TWICE TOLD TALES

THE THREEFOLD DESTINY

A FAIRY LEGEND

By Nathaniel Hawthorne



I have sometimes produced a singular and not unpleasing effect, so far
as my own mind was concerned, by imagining a train of incidents, in
which the spirit and mechanism of the fairy legend should be combined
with the characters and manners of familiar life. In the little tale
which follows, a subdued tinge of the wild and wonderful is thrown
over a sketch of New England personages and scenery, yet, it is hoped,
without entirely obliterating the sober hues of nature. Rather than a
story of events claiming to be real, it may be considered as an
allegory, such as the writers of the last century would have expressed
in the shape of an Eastern tale, but to which I have endeavored to
give a more life-like warmth than could be infused into those fanciful
productions.

In the twilight of a summer eve, a tall, dark figure, over which long
and remote travel had thrown an outlandish aspect, was entering a
village, not in "Fairy Londe," but within our own familiar boundaries.
The staff, on which this traveller leaned, had been his companion from
the spot where it grew, in the jungles of Hindostan; the hat, that
overshadowed his sombre brow, had shielded him from the suns of Spain;
but his cheek had been blackened by the red-hot wind of an Arabian