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face and, luckily, they all gave her some offerings. With the pretty sum she had col- depositing them on the shore.
lected, she ate and drank, then she went back to the woods. The Nymphs, awoken by the noise of the ice breaking, were stricken by the sad fate the
That night there was the full moon. Far away, the wolves were howling gloomily. The couple had endured and surrounded them in tears, the moment their Queen resurfaced
night after, the howls came closer; probably urged by hunger, the ferocious animals the lake herself and bowed to caress the two cold corpses.
were nearing the town. Suddenly, the shadow of one of them startled her. A second later, their closed eyes opened to life once again, and the Nymphs started to
Scared, she made herself as small as possible, crouching even more inside the pit wi- dance happily around them.
thout moving a muscle and almost not even breathing. Lucille smiled, satisfied with her action, at Irene and her friend, who were both still
The wolf didn’t seem to have mean intentions, given that he kept his distance. Feeling dumbfounded, and then she went back into the freezing and clear water of the enchan-
a bit calmer, she fell asleep. When she woke up, she noticed he had crouched next to ted lake, as the singing voices of the Nymphs flooded the whole valley.
her. The inhabitants of the small village erected the statues and passed the story on to their
In the light of day she could see him well enough: he was an imposing animal, the descendants and, even a hundred years after, they were still claiming they have more
color of his fur seemed snow-white and contrasted with his beautiful eyes, as black as than once caught a glimpse of the two silhouettes, the girl and the white wolf walking
a couple of pearls. The wolf stood up, looked at her and turned, moving away toward side by side, inseparable as ever.
the pack that was nearby, and of which he was the leader.
The following night she bought some food with the scarce charity of the passersby,
and she split it in two: she kept one half for herself, while she put the other half on a
rock, intending to wait patiently, but she fell asleep instead.
At first light, she immediately sensed the presence of the white wolf: he was a few
steps away and was looking at her with the sweetest expression, probably grateful.
Irene gathered up her courage and stood up, walking to the animal and reaching out to
caress his neck with her hand, at first fearfully then with increasing determination. He
just stood there, accepting her caresses.
A great friendship was born between the two of them, who became inseparable. But
the wicked fate was plotting against them.
The countrymen, tired of the continuous disappearance of their cattle that ended up
devoured by the pack of hungry wolves, armed themselves and went into the woods,
determined to start a massacre.
Suddenly, the maiden and her inseparable friend found their path blocked by one of
the men, who yelled at her to move aside as soon as he saw the wolf. The pleas coming
from the girl who had tears in her eyes weren’t worth anything; the makeshift hunter
wouldn’t listen to reason and, aiming the barrel of his rifle at the beast, he fired, but
the bullet penetrated her chest, since she had leapt in front of the wolf in a burst of
love and protection.
She fell to the ground as the wolf moved to attack the throat of the man petrified by
panic, but, a second before he could bite him, Irene’s feeble voice begged him to stop.
The countryman, whose hair had turned white because of the danger he was in, ran
away like a coward, leaving the poor girl dying on the ground.
The night that came seemed darker and gloomier than usual. The wolf climbed a cliff,
and from there he expressed all his excruciating pain howling at the moon.
The sun had not risen when the animal started to drag with difficulty the lifeless body
of the girl toward the great lake, inhabited by Wood Nymphs.
When he arrived there, out of breath and determined to end his own life, with an
additional effort he hauled it under the thin layer of ice that broke, and they both went
down the freezing water.
The good Fairy Lucille, the Queen of the Nymphs, who lived at the bottom of the
lake, could not accept such a sad ending so, with a wave of her hand, two vortexes of
water sprang from the depths and lifted the two motionless bodies out of the lake,

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