The Rose Elf

The rose elf could not understand how they could be so quiet about it, and he flew out to the bees gathering honey and told them the terrible story about the wicked brother. So they reported it to their Queen, and the Queen commanded all the bees to kill the murderer the very next morning.

But the night before, the first night after his sister's death, while the evil brother was asleep in his bed beside the fragrant jasmine, the flowers opened, and out of each blossom came a tiny spirit-invisible, but armed with a sharp little poisoned spear. First, they crept into his ears, and told him wicked dreams; then they flew across his lips, and pierced his tongue with their poisoned darts.

"Now we have avenged the dead man!" they cried, then flew back again into the white bells of the jasmine.

When the morning came, and the windows of the bedroom were opened, the rose elf and the whole swarm of bees with their Queen swept in to kill him.

But he was already dead, and people stood around his bed and said, "The scent of the jasmine has killed him!" Then the rose elf understood the vengeance of the flowers and told it to the Queen, and she and her whole swarm of bees ceaselessly hummed around the flowerpot and could not be driven away. When a man picked up the pot a bee stung him on the hand, so that he let it fall and it broke into pieces. Then the people saw the whitened skull and knew that the dead man on the bed was a murderer.

So the Queen bee hummed in the air and sang of the vengeance of the flowers and about the rose elf, and how behind the smallest leaf there dwells One who can disclose and repay every evil.