector’s command, having fallen into an ambush set to take his life, a plot devised by the betrayed husband and by the scorned countess. The death scene is shown just like the one in the lovely romantic film Saraband for Dead Lovers: stabbed in the back by the lieutenant who led the detachment and run through with that officer’s sword, the young colonel staggers and collapses, his life quickly ebbing forth. Then, his lifeless form was concealed under the floor of the hall where he was killed. Definitely, it sounds Shakespearean but it’s real life:
• She (Clara) took an early opportunity of exciting the mind of the Elector against him by the most exaggerated account of what he had said about her, her sister, and Mademoiselle Schulenburg, with a comprehensive addition of offensive observations upon the sovereign of Hanover which he had never uttered. The Elector was very much offended with his Colonel of the Guards for such behaviour to his and his son’s mistresses; but though this was very bad, to speak disrespectfully of his patron was abominable, and he readily gave a promise it should not go unpunished.
  To obtain such proof was now her great object. She was not scrupulous in the means she employed, and if she could not get the testimony she required, She was determined to get something that should be mistaken for it. Excited by rage, jealousy, and hatred, she had sufficient stimulants at work to bring out all that mischievous talent which had so helped her forward during her career, and moreover, she had at her hand agents of all kinds, of whose readiness at any bad purpose she had ample evidence. She well considered her plans, and when they were mature, satisfied of their success, she kept like a bloated spider, out of sight of her victims, but ready to pounce upon them the moment they got entangled in the intricate web she had spun for their destruction.
  Just at this crisis, Count Königsmark returned, brilliant as ever, and completely ignorant of the danger in which he stood. He met with but a cold reception at the Electoral Palace, but this did not appear to give him any uneasiness.
  When he retired to his chamber, he found a note written in pencil, from the Princess, requesting he would visit her that evening. It was an unusual time to go to the Princess’s apartments; nevertheless, he went, and was admitted. On some surprise being expressed that he should have ventured there at such an hour, he produced the pencil note. It was a forgery. This discovery should have put them on their guard, and the Princess ought to have dismissed her visitor as speedily as possible. But they had much to say to each other, and the Princess had communications to make, an opportunity for which might not occur again.
  At last, with many professions of fidelity and devotion, from the Count, and of earnest gratitude from the Princess, the former took his departure under the guidance, to a certain distance from that part of the palace, of the faithful lady in waiting.
  The forged letter of invitation was the work of the crafty Countess Platen, (as she subsequently confessed,) who immediately she learned it had produced the effect for which it had been designed, rushed to the Elector, and made such an enormity of the unseasonable visit of Königsmark to the Princess, recommending the Count’s imprisonment by so many apparently unanswerable arguments, that he was induced to order his arrest. This, however, he did reluctantly, and was quite unaware to what an extent she was deceiving him, and little imagined how much he was about to compromise the honour of his family. The old man was so completely the dupe of her assurances and representations, that he even complied with her solicitations to leave the management of this arrest to her, believing, as he jocosely observed, she was anxious to prevent so handsome a man as his Colonel of the Guards being hurt, should he be so rash as to offer resistance. Three trabants (yeomen of the guard) and their superior were then placed at her disposal, directions being given them by their sovereign to obey the commands of the Countess Platen, in arresting an individual who would be pointed out to them by her. To this the wily Countess induced him to add, that they were to use their weapons, should it be necessary.
  The Countess conducted the soldiers, on quitting the presence of the Elector, into the hall that led by three steps to the apartment facing the Leine Street—from the same place three steps led in another direction to a passage conducting to the adjoining wing of the palace, facing the same street, to the door of the Saloon of Knights. In this apartment, there projected a capacious chimney, behind which the trabants were told to conceal themselves. Whilst they remained here, the Countess furnished them with refreshments, and with as much liquor as she believed would fit them for the desperate work she had in hand. She had chosen her time well, for just when they were ripe for any deed they might be set to do, they heard approaching footsteps. With a hint of the great reward they might expect from the Elector if they exhibited their zeal by seizing his enemy, who she took care to add, having been condemned by the laws, it would be of no consequence how they treated if he attempted to escape —-they were ordered to lie close.
  It was Königsmark, who, having discovered that all the usual outlets were closed, had been obliged to endeavour to make his exit from the palace out of the Saloon of Knights, through the passage into the hall. He was approaching the chimney, congratulating himself that at last he was close to the outer door of the palace, and should soon be at liberty to accomplish the wishes of the Princess, when suddenly a rush was made at him by several armed men. Notwithstanding his complete ignorance as to the number of his assailants, and that it was too dark to see who and what they were, they did not take him so completely by surprise as they had anticipated.
  On leaving the Princess, the forged letter had presented itself to his mind as a snare that could not have been employed without a purpose; that it was the production of an enemy there could be but little question, and he need not have hesitated long before he must have been satisfied who that enemy was. When be ascertained that the doors through which he had hitherto proceeded out of the palace from the Princess’s apartments were locked, he began to fear he was enclosed in a trap. He walked cautiously along, and on the first rush of the trabants his sword was out of its scabbard before they could lay hold of him.
  Urged on by the Countess, and inflamed by the liquor they had drunk, the men attacked him furiously with their weapons. A most desperate conflict ensued, the result of which might have been doubtful—for the Count had inflicted several severe wounds on his assailants—had not the blade of his sword snapped in two. He had endeavoured to give the alarm, but his cries were soon stopped ; and,when his weapon became unserviceable, he was easily secured and carried into the adjoining room.
  Here the alarmed soldiers discovered that the person they had thus arrested was so severely wounded he could not stand upright. He had just strength to murmur an entreaty to “ spare the innocent Princess,” though they murdered him, when he fell into a swoon as they were placing him on the floor.
  The Countess made her appearance directly the wounded man had been brought out of the hall, and the first object that met his eyes on recovering consciousness, was the face of his malignant enemy bending over him with triumphant malice expressed in every feature. He rallied all his remaining strength to denounce her as the infamous wretch she was, but his mouth was stopped by the foot of his assassin, who pretended she had slipped in his blood, barbarously trod on his wounded face. Life was ebbing fast—too fast either to resent or notice the indignity, and in a few seconds the murdered man breathed his last.
  When the yeomen of the guard ascertained that they had killed Colonel Königsmark, their consternation was only equalled by their fear. Of this their wily employer took immediate advantage, by assuring them that they were sure to be hanged by their sovereign, if they did not all join in representing the Count’s death as the effect of his own rashness in resisting his arrest. Stupefied by fright, they were ready to promise anything to save their forfeited lives, and when the horror-struck Elector was summoned to see the result of the order he had entrusted to his reckless mistress, they represented themselves as acting only in self-defence, and the Count as madly rushing on his own death.
  Nevertheless, their royal master was far from being satisfied; indeed, to do him justice, he was exceedingly angry, and no less grieved at so unjustifiable an act. He overwhelmed the Countess with reproaches for having induced him unwittingly to become the abettor of the assassination of so brilliant an officer as his Colonel of the guards, and seemed quite sensible of the odium which must fall upon him for his culpability in so disgraceful a transaction. The Count Königsmark was so well known, that his death thus secretly effected in the Electoral palace, in the dead of the night, when it became public, would raise a storm of indignation throughout Germany, from which he could never hope to escape.
  The Countess at last contrived to pacify him, and, the consolatory plea of all evil-doers, represented that as the deed was done it could not be undone, and that a plan yet remained to escape from the consequences that so greatly alarmed him. Her plan was to prevent any knowledge of it transpiring. She then very cunningly showed how this might be accomplished most effectually, and in his urgent desire to escape from the consequences of his own criminality in suffering so unprincipled a woman to possess the power of which she had made so bad a use, he consented that measures should be taken instantly to prevent the Count’s death becoming publicly known.
  The Countess had little trouble in persuading the trabants to save their necks by doing as she desired them. All traces of the murder were soon obliterated. The dead body was unceremoniously cast into the most filthy receptacle that could be found for it, covered with quicklime, and the place walled up. So secretly and so skilfully were these measures taken, that no one in the palace was aware anything extraordinary had occurred during the night, although some persons had heard a slight disturbance of which they had taken little notice, and from that time to this, notwithstanding suspicions had been created by the mysterious disappearance of Count Königsmark, nothing of a positive nature has been brought forward respecting his fate on which any reliance could be placed. The account we have given is derived from two of the principal actors in the murder. One being the Countess Platen, who made a confession of her criminality on her deathbed; the other being one of the trabants, named Busmann, who on his deathbed also made a confession; and, a rather singular coincidence, both penitents were attended by the same clergyman—a M. Kramer.
  
