Wizard Ilmajne and the Lady Reponsa

A fair lady resided in the old kingdoms of Dashta Hills. Her father was a dwarvish lord of the hills, but her mother was a mystery. Lady Reponsa towered over her brethren, tall as the elves with their pointed ears and graceful appearance. It’s said that her raven hair grew long as to reach her ankles and her beauty was a great pride to her lord father, who would not allow her to marry a man that could not make her laugh. A wizard came upon the land, hearing of the lady fair, and with much confidence he stormed into the castle and cried out to meet the lovely Reponsa. The lord was perturbed and greeted the wizard Ilmajne coldy. Regarding the man to be naught but a selfish boy with too much esteem for his self, he turnt him away. The wizard demanded to take audience with the Lady, but again was dismissed, so he returned after nightfall to find her chambers on his own. The lady awoke in fear at the sight of the wizard who stood by the end of her bed. He gave her his name and asked for her favor, so that they might marry. The Lady instead fled the chamber to find guards and in rage, the wizard cursed her. He made her hair grow and grow until it tangled with everything in her chamber, leaving her trapped inside. In the morning, the servants found her weeping. They cut and cut and cut her hair, but still it grew and kept her tied to the furniture of her chambers. Again, the wizard sought audience with the Lord. Enraged, the Lord swore death upon the wizard for how he had abused his daughter. The wizard laughed and asked to meet the lady once more. Again, the Lord dismissed his demands and asked his guards to throw him into the dungeons. Ilmajne did not reside long in the stone jails, disappearing from his cell within hours. The castle began to fall slowly into sleep, one by one. The wizard came before the lord when his guards and servants were all in sleep. He asked the lord to present his daughter once more, but the lord ignored the demands. He asked his court mages to undo the curses, but they needed to know the name of the wizard to reverse the spells. The lord went to his daughter’s chambers, overflowing with her hair. He begged her to tell him the name of the wizard, but her hair grew around her mouth and she could not speak. The servants around her tried to tell, as the lady would whisper his name in fear as she slept. They fell to sleep before they could open their lips. The lady found parchment and scratched it down, and the king cut her hair until he could reach it. With the parchment in hand, he took to the mages who swiftly broke the spell. It was too late, the desperate lord learned, for when he found his child once more, she had choked on her hair and passed in her sleep. No wizard would chase her now. The servants toiled and struggled and hefted mountains of hair from her room. In death, it didn’t grow, and she was buried with a peasant’s cut. No man had ever made his daughter laugh, and never did she marry. The wizard disappeared to distant lands, no justice to be served. In agony, the lord took his life and no heirs were left to rule. So was the fall of his house, and the rise of another, so that the grapes of the fields would always be sown. Reponsa and Ilmajne, the tragedy of Dashta Hills, still told to young lords and ladies. So the dwarves of the hills still cut their hair short and take no audience with unnamed men.