A girl walked alone through a forest.
She looked all day for something to eat, but only found sour berries.
Discouraged, she sat down and cried.
"Little girl, why are you crying?"
She turned to see a tall, handsome man in a dark cloak. He sat beside her.
"My family has nothing to eat."
"Give me your berries," he answered, "and I will ensure your family is fed."
Reluctantly, she handed over the fruit.
"Follow me." He led her to a meadow with a small hut. She waited and he soon returned with a piglet.
"If you ever need anything, you know where I am."
The girl ran home. Her mother cried tears of joy to see the pig. They built a pen and fed it with scraps. In time, they bred the sow and with each litter they had more food and money.
When the girl became a teen she went to see him again. The cottage and the man were unchanged.
"I wish to be pretty."
He gently touched her soft curls.
"It will cost you your hair."
She wept as the scissors sliced her thick locks.
But it was worth it. As it grew back, she blossomed into the most beautiful girl in the land.
She was happy with this. But eventually, her mother died and she became very lonely.
She went to see the man for a third time.
"I wish to be married, and live far from this place."
"What can you trade?"
"I have nothing."
"You do. You are still a virgin."
She had not expected the price for a good life to be so high. Still, she paid it.
Not long after a nobleman was thrown from his horse on the road by her cottage. She tended his injuries, and he fell in love with her.
When he was healed, they traveled to his town and were married on the steps of the cathedral.
That spring, she became pregnant with their first child. It occupied the pit of her stomach, where it grew with love.
She was happy. She had all she had ever dreamed of, and when the baby came it was perfect and healthy.
Later that summer a plague befell the town. The disease eliminated rich and poor alike, and her husband became gravely ill.
Desperate, she rode in secret to the forest cottage.
"My husband is dying," she pleaded. "Please heal him."
"Only life can pay for life."
The argument did not dissuade her. For him to live, she would die. She nodded. The man sighed.
"Go home. He will recover."
She sped home and crept into her bed, not expecting to see sunrise- yet she woke at dawn.
She went first to her husband's bed. His fever had broken. He would live!
Fear suddenly shattered her happiness. She ran to the cradle.
There was her perfect baby, its skin as cold as stone.
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