  

  Thus, then, perished that brilliant adventurer, Count Königsmark, whose large fortune, rare talents, handsome person, and exalted position at court, could not save him from the vengeance of an offended courtesan, who suddenly struck him down, even in the palace of his sovereign, depriving his soul of the consolations of a Christian, and bestowing on his body an unworthy sepulture.

  Although far from being admirers of such delusive recommendations as he possessed, and unfavourably disposed towards him in consequence ofhis laxity of morals and want of principle, we cannot withhold our sympathy from the victim of one of the most cold-blooded assassinations ever planned. Moreover, his dying entreaty in favour of the Princess showed he possessed a spirit worthy of a better atmosphere than that of a depraved court, and under more favourable circumstances than those by which he had the misfortune to be surrounded, it is not improbable he would have been an honour to his country, and an ornament to the world.
  Furthermore, Clara (a born and bred court lady, daughter and wife to counts, raised à la mode through and through, a lovely and artistic wind-up doll made to dress, dance, recite and write poetry and drama, compliment, et cetera, à la manière de Versailles, but foremostly with a talent for intrigue without an equal across Europe, who got married up to rise for power) was haunted and confessed her crimes on her deathbed (the featurette reveals her writing, on her deathbed, confessions of her guilt in the Königsmarck affair, as she tells her POV of the story, with her children by her bedside):
  “It should be remembered, that the young Count had become not only one of the handsomest men of his time, and was possessed of immense wealth that made the very costly style in which he lived the theme of general admiration but that he was a remarkably intelligent man, apparently finished gentleman, graceful courtier, and brave and skilful officer.”
  The Countess was no longer in office; her conscience had begun to trouble her, and she felt uneasy in her mind with respect to the numerous offences against truth and honesty she had committed. In the last years of her life, when her health had become undermined by a long course of profligacy, and the once beautiful favourite was a loathsome object to herself and to all who approached her, the evil she had committed rose in damning array against her soul, and made her life as miserable as it had been vicious. At last she sent for a clergyman, and eased her overburthened mind by making a full confession of her iniquities; among other crimes dwelling on her murder of Count Königsmark, and exonerating the Princess from all blame in her intimacy with him. This confession was wrung from a guilty conscience in the agonies of a deathbed. She died in the year 1706.
  The Countess left one son and one daughter. Of the former we know very little. Of the latter, Sophia Charlotte, however, we are differently circumstanced. The Countess early brought her forward in that hotbed of vice in which she herself had flourished, and not without carefully impressing on her mind the necessity of her advancing her fortunes by the same means by which she had obtained both wealth and distinction. We have already alluded to her proffering the young lady to her own lover, by no means an extraordinary thing for the woman who had recommended her sister to fill the same infamous office with the son she occupied with the father; but her next display of indifference to the most ordinary feelings of decency was strange indeed, as strange as it was revolting. She had introduced her sister to the Crown Prince, she had done the same kind office for her friend Mademoiselle Schulenburg, and when the charms of both were fading, she showed one more act of devotion to the son of her liberal patron, by presenting the sated profligate with her own daughter.
  These infamous transactions are almost incredible—nevertheless they are perfectly true. The Countess Platen's daughter became a favourite mistress of the Elector. She had dissipated the large fortune she had inherited from her mother in every species of extravagance, and after a hasty marriage with a M. Kielmansegge, to conceal her profligacy, rivalled her mother in infamy. The Elector was getting tired of her excesses when, at the time he was about setting off for his English dominions, Madame Kielmansegge, who also took on herself the title of Countess Platen, put herself forward as so devoted to the person of her sovereign, she was ready to accompany him to that country.
• Caroleans (Charles XII's soldiers) killed Russian prisoners: Unfortunately, this is the historical truth. Rather far from Gustavus Adolphus's kindness and mercy towards Catholic POWs, the Swedish ranks of the early eighteenth century took no prisoners. What must it have been like for a young subaltern officer to play executioner towards enemy captives? And, just like in the feuilleton, the real Peter the Great drank to Charles XII and pardoned the Poltava POWs, even paroling the officers (unfortunately, the Russian Empire is rather vast, and commandants in Siberia often resorted to measures interdicted in Saint Petersburg!).
• A white hare crossing the highway: a bad omen in Slavic folklore. Jules Verne invokes this superstition in his Czarist Russian adventure novel Mikhail Strogoff (otherwise known, for instance in Swedish, as The Czar's Courier), and so does Aleksandr Pushkin in Eugene Onegin. Englund and Heidenstam have penned down the legend that Charles XII saw one en route to Poltava, and I had to include it: partially as tribute to Jules Verne, partially as a shout-out to Carroll's Alice novels.
• Never get involved in a land war in Russia! Due to the efficiency of General Winter and General Steppe, combined with the Slavs' trademark scorched earth tactics (retreating eastward, burning their shops and crops in their wake), any attempt is doomed to end in failure, as Charles XII soon discovered. On top of that, one century later, Napoleon Bonaparte (well acquainted with the exploits of Charles XII!) made the same catastrophic mistake. Not to mention Adolf Hitler during the Second World War...
• Poltava, 8th of August 1709: the twilight of Sweden's Golden Age. Since King Charles had been wounded in the left foot during a reconnaissance on the eve of battle, the Swedish army was left in charge of less competent generals (for instance, Rehnskiöld, Gustav Adolf von Ringstetten's superior and leader of the cavalry). The wounded ruler fled southwards, the Swedish ranks were decimated, the few survivors were captured alive and employed as "indentured servants" of the Russian Empire, in fortress prisons and outpost barracks. Just like in the feuilleton, the real Peter the Great drank to his worthy opponent and pardoned the Poltava POWs, even paroling the officers (unfortunately, the Russian Empire is rather vast, and commandants in Siberia often resorted to measures interdicted in Saint Petersburg!): they were able to keep their swords and rank insignia as long as they behaved themselves. Many of the prisoners died in captivity, due to the harsh winters and frequent diseases. In the 1720s, the few survivors who had not fled their prisons and successfully made it to Sweden were finally repatriated. And only a few officers dared to escape clandestinely. The battle itself, which marked the rise to power of the Romanovs and inspired poets such as Lord Byron or Pushkin, is commemorated as a holiday in present-day Federal Russia.
