Fairytales and Castles

The snow fell softly into the awkward silence between us. We were climbing a steep hill towards the Veste Coburg, a red-roofed castle sat at the top of a forested slope, and I couldn’t think of a thing to say to my German companion beyond the banal ‘oh, it’s lovely’.
Wandering morosely towards a set of white stairs, we passed an imposing, dark-stoned building that was patchy black, and almost sooty. I glanced up above the dark, studded wooden doors, and spotted a stone horse’s head, set on a carved plaque on the wall.
“Falada,” I muttered, naming him almost without thinking.
“That’s a German fairytale. The Goose Girl.” my guide said, blinking her green eyes at me in surprise.
I hadn’t known that the story was German, although the tale had been one of my childhood favourites. But I was pleased to realise that we did perhaps have something in common.
“That’s the one where the maid betrays the princess, and has her horse killed, right?” I checked.
“Ja! Have you heard of the one where she has to spin drei dresses? One of, ah, sunlight, one of moonlight and…one of something else. I forget.”
I thought about it as we wandered up a road edged with tall trees, the snow falling in thicker and thicker flurries around us. You could catch an occasional glimpse of the castle through the pillared trunks; here a blue-tipped tower, there a yellow stone wall, bright in the snow-cast gloom.
“I don’t know. It sounds similar to one I know, where she has to free the hero by sleeping beside him every night, without looking at him…”
“Ja, ja!” she exclaimed in visibly growing excitement. “I love that one! It’s an older version of Beauty and the Beast.”
“What about the one where her six brothers turn into swans, and she has to stay silent to free them?” I suggested, warming to the subject.
The path was deserted except for an elderly couple in fur hats, who passed us with a smile and a nod. They turned off into a little side path that disappeared downhill towards a distant chimney amongst the trees. I could smell the wood-smoke from where we were.
“Of course! Have you heard the one about the ice mirror?”
Laughing and swapping fairytales and myths, we tried to catch snowflakes on our tongues. Our voices rang in the still afternoon air, gravel spraying underfoot as we broke into an impromptu dance on our way up the hill, which turned into a race towards the princess-worthy castle at the top.