Many didn't believe it could happen, but it had. The people of the Rhine told the story, and it became a legend, the truth lost.
The witch had fallen in love. But alas, she could not go very far from her domain by laws unknown to other mortals; she was confined to the region of the lake, and the river that flowed from it.
The man she loved was a warrior of his tribe, young, beautiful, strong, everything a warrior ought to be. At the time, her appearance was different. Yes, her fingers were long then as they are now, and she was beautiful, but her features were softer, more ethereal than eerie. He had never seen her, but she watched him. Whether by her magical arts, or by secretly following him when he was near her small hovel atop the jagged rocks, she watched him. As time went by, the love in her heart grew.
Her heart was soon broken. Because she could not leave her domain, she could not be his, in any way, nor he hers. She blessed him, anyways, for that is the way of love, sometimes: to give even when you do not receive.
The young warrior was married, to a lovely priestess with reddish-gold hair. She wept till her tears became blood.
A jealous fire began to burn in her core, slowly growing until it was
a bitter, hollow, twisted thing inside her..
Years passed, and
still she watched him. Him and his tiny little bride, and then also
their baby boy. The child that should have been hers. . .
Her jealously burned into a raging fire. Her love took a deadly turn: no longer did she pine for him, but began to hate him. He who had taken all she had secretly given him. Oh, he had known that his luck was more than luck, that he had his own fairy spirit looking out for him. But he never once offered thanks. And now he would pay: she made a plan for revenge, upon this man she had loved, and his pretty little wife. It would require much of her: her soul, her blood. But she was willing to give up that which had caused her so much pain, fruitless pain. Soon the time was right, the full moon.
Free of her soul and her body's blood, the power she would gained from her sacrifice would remain hers forever. She had burned her hovel upon the rock it was built upon, until nothing remains, and in the light of the full moon, she put her plan in motion. She began a song-spell, that would lure her warrior away from his happy little hut. She walked through the woods that surrounded her lake and the river, singing, lighted by the light of the moon. Her hair shown bright gold, her eyes blue-green, her skin pale as milk. And then he came, and saw her. She continued her song, sweet and spellbinding, walking as though she didn't see him, leading him to where her hovel had been: the rocky cliff over the river. She hovered near the edge, singing. He came to her, enchanted by her spell song, and she stopped.
They stood hours staring at one another, her face expressionless, his entranced by her. Finally, as the sun began to rise, she moved. Her arm pointed out over the cliff's edge, wordlessly commanding him to make the jump. Not a moment later, he was gone, and there was a bone-cracking splash below.
Her eyes burned with hateful, heartbroken tears. Soon she was unable to weep: the spell-song she had cast, the power behind it, came to claim what she had offered. Without her soul or her blood, she could not cry anymore. But it would not matter. No sooner had they been taken, than she lept off the cliff's edge herself, following the man she had loved.
But that was not her end. The river took her body to the lake that she claimed, while the body of the warrior drifted to shore. He was found by the village girls, who had come to fetch water in their jugs.
The witch discovered that she was not dead, and she bitterly accepted it. She made her home at the lake's bottom, refusing to live in the world of humans again. She became ravenously hungry. She knew not what for, and so she waited, and watched the surface of the lake from below.
The warrior's wife and other villagers set his body in a small boat, laden with his weapons. They pushed the boat into the lake, and let the water take him where it would. She watched the mourners with relish. All had gone except the boy, his son. The one that should have been hers. And suddenly she knew:
She needed blood. She was hungry. She lured him into the lake, grabbing him. She pulled him under, dragging him down to her watery abode, waiting until he passed out form lack of oxygen. Then she bit him. The sweetness of his blood satisfied her somewhat, and she drew it all out of him. But she needed more. . .more. . .MORE. . .she smelled something on him that she did not have. Ah yes. . .soul. Oh, how she needed it. Neither of them would satisfy her alone. But together, yes, together they would quench her thirst, and quell her hunger.
She looked down at his limp body with no remorse, except that he was the son of the man she had loved. He should have been mine, she thought vaguely. Without a soul, and without blood, she could have no children. Without quite thinking about what she did, she began to chant, finding her knowledge and power had increased. She didn't question it. It was hers now. And soon, so would he be. Hers. Her son. She would teach him all she knew. But when he was a man. . .she knew he couldn't stay with her forever, nor did she want him to. She must give him a task. When he was grown and ready, she would give him wings, to help him complete it. And it would be a task to gain him power, and ultimately, gain herself power. Yes. . .power. Power over mankind. She finished the spells. He blinked up at her with his pretty little eyes, and he opened his pale pretty mouth.
"Who am I. . .where am I? Who are you?"
She gave him his name, and told him that he was safe at home. "As for who I am. . .I am your mother. I am the Lorelei," she said.