• Rehnskiöld's fate after the battle? He was also taken prisoner, but, due to his higher rank, he was carried into another outpost. Later on, he was freed in 1718, to join the Swedish military, witness his liege's death at Fredrikshald, and then retire to his native estate. All of this is retold in the latest installment of the Saga.
• French Protestants, or Huguenots (the term being a corruption of "Eidgenossen", German for "confederates"), like Katinka's mother Isabeau, were persecuted during the reign of Louis XIV (their faith having been tolerated between the Thirty Years' War and the Sun King's coming of age). Most of them lived in communities along the Atlantic coast. Though the United Provinces (the Dutch federal republic that would become the Netherlands) and Prussia received most of the refugees, there were minorities who found asylum in Russia and Sweden.
• The German researchers: Czar Peter the Great did actually send a scientific expedition into the "Wild East", and its finds (drawings and pressed plants) are still kept in Saint Petersburg. Rhineland-born leader Wilhelm Steller even had a (now extinct) species of manatee named after himself!
• Granny Yaga (Baba Yaga in Russia and Ukraine, Yaga Baba in Bohemia and the Balkans, Vasorrú in Hungary) is one of the most well-known characters in Slavic folklore. Her iconic dwelling, the croft on hen's legs in the swamp in the woods, is retained, and so are her flying mortal and pestle, her guard birches and her pet cat. In Slavic folktales, there is often more than one Granny Yaga, usually three sisters who act as donors to the leading cast. That line, partly as a tribute to the Norns, the Moirae, and Macbeth, was the one I followed (the first Granny Yaga in the woods, "Yaiza" in the steppe camp, and "Yadviga" at court). I made the cats cobalt blue (and able to speak) partly as a visual pun, partly to emphasize the Yagas' otherwordliness. The Yagas also take up a role, in folktale as in the Saga, of wise woman donors similar to that of the Saami Woman (Lappekone) and Finnmark Woman (Finnekone) in the Sixth Story of Andersen's "The Snow Queen", from which some passages are quoted outright. Not by chance, because the "croft on hen's legs" may refer to a njalla, a Saami reindeer meat shed placed on leg-like posts to keep out of both snow and scavengers (wolves, wolverines). Thus, the Granny Yaga character may have been, originally, a Saami shaman, seen as a sorceress through Christian Slavic eyes.
• The plot: the story draws from "Orpheus and Eurydice" (minus tragic ending), "The Snow Queen" (more specifically, the princess character), and "Tam Lin" (in the latter ballad, a mortal held captive and destined for sacrifice by fairies is freed by his beloved Margaret), set against the backdrop of the Great Northern War. Katinka is a tomboyish, spirited version of Margaret. The gap in the palisade recalls Pyramus and Thisbe/Romeo and Juliet. The ostensible victory of the Green Lady is taken from "Salmacis and Hermaphroditus". Unlike Tam Lin, Gustav Adolf has got a reason for the Sidhe to be after him: the young lord's parents promised him to the spirit in times of need: the Jephthah or Isaac folkloric motif of a child rashly promised to the supernatural. The convergent character arcs of Gustav Adolf and Katinka/Katarina are also influenced by Les Misérables. There's also the Frey myth...
• The Frey myth: A real Norse myth... at first a fairytale, later on revealed to be a tragedy, but nevertheless a profound meditation on human nature and a classic story about a star-crossed relationship. This story provided most of the inspiration for Gustav Adolf's development from fallen warrior to reborn landowner.
• Surviving Norse polytheism: in the deepest backwaters of Sweden, the common people still believed in the old gods, even if they went to church, until the mid-twentieth century.
• Tied to a linden tree, with ears unplugged, to hear Kelpie music without drowning: Ilse took actually a cue from Odysseus himself, whose adventures she had read!
• Instant eunuch: One of the funniest scenes includes Gustav Adolf transformed into, well… a person of the third gender. Later on, he becomes a boy-child and a courtier, other non-military people devoid of masculinity. However, it’s by noticing that he’s become a eunuch in the Tatar lands that the former Carolean is startled at first. Perchance because his new identity transcends the Occidental construct of gender as binary.
• Westernization in Russia: at least the higher classes and the military were westernized during the reign of Peter the Great: clean shaven, wearing tricorns, accepting Protestantism (the Czarina, Catherine, was a reverend's daughter, as stated in the Saga!)... A foppish courtier sent to the "Wild East" as a response to disgrace would, though out of place, be historically accurate.
• The lily brand on Isa’s left shoulder: enemies of the State of France were branded with its lily on a shoulder, using red hot irons. The most recognizable fictional character with this “tattoo” is Dumas’s femme fatale Milady de Winter. In the Saga, this French lily functions as a stigma, a sign of Isa’s outsider status and the suffering she has gone through.
• The duel between Etienne and Gustav Adolf: This is my very own tribute to Eugene Onegin, yet, fortunately, without any casualties.
• "A petty fortress and an unknown hand" ("En ringa fästning och en okänd hand"): Do you still remember the words used to describe Charles XII's death during the siege of Fredrikshald, in the arc finale?  

His fall was destined to a barren strand,
a petty fortress, and a dubious hand;
He left a name, at which the world grew pale,
to point a moral, or adorn a tale.

Verses by English eighteenth-century poet Samuel Johnson, employed in the poem "The Vanity of Human Wishes" as a rant against Charles XII's ambition and lust for power. Never having loved nor having been loved, he really deserved to die in a trench, more than probably shot by one of his own officers, during the siege of a frontier outpost. What a stark contrast to the whole-hearted and sympathetic Gustavus Adolphus, fighting for an altruistic cause, violently slain on the battlefield of Lützen, and even mourned by his archenemy!

Returning to Johnson's verses, the author herself has written the translation into Swedish:

Han mötte döden vid en öde strand,

en ringa fästning och en okänd hand.

