reading

All illustrations:

Pierre Alizé

THE LOST GRANDMOTHER

Translation from German: Hafid Zaitri

Production and publishing:

BoD - Books on Demand GmbH

ISBN: 978-3-7526-7970-0

Dedicated to the grandmother

in every family

and to the grandmother

in every one of us

THE LOST GRANDMOTHER

Once upon a time, there was an old woman who lived in a quiet village by a wide river that flowed into a large lake on the edge of a deep forest, above which a beautiful mountain shone in all its beauty. She had spent her life collecting herbs and helping everyone who came to her humble hut.

While gathering herbs again early one morning, she suddenly heard a happy laugh. She looked around in all directions, but could not see a single soul. The laughter resembled the light-filled sound of a bell. All at once, this sound was mixed with a very soft and loving voice. She turned to the voice. With wonder, she spied a tall, white-shimmering birch, which spoke to her. Never before had a tree done so.

«Go down to the river in the direction from which the sun shines, and you will see.»

The old woman picked up her basket, half-filled with various herbs, and walked through trees and bushes and across a flowery meadow down to the river.

There, in a circle of twelve large water lilies on the river, she saw a cradle in which a child was lying, looking up at the sky and laughing with joy at the sun. A white dove appeared above the head of the cradle, stopped in the air and fluttered on the spot. The voice of the slender birch tree sounded from the forest: «This child was sent to you. Take him home and into your heart as if he were your own.»

The old woman waded into the water, gently lifted the child out of the cradle and put him in her basket on the bed of fragrant herbs. Then she set off with the child back through the forest to her cozy hut.