But when she came into the kitchen in the morning, she found the duchess in a state of delight. The kitchen gleamed as it had never gleamed before, even the corners, every last spider having been relocated to a luxuriously intricate web high in the rafters. The duchess and her family begged to know how the serving girl had made the floor shine so, like a winter pond in the starlight, and what on earth had she done to the spices, which filled the kitchen with scent as if newly ground?
The serving girl realized that the castle must be home to the oíche sidhe, the little faerie housekeepers. They must have plucked up each grain of spice one by one with their clever fingers and dried them with their breath. The girl kept her mouth shut, overwhelmed by her good luck.
As the days passed, the family’s respect for the serving girl only grew. Never had they had such shining floors, windows of such purity as if made of air, such fragrant, spotless bedding. They did not know that they only had such things because the oíche sidhe had to work twice as hard to clean up the mess made by the serving girl, who could not cross a floor without leaving behind a muddy trail, nor open a window without smearing it with handprints, nor pin the bedding up to dry outside without it being blown across the fields and into some muddy puddle.
But then began a series of strange events. After the serving girl dusted the portraits, somehow managing to summon more dust than had been there before, the portraits the next morning were not only free of dust but everyone in them had their hair combed and their clothes brushed and straightened. After the serving girl washed the duchess’s dogs, they were found the next day with their hair in elaborate ringlets. Rearranging furniture would cause rooms and windows to change shape, taking on a rigid and unnatural symmetry. Laundry was the worst of all; after the serving girl had washed it to the best of her lamentable abilities, clothes not only cleaned themselves to spotlessness but grew threads of gold and buttons of ivory, or sometimes became new garments altogether, pyjamas growing into evening gowns and wool socks to silken stockings. If the serving girl cleaned the chicken coop, the chickens would appear the next morning with their beaks polished and their feathers pomaded, looking very self-satisfied. The duchess and her husband began watching the serving girl with concerned looks and encouraging her to take frequent breaks for tea and a lie-down. They did not send her away, though—indeed, they more than doubled her pay to ensure she would never wish to leave.
The serving girl began to fear that she was driving the oíche sidhe mad with her impossible messes—she knew the poor creatures did so abhor disorder. Further evidence of this came unexpectedly and unpleasantly in the form of sudden wet smacks to her face when she was working, rather like being struck with a small, invisible mop. The serving girl lived in terror that the oíche sidhe would murder her one day.
Eventually, the serving girl snuck out into the woods where an old witch lived and begged for help. In exchange for one of the pomaded chickens, the witch informed her that the serving girl’s curse originated in the royal family with the youngest prince, and that only he could undo it.
Fortunately, the serving girl knew the queen and all her children were due to pay a visit to the queen’s sister soon. The night before their arrival, the serving girl took her shabbiest dress, freshly stained with kitchen grease, and tore it to shreds, which she scattered over the floor.
When the serving girl awoke in the morning, she found in place of her old dress the loveliest and most eccentric gown imaginable. It was quite clear that the oíche sidhe were indeed going mad, for the dress was at odds with itself, one moment deciding to be murky pond green and the next ocean blue or harvest brown. It was festooned with baubles and ribbons like a Christmas tree, including a crystal that showed flashes of strangers’ futures and a live hedgehog, which with its tiny claws climbed from pocket to pocket as the mood took it (the dress had an infinite number of pockets).
Dubious, the girl donned the dress and went downstairs. The castle was full of royal attendants and various hangers-on, all bustling about importantly, and in her ridiculous dress, everyone assumed she was a relation of the duchess. She asked one of the ladies’ maids where the youngest prince could be found, and she was told: in the garden.
She found the prince wandering the garden with a displeased look on his face, for those whose blood is half Folk and half mortal exist in a state of perpetual displeasure—the typical games of the Folk leave them perplexed, while they find mortal pursuits dull. In truth, the prince was only scheming to obtain the throne for want of anything better to do with himself.
The prince took one look at the serving girl and fell instantly in love with her, just as she’d hoped. Most young men fell instantly in love with her when she was not dressed in rags and covered in stains, as the serving girl was beautiful, with black eyes, pale golden hair, and skin of a darker gold, a strange but irresistible combination. The duchess was furious when the prince expressed his intention to marry her cherished serving girl, but she could not very well gainsay the queen’s favourite son.
On her wedding day, the serving girl was elated. Once they were wed, she planned to order the prince to undo her curse—if he did not, as her husband he would have to share it and endure a life of mess and disorder. She was certain that the curse that had plagued every season of her life was soon to be broken.
In a way, the serving girl was right. The oíche sidhe fashioned her a magnificent wedding gown—though it was also rather lunatic, having not one but eight hedgehogs roaming the pockets, as well as a bodice that was a portal to Faerie if turned inside out and a train with a ghost hiding in it who disrupted the service with bursts of cackling. At the banquet after their nuptials, the serving girl naturally managed to spill the entire contents of a gravy boat upon herself, and it was the sight of their finest handiwork in ruins that finally broke the oíche sidhe. They swarmed out into plain view as the oíche sidhe never do normally, halfling men and women the colour of dust, and began walloping the serving girl with their faerie mops. No one and nothing could stop them, and the wedding guests began to fear that their new princess would be beaten to death. Whenever the prince tried to pull his bride to safety, the hedgehogs would bite him. Golden feathers began to fly through the air, and the wedding guests could not at first make sense of it. The oíche sidhe kept whacking and whacking until the serving girl split apart like an overripe plum and became what she had been long ago, though neither she nor the mother who raised her had guessed it—a golden raven, one of the three enchanted birds that the prince had released to bring strife to the kingdom.
The serving girl flitted out the window, free at last, while the oíche sidhe dusted their hands and went smilingly back into hiding. They stopped pomading chickens and turning pyjamas into evening wear, which was ultimately a relief to the duchess, who had been down to her last nightgown.
As for the prince, the serving girl’s disappearance finally gave him a purpose in life. He retreated to the wilderness to learn magic from witches and any Folk who would teach him. Eventually he succeeded in turning himself into a raven, whereupon he flew off in search of his beloved. In the northeast of Ireland it is said that he is still searching for his golden bride to this day, and that if you listen closely, you can hear her name in the croaking of the ravens.