Kvar lämnades blott ryktet, fruktansvärt,

till att liknelsers sensmoral bli värt.

Swedish magical creatures: Finally, we'll give a review of the supernatural cast of the series, all of them magical creatures in Scandinavian folklore!

1. Tomts ("tomtar") are household littlepeople, who care for human families, their homes, and their pets and livestock. A fisherman's or woodsman's croft only has space for one tomt, while an estate usually lodges a whole family, Vänersvik being no exception. Their favourite dish is oat porridge, of which they gladly accept a bowl from their human masters in exchange for prosperity. But their oats must be sweetened with honey, or else... If in a good mood, tomts may braid their favourite horse's mane and tail, for instance, the Ringstetten war horses (Hoffnung, mare; Étoile, mare; Foudre and Poudre; Nuage, gelding [castrated] and Orage, stallion [both foals of Foudre and Poudre]), as a token of endearment.
2. Trolls are a rock-based, tailed cave people, without much wit and with a short fuse. A pastime among them is for troll mothers to trade a human newborn with one of their own, a so-called changeling ("bortbyting"). They're not only weak in front of iron and steel: sunlight turns them into stone. They hibernate.
3. The Kelpie or Nix, or Näkki ("Näcken") is a freshwater spirit, who usually appears to mortal maidens at rapids, either as a dashing youth, wrapped up in his Rapunzel-long raven hair, playing the violin... or as a majestic wild white stallion with a raven mane and tail. His real form is a centaur with the traits of both his violinist and horse forms. In either guise, he lures the maidens into the stream and drinks up their blood. He has no feelings and shows no mercy.
4. The Sidhe, pronounced "She"; Ellewoman; or Green Lady ("skogsrået") is the spirit of the woods. Here she appears as the spirit of the spring ("källrået")  Every shire in Sweden has its Green Lady, who ensures the denizens' prosperity if being given an offering. These spirits (a one-gender species) appear as beautiful lilywhite females dressed in moss coats, with dark green, tendril-like hair, "snake eyes", and a vixen's tail. Green Ladies, however, tend to fall in love with mortal men, especially dashing young ones... which their own wistful nature, and longer life expectancy, contradict. In addition, a Sidhe may poison a mortal lover with her plant-based or water-based powers by accident, if not drive him insane or kill him outright. If betrayed, the Green Lady may be rather vengeful towards her rival. The one who slept with an ellewoman often wakes up feeling like suffocating and in a cold sweat. They're powerful, clever female spirits, with power over the climate, flora, fauna, waters... and even human emotions! Ellewomen show children lost in the woods the way home and help shepherds of both genders find their missing charges. The only thing that can be done against them, besides threatening them with cold steel, is turning one's coat or jacket inside out (which Gustav Adolf forgot, leaving him vulnerable to her charms). They hibernate... usually. The Ellewoman of Vänersvik is bound to a spring in the woods, the spring she enchants to take shards of the drinkers' reflections (with Charles XI and Gustav Adolf von Ringstetten). This pond is a healing spring since the Ringstettens made a covenant with the Green Lady, a covenant broken when the child she had been promised, grown into a young lieutenant, left for the war front, then returns decades later with a potential rival (Katia). In animal form, she is usually an oversized green frog or a red vixen.
5. The church-cat ("kyrkokatten", "kyrkorået", "kyrkogrimmen") is the spirit of a black cat walled into a church's walls for good luck, to keep away thieves and evil spirits such as trolls or ellewomen. The church-cat of Vänersvik is called Lyckan, "Goodluck/Fortune", and she was walled as a kitten. So she looks like an oversized black kitten.
6. Lake cattle ("sjökor", "sjönötkreatur") are the cattle of the freshwater-folk, and they yield seven times more milk and beef than land cattle. A dozen lake cows were presented to House Ringstetten by the Green Lady as part of their covenant.

The only flaw all these creatures have is their weakness for cold iron and steel, which damage their health and deprive them of their powers... and even of their lives!

THE RINGSTETTEN SAGA XVII: A HARD TEST

Previously on The Ringstetten Saga:
On a warm springtime's night, Katia, dressed as a Cossack, finally makes it past the fence and wakes Gustav Adolf up, while whispering about their freedom plans. The Russians did not confiscate the Swedish officers' weapons after Poltava: the young lieutenant in blue is still armed on parole and able to defend his beloved.
Both leap over the fort palisade, in the most iconic scene in the story arc, on twin mares stolen from the officers' stables: Gustav Adolf on white Foudre (Lightning) and Katinka on black Poudre (Gunpowder). When the garrison's officers give chase, the fugitives seek shelter in the woods, where they transform into flying squirrels and their steeds into flycatchers (black and white passerines). When the detachment returns empty-handed to the guardhouse, the commandant suffers from a heart attack, clenching his chest and falling unconscious.
In the meantime, the two shapeshifters are still bound for Sweden, always heading towards the setting sun. Until, in late summer, they (as squirrels once more) reach a vast and elegant baroque palace, that Katia mistakes for Versailles. They fall off a fir tree becoming human again.
But they are wearing court dresses instead of their military uniforms, and approached in that state by finely dressed and French-speaking lords and ladies, who mistake them for newcomers of their rank from the provinces. Turns out that their "Versailles" was the Czar's French-style court, on the outskirts of Saint Petersburg, and our hero and heroine receive some aid from His Imperial Majesty to board a clipper, across the Baltic, bound for Kalmar, Sweden. Once they have landed and resume their ride on land towards the Ringstetten estate, summer turns into autumn.
In the Swedish woods, Gustav Adolf and his fiancée transform back into their usual selves, Katia discarding her Cossack's uniform and putting on the frock she had packed in advance. The two young riders, galloping through copses of emerald firs and golden birches, are completely unaware of what will occur once they have reached Värmland. Something that will shatter their hopes and put them on trial.
For a white hare crosses the riders' path before they reach the Ringstetten estate. Just like before the Poltava debacle, the omen repeats itself...
During the cross-country ride, Gustav Adolf decides to tell Katia his favourite story, a tale of the old gods told by his nanny a thousand times, which reminds him of the path he's chosen to take now:
"In Elfland (Alvhem), it was always a cool northern summer, and elves and nature lived in harmony. Their ruler Frey was responsible for the friendly climate and the growth of vegetation.
One day, the smith of Elfland, called Völund, made a sword that could even threaten the gods themselves in order to protect the magical land. He gave this sword to his liege lord Frey, for him to guard Elfland from the trolls and the frost-folk who might arrive as invaders and bring a perpetual winter. This sword was a rapier with runes inlaid on its blade, and Völund had called it Lävatein.
Frey, the ruler of all the elves, was fair-haired and tall, young and dashing forever like all of his subjects. He had a younger foster brother called Skirner, who was more than a friend to him. One day, Skirner persuaded Frey to move his throne to the tallest peak in Elfland. From there, the fair lord could see into the enemy country of Giantland (Jotunheim), and there, in a hall in a rocky glacier valley, he saw a bonnie maiden as young and fair-haired as he was himself. From that day on, he neglected his duties as ruler and guardian of Elfland, and as responsible for the plants' growth and welfare.
In the end, Frey confided in his good friend Skirner that he had fallen in love with a young frost giantess, which might lead to tragedy (being members of enemy species). He couldn't leave his kingdom, or else it would be invaded by his beloved Gerd's own kin... and thus, Skirner volunteered to visit the maiden at her birthplace, the great hall outside which she had been seen.
Thus, the young lad took Frey's reflection from the pond where the secret had been told, and he put this reflection in his drinking-horn canteen. He also asked for Lävatein, for he intended to bring the sword to the in-laws in exchange for their daughter, as a gift of peace. Though Frey knew the price he had to pay, he gladly sacrificed his rapier, the only weapon in Elfland, to attain a romance with his intellectual equal.
After a warm leave-taking, Skirner went through many pitfalls and perils to reach fair Gerd's residence. There, he asked the servants to let him have a tête-à-tête with the young heiress... and then, he told her of Elfland and the fair folk, of vast gardens and calm lakes, of Frey's pocket-sized ship that could grow at his will and also fly through the skies, of the golden pig Gyllenborste, that Frey kept as a pet... and, not least, of Frey himself: young and handsome, cheerful and clever, the only match for a maiden like Gerd. Yet she didn't believe the Elven messenger... until Skirner, the sharp lad, put Frey's reflection in her drink (which made her nearly swoon with infatuation), made the engagement known to her caregivers, and handed over the rune-inlaid Lävatein to the household. 
Once the bonnie Gerd had reached the Great Hall of Elfland, a wedding without an equal was celebrated among the Fair Folk. The bride and groom received countless gifts, and the revels lasted from that full moon till the next one. No one regretted having given up the sword..." Gustav Adolf ostensibly concludes the story. The Sidhe has watched her ward return as a young and dashing officer, in spite of the many privations he has suffered. He may be wearing a steel rapier, but it remains in his scabbard, as his pistols do in their holsters. She has fallen in love with the young lieutenant, and is thus determined to take his freedom and make him hers. 
Thus, she casts ferns and strange mushrooms into the spring from which Charles XI had drunk at the start of the season, enchanting it for a second time. This spell, though, is to make any young warrior who drinks from the spring lose all his feelings, his heart freezing to ice.
Katia and Gustav Adolf soon arrive, both unaware of the impending threat to their relationship. As the thirsty lieutenant drinks his fill, he feels a sharp, stabbing pain in his chest, like a stab with a blade of ice, while the enchanted draught lands in his stomach (like if he were "warmed" with brandy, but "cooled" instead). Katia springs to his aid, but he rejects her with an ice-cold glare and continues solo, on Foudre, towards the Ringstetten estate, leaving Katia and Poudre on their own by the spring.
Then, right before the rectory, the Sidhe pulls the dragonfly trick on Birgitta, one of the Reverend's young daughters. The little redhead follows the dragonfly to a clearing where there are rune stones: the Sidhe turns her into a rune stone and takes her form to supplant her.
The Count and Countess are overjoyed with their prodigal son's homecoming, deciding to celebrate it, but he reacts coldly and without one word. His highborn parents attribute this change of character to the war and the subsequent captivity.
When Etienne and Christina pay the estate a visit, the Walloon (next in line for the title and lands of Count of Ringstetten after Gustav Adolf) is surprised by the appearance of the missing rightful heir... and by his change of personality. He tries to reconcile with the young lieutenant, but in vain. In fact, Gustav Adolf looks coldly at Etienne, insinuates that he has tried to claim the lands in his absence, and calls him a usurper. The Wallonian industrialist, feeling offended, challenges his brother-in-law to a duel on Midsummer Green, the day after the harvest fête at sunrise.
Katia makes it to the soldier's croft, where she finds his widow Kerstin and her seven children. The Northlander was called up and killed at Poltava. The young foreigner decides to help them work for their lords: the Count and Countess of Ringstetten, whose only son has just come home from the wars.
Now it's her turn to experience toil and trouble!
During the harvest celebrations, Gustav Adolf announces his intention to leave the Swedish Army and his parents having betrothed him to Birgitta. Katia, who hoped to get to dance with him but was violently shoved aside, feels completely deserted: did she leave everything she knew in vain?
So she takes the knife she had brought from the outpost and slashes her own wrists at dusk, on the edge of the woods, veiled by the evening fog... as Gustav Adolf, returning home from the dance on Midsummer Green with his parents, sees her bleeding and asks her why. A weeping and bleeding Katia calls him a traitor in response. The maiden's blood and tears on the lieutenant's skin break the spell. He asks her for forgiveness, being forgiven, and she is taken back to the estate, where her beau tends to her wounds. The Count and Countess accept Katinka for a daughter-in-law. 

The young officer spends the whole night awake thinking also of Etienne and the fact that either of them may die the next day. He tells Katia of the argument he had with the Walloon while frozenhearted. The maiden can’t be more worried either.

As the sun rises, Gustav Adolf runs off with Erik, one of the household servants, and a loaded pistol to Midsummer Green. There, he finds Etienne and a younger Walloon, who appears to be a servant of his or someone important at the steelworks.

Katia looks from behind a linden, as both duelists take their steps apart, and soon they are aiming at each other with their loaded guns. She still looks on as two gunshots are heard, scaring the crows off their nests and the rabbits away, and, a second later, she sees Etienne unscathed and Gustav Adolf reeling, bleeding and clutching his left thigh where it joins the hip. The Walloon reaches out to his brother-in-law and offers him to lean against him. Carrying a half-conscious lieutenant leaning by his side, Etienne meets Katia and tells them that he never intended to kill Gustav Adolf, whom he knows and loves since the Ringstetten heir was a child. Moreover, the soldier stationed in next shire is an old surgeon with battlefield experience from the Polish Wars, and Etienne takes his brother-in-law there for this surgeon to tend to his wounds. A draught of brandy and a bullet removal later, everyone is reconciled.
The Sidhe disenchants Birgitta and returns to her usual form, promising that she'll get revenge on the Ringstettens for losing her beau.
Pretty soon, in a modest church by Lake Vänern, merry bells are pealing over treetops and rooftops. Gustav Adolf and Katia are now husband and wife, and soon they will be count and countess!
During the wedding celebrations, the Veiled Singer reveals herself as Ilse and reconciles herself with her family. The old Count and Countess give her the right to roam free with her new loved ones, but she is welcomed, with her spouse and their three children, to the Ringstetten shire whenever she pleases.
And Gustav Adolf concludes, after the wedding fête, the ostensibly finished story of Frey:
"Years went by, elves always young and good-looking, Elfland always friendly and inviting. Then, suddenly, came the great battle of Ragnarök, the confrontation that would put an end to many worlds, including Elfland itself. And Lord Frey was merely armed with a stag's antler, helpless, against a powerful enemy.
The leader of the invading host was Surt, made of fire, the primeval ancestor of all the giants and trolls of Jotunheim. Surt, chaos incarnate, a blade of flaming steel in his right hand, 
It didn't take long for Frey to recognize his own sword, the sacred rapier Lävatein. Though that was the last instant of his existance: no sooner had a flash of regret crossed his mind that the fair lord fell, a blade of fire run through his chest into his throbbing heart.
Thus, Frey was slain with his own sword, the one he had given up for love's sake.
At the same time, the enemy fell as well, Surt's left eye pierced by the antler that Frey had thrust into it as he had lunged forward... to get run through with flaming steel.
The good lord and the devastator had, thus, slain each other at unison.
Subsequently, the land of the elves was completely devastated with fire and sword risen from the vengeful ranks of Surt, and a widowed Gerd and her little son Fjölner were slain, along with most of the fair folk of Elfland: those who didn't make it to the Middle-land (or Earth)."
Like Frey, the former Carolean sees himself as one not afraid of death or dishonour after having left the military profession to contrive to marry his intellectual equal.
Peace seems to have returned to the nation, and to the Northern world at large. The Walloons have, once more, made up with the Ringstettens. King Charles XII dies young and childless, during the siege of Fredrikshald, "a petty fortress", shot in the nape of the neck at night by "an unknown hand", still unclear if of friend or foe, on the 30th of November 1718. General Rehnskiöld, released from captivity, rejoined the Swedish Army and witnessed the death of his liege lord. Aurora von Königsmarck, in her ancestral seat, has died peacefully in her sleep, having accidentally pricked herself with a brooch, which may have been poisoned. And Parliament has been reinstated in Sweden.
Gustav Adolf, now done with his military career and resting on his laurels, is made aware of it all and reflects on the effects of all of these changes. What are great people but mortals, and aren’t empires condemned to decadence? How will the world, or at least the province, remember his legacy?
Three decades after that, two more rune stones stand next to each other, beside Liselotte's, on the road to church, and Katia and her spouse are rulers of the peaceful shire. Etienne, now widowed and elderly, having handed over the steel mill to his eldest son, lives in the hall with them, and he is the children's tutor. The foreign countess has given birth to seven children, of which only the youngest three have survived their first year as punishment from the Sidhe: twin boys, both blond and amber-eyed, and a slightly younger platinum blond and blue-eyed little girl. But... has the Sidhe really forgotten her oath of revenge and decided to put daring Krister, curious Kristian, and self-indulgent Ulrika to the test?

THE RINGSTETTEN SAGA XV: A FAUSTIAN PACT

Previously on The Ringstetten Saga:
Life has gone on in the shire without any trouble except that. Christina von Ringstetten has become a lonely and thoughtful child, with the maids and Etienne van der Heide, the foundry owner's ten year older only son, for playmates. Though the green-eyed and strawberry blond little girl, educated by the local Reverend, also likes reading books, especially myths and war chronicles.
In the 1670s, catastrophes pile upon each other: royal officials scour the estate to give three quarters of the clan's lands to the Crown, and the King himself is coming to Värmland for a moose hunt (Charles XI having started an absolutist regime); Etienne has left for Uppsala University, leaving Christina on her own with her books; large patches of heartsease that cover the plains predict that it will be an unusually dry summer for that part of Sweden; and Eleonora, who happens to be expecting her third child and hopes that it will be a blond male (after her red-haired daughters, Christina and Ilse) to appease her stern mother-in-law... develops an unexpected craving for wild strawberries. 
An agreement with the Sidhe, the spirit of the woods, will solve all those issues... or not?
The Sidhe looks like a young lady with dark green hair, snake eyes, webbed hands and feet, and a vixen's tail. She wears a moss gown and jewelry made from dewdrops.
 Other Swedish folk figures that appear are trolls (related to the Sidhe); tomts, household gnomes (the Ringstetten estate has a whole family of tomts, while commoners' cottages have only one); Lyckan the church-cat, the ghost of the lucky cat walled in the local church to ward off evil spirits; and the Nix (otherwise known as Kelpie), a freshwater spirit in the form of a dashing young violinist, who lures maidens into rivers and lakes to feed upon their blood (though he can also transform into a wild stallion).
So, Hermann and Eleonora meet the Sidhe in the woods, in late summer/early autumn, and expose all their issues. They reach a pact: the area will remain protected by Sidhe magic if they give her the freedom of their unborn child.
A tough decision that can't be revoked, but they have no other choice.
After the pact is made, the little strawberry bush at the edge of the French garden starts yielding strawberries again. It will yield berries all year round, even in autumn and winter.
A fortnight later, a large mossy rock, invisible to adults but not to children, appears like out of the blue on the French garden lawn. 
And a fortnight after that, the rock moves into the hall.
The rock turns out to be the Sidhe, that hibernates just like the trolls do. She will hibernate in the estate hall every winter from on now.
A fortnight before Christmas, Eleonora's third child is born. To tangle up the plot...  it is the long-awaited male heir! Not only that: Black Maya, who was called for as a midwife, reveals that this newborn was a great war hero and freedom fighter in his past life, now reincarnated as the grandson of his loyal followers...
Now they've got a name for this lad: Gustavus Adolphus (or Gustav Adolf, as it would be in Swedish and German)! When they take him to church for christening, the Sidhe awakens and clings to the horse-drawn sleigh to claim her prize. Christina and Ilse spot her and trick her: their little brother can't be captured before he has received a name. However, the fairy-like spirit yields to the cold and to the sacred ground of the churchyard, protected by the ghost of a lucky black cat called Lyckan (see explanations for more information). But she stays alive, though rather weakened, helping the Ringstettens with all their issues as the three cute-looking children grow into young adults...

• The heartsease/drought issue: the winter snow and moister summers help the Ringstetten lands to recover. The clan at Vänersvik is also rewarded with a dozen lake cows (cattle of the freshwater folk), that yield seven times more milk than land cattle.
• The Etienne issue: the young Walloon returns from university, to marry a sixteen-year-old Christina (his betrothed!), who had been raising the traditional myrtle plant for her bridal wreath in his absence, and return home to inherit the steel mill with a lovely wife by his side.
• The absolutism issue: a dragonfly sent by the Sidhe one autumn day distracts the youngest pony rider in the royal entourage one autumn day. Which leads Charles XI to follow after his son and heir deeper into the woods, until the dragonfly stops next to a spring whose waters the Sidhe has enchanted in advance, to make the drinker forget what he was going to do next. Then, we see Kronprins Charles, a cute-looking lad in a blue uniform, showing his highborn father how he has caught the dragonfly with his own hands... to subsequently pull its wings off and behead it (that gives a clue about what kind of ruler he'll be when he comes of age!). As Charles XI in his huntsman's suit, watching this display of skill and sadism, bends over the spring to quench his thirst and feels a sharp sting in the chest as he swallows the first sip. He forgets about his plans to take the nobles' lands and leaves the Ringstettens to mind their own business.

To protect Gustav Adolf when strolling in the woods, he has been given a cross-shaped pendant that his brother-in-law has made of iron nails, since magical creatures dread cold iron (+ steel) and religious objects. The heir of Ringstetten grows up with war stories by Homer, Ovid, Lucan, and his own grandsire (recall the handwritten Memoirs of a Prussian Lieutenant). In a cottage near the church, a soldier in a blue coat is lodged by royal decree. He's a heavy-set and stalwart Northlander who has fought in the Polish Wars, assigned to Ilse and Gustav Adolf as their tutor, making that another influence for the blond and steel-blue-eyed young noble's penchant for the military.
However, love may prove far more powerful than elemental magic. For soon, Ilse and Gustav Adolf have become a beautiful maiden and a dashing youth. He can't wait to join the ranks, while she has grown attracted to a violinist whose itinerant clan (not Roma, but still stateless performers) visits the shire every Harvest Festival, Christmas, and Midsummer.
However, her parents would prefer one of the other suitors from among the local gentry and wealthy landowners.
Ilse's heart, no matter what, will always beat for Andreas, her Orpheus, who saved her from drowning in Lake Vänern when lured by the Nix (or Kelpie), by stabbing the pond with his knife (cold steel and cross-shaped), when both were children, as she tied herself to a nearby linden tree (with unplugged ears) to be able to hear the Kelpie play the fiddle. Their friendship has grown into something more, as he's always been telling her folktales and she's replied with classical myths.
Charles XI is already good and deceased, succeeded by his son and namesake, an emotionally cold young ruler who wants to find excitement and pleasure on the battlefield.
On Midsummer Night 1701, a sixteen-year-old Ilse disappears, leaving behind what appears to be a suicide letter in her own bedchamber. She has actually joined Andreas and his troupe, to live the life of an itinerant performer. But she is pronounced dead (thought to have drowned in the lake) by her family, leaving Gustav Adolf on his own. And what does her brother do in spring the next year, if not enlist in the Swedish Army and leave for the war on Czar Peter the Great (Actually, any competent commander should know that getting involved in a land war in Russia is not such a good idea. But, alas, young King Charles is merely concerned with glory and reputation) and Elector Augustus the Strong that is being fought in Eastern Europe?
The farewell to the dashing blond ensign knows no equal within this story arc when it comes to heartwarming: his mother and sister burst into tears, Annika has made some cakes, Etienne gives Gustav Adolf a steel crucifix to replace the one made from nails, which is missing.  Lying about his age to enlist in the army (he is actually fourteen, but he says he is sixteen!), he is soon made a lieutenant, and everything seems to indicate that his only officer friend is that dashing drunken freethinker and resident outcast of the regiment's surgeon, the closeted male-whore Jamie Fitzwilliam, that Gustav Adolf is closely knit with his men (a motley crew of Swedish, French, British, stateless… soldiers), but indifferent to his liege and to his general, Rehnskiöld. For the Carolean army has developed a culture strictly based on masculinity: every Swedish military man serving Charles XII must always steel his heart and mind, not caring for pain, love, elation, or any other feeling, positive or negative, and restrain every form of emotional expression. And not marry unless the King himself has found a wife (Charles is only concerned with warfare, and determined never to wed).
In 1701-1702, the Swedish Army is garrisoned for the winter at the Kurland chateau of Würgen and its picturesque environs. Drinking Riesling and playing cards is not enough for Gustav Adolf (now turned a freethinker), who soon learns from his fellow officers of the existence of the one who will be his first love. 
Rumour has it that a beautiful noblewoman, tall as a goddess, beautiful as a fairy, proud and dressed as the Queen of France, and as learned as she is good-looking (speaks several languages, plays string instruments, composes love songs, and writes poetry as easily as you please)... has arrived all the way from the court of Saxony to pay the estate a visit. Countess Aurora von Königsmarck, Elector Augustus's mistress herself. She's the talk of the Swedish camp! They say the Elector has sent her to seduce King Charles... but is this true? What may have brought her to this backwater hinterland, and into the enemy ranks?
This beautiful lady resides currently at the château, while the Swedes are encamped and garrisoned near the village below. Her lavish baroque carriage goes back and forth between the hall and the King's tent. Why not visit Würgen and see what she's like?
The password to enter the hall is "Kungsör"...
That starry winter night, the young lieutenant leaves the camp to climb up the hill, to the estate, where light is shining... curious about such a clever and beautiful lady and eager to make her acquaintance.
"Kungsör!" The password is said out loud. But the château gate is guarded by Swedish soldiers! And they let him in so easily! In the gardens and in the courtyard, he hears the distinct sound of a harp playing. Can it be Königsmarck? His heart is throbbing with impatience!
Upon entering the bedchamber, led by the guards and a few maids, he is struck with awe and paralyzed by all that elegance: in this stunning baroque chamber... a tall, dark-haired Venus in a flowing gown of golden brocade is writing in the light of two pink alabaster lamps, reclining on her dressing table.
As she hears the clomping of heavy military boots, she coquettely says:
"Is that you, my dear Törnflycht? Come in, my lad!"
For she has a young Swedish lieutenant, a born courtier, for a pageboy. And Ringstetten is the spitting image of Törnflycht. What may come out of this? 
The young lieutenant, in spite of being a provincial without any knowledge of courtly culture, decides to carry on the deception, while his heart is throbbing and his cheeks are ablaze:
"I am. Why did you call for me?"
Thus, Aurora turns around and looks at him with wistful hazel eyes, praising the way he looks in a blue uniform and his "tall, blond, and handsome" physique. She appears to have a plan in which the young officer will be involved. His heartbeat intensifies, and he can't take his eyes away from hers.
The maids and butler leave the chamber, leaving the dazzling countess and the dazzled lieutenant for a tête-à-tête, at her beck and call. She shows him to a chair and invites him to sit down, to subsequently confess her feelings for the one she really loves:
"Your king is a hero! I have taken the liberty to write a little ode to him...". Taking forth a little sheet of pink paper, she recites a baroque poem, which she has entirely penned herself, in praise of King Charles XII, comparing him to several gods and demigods of the classical world.
"A court lady like her can only have royalty", Gustav Adolf thinks, dejected and crushed, feeling out of her league. Dazzled by the light of her eyes, he is forced to look down into the soft pavement.
In the end, he is about to take his leave, when she softly pulls the tail of his coat:
"Pardon me if tonight's poem has proved a little tiresome. Please listen to what I have to say. I am, after all, a prisoner in your lands. You Swedes are the ones who have the power here. I only have prayers. And I pray, Herr Lieutenant..."
"If I can..."
"You speak as if I were a traitor! Ever heard of a Königsmarck who failed to keep a promise? I assume you haven't forgotten the plight of House Königsmarck. Since the Thirty Years' War, we served our new motherland of Sweden with blood and honour, confiding in the great fortune that Good Queen Christina had given us. My lord father was Governor of Pomerania. Or that’s what my brother Philipp always said. The late King, Charles XI... he took all the wealth we had, except our ancestral hall back in Saxony. So we left Sweden in dire straits, betrayed by the Crown. We quickly became orphans, my siblings and me..., and then, my brothers fell on the battlefield, in the prime of their lives... except Count Philipp Christoph, who had an affair with our childhood friend Sophie Dorothea, the Electoress of Braunschweig, an unhappily married lady, and vanished at her palace into thin air. I was left alone with my sister Amalie: even our retainers had left our hall. But I was not satisfied with our plight of obscurity... and thus, I left for the Zwinger with my sister, both of us eager to lead the good courtly life once more, with the excuse that His Highness help us find Count Philipp, our missing brother. Et voilà! Auguste, that new Zeus, fell for the young upstart! And we were the talk of the court! But I couldn't forget or forgive what Charles XI had done to me. And I still hope the father's wrongs will be righted by the son. Even though Charles XII doesn't give me a chance! The King doesn't know what it means to be a Königsmarck. He must listen to me come what may! And I love him with all my heart!"
She takes the young lieutenant's hand and looks at him with sparkles in her hazel eyes:
"Every day, after supper, the King has some spare time, for writing letters to his sister. You show me the way. I will come at twilight, dressed in a Swedish officer's uniform. I don't fear the wrath of your Liege. For I know how to put rulers in check. Perchance King Charles will meet me alarmed, but he will part from me redeemed."
The lieutenant gives a cold, hard reply:
"Your Ladyship said that no Königsmarck betrays her promises. You're asking me to commit high treason. I'll never betray my liege lord. You ask me as a lady, and I reply as a warrior. And our whole camp would give you the same answer!", Then he runs away, casting a last glance at an incensed Lady Aurora, who is breaking her fan as she bursts into tears.
Nevertheless, the next day at dusk, a Venus in a plumed tricorn and blue overcoat heads for the Swedish encampment. The King is returning from the estate on horseback as he encounters Aurora. Charles only takes off his hat and gives her a death glare, as he spurs his steed on to the camp. She turns back in tears, rending her coat, carrying the proud certainty that she's the only mortal ever dreaded by Charles XII.
Our young lieutenant regrets having treated his first love so rashly as the army marches southward into Poland: in the summer of 1702... Warsaw, Kliszów, Kraków fall. And the Swedes then head for Saxony, their old land of victories, and they spend the winters in Leipzig...
Our lieutenant is not only excited by the prospect of visiting the places known from history lessons, but also by the prospect of being able to see Aurora von Königsmarck and ask for her pardon.
And his liege lord is even more excited by the idea of visiting the lands where his famous ancestor fought and died for freedom's sake... Charles XII, in Saxony, feels as excited as a child in a huge sweet shop.
Though at first there is friction between Charles and the locals due to the dialect barrier, as he asks for directions to Breitenfeld once and they stand puzzled… then he realizes that they say “Breydenfeelde...” The Saxon dialect is pretty hard to understand.
The King is shown the spot where Gustavus Adolphus fell at Lützen. He's heard whisper: "I have tried to live like him, perchance I will even die such a beautiful death..."
Gustav Adolf, on the other hand, gets déjà vu when a skirmish takes place near Lützen and he is wounded in the shoulder, on the same spot where his royal namesake fell.
Charles XII meets Augustus the Strong von Wettin in Günthersdorf, in between Lützen and Leipzig, in 1706. The Elector is a heavy-set epicurean who behaves kindly and heartily towards his enemy (though his heart is full of rage and disappointment after defeat). A courtier and a warrior have had an interesting parley during the peace conference. And Augustus even offered Charles a few tokens of gratitude, like fruit and a medal with both their portraits. But the peace will only prove a truce...
In early 1707, a Leipzig-based (in Auerbach Tavern) Gustav Adolf is still looking for Aurora von Königsmarck to ask for her pardon... 

Charles has also met Gottfried Leibniz, home to his birthplace from the Prussian court. But, in spite of both of them being such great mathematicians, the chat is nothing about numbers. The philosopher, drunk on Rhenish, tells the young ruler about his meeting with the Czar in the Low Countries and how often he (the Czar) wenched a peasant woman in the marsh reeds. Leibniz has made a strong impression on Charles, who has taken note of all that the learned Leipziger has said about passions and how emotional passions surpass the physical ones.

In February, at the chateau of Liebenwerda, a short distance east of Leipzig, the Elector of Saxony is hosting a big-game hunt when a group of Swedish officers step into the picture. Everyone gets drunk that evening at the great hall. Romances with señoritas and mademoiselles in Augustus's young Mediterranean years are passionately discussed. The half-drunken ruler takes up some iron horseshoes and breaks them with his bare hands. And all the glasses are raised to the invincible Elector and Lord of Saxony, who breaks hearts like he breaks iron and steel... and even his enemies' swords, including that of the Swedish brat!
Thus he says, loudly, and confidently, as he breaks a rapier, with his bare hands as well.
The lieutenant learns that Aurora, after falling from grace, has been banished (or rather banished herself) from court to her ancestral seat of Quedlinburg, across the electorate. 
For Augustus has found himself a new mistress, an Austrian court lady he met at a ball hosted by the Kaiser in Vienna, and the Countess of Königsmarck has not been able to bear the ascendancy of her rival, returning with Maurice, the son Augustus gave her, to Quedlinburg. The reveal sends Gustav Adolf von Ringstetten into a state of shock.
He'd rather go westward to see her, but the call of duty shows him the way eastward, into the rising sun. King Charles has set his eyes on Russia, and he won't be satisfied or stop until the Swedish flag flies from the Kremlin's highest tower.
Thus, when Charles XII and Rehnskiöld have Russian prisoners of war beheaded, our lieutenant is left not to express his own conflicting feelings under death penalty, as he swings the rapier that signals the firing squad to fire their guns.
Yet those unfortunate Cossacks will soon be avenged by Fate on the 8th of July 1709, after a ruthless winter has already decimated the Carolean host.
Gustav Adolf is also made cupbearer to his liege lord and general, becoming, a tad against his will, their mutual catamite in the Royal Swedish Ménage à Trois.
En route to the war front at the fortress of Poltava, a white hare crosses the Swedish Army's path. The pathfinder warns the leaders that it's a not so good omen. Though Charles and his generals don't believe in the sign.
Already in early July, they have taken Poltava and broken the bridge across the Vorskla, when suddenly, after a few days of waiting, the enemy host repairs the bridge, crosses the stream, and encamps. The Swedes, excited, leave the fortress and encamp across the Vorskla, facing the encampment of flags white, blue, and red, and green-coated enemies...
A fortnight later, a messenger in uniform reaches the Ringstetten estate with an important message for His Lordship and Her Ladyship: something has befallen their only son on the battlefield...