UNDINE, THE WATER SPRITE: SPRING

 The Four Seasons #2

By Friedrich de la Motte Fouqué

Translated by Fanny Elizabeth Bunnett

Adapted by Rachel Louise Lawrence

“Of all fairytales I know, I think Undine the most beautiful.“

George MacDonald

“You must know, my own love, that in each element there exists a race of beings, whose form scarcely differs from yours, but who very seldom appear to mortal sight…you now see before you, my love, an undine.”

Undine, a water sprite, has been adopted and raised by an old fisherman and his wife, who have lost their own child. One day, the Knight Huldbrand ventures into their isolated existence and the two fall in love. Huldbrand proposes marriage, only to learn the truth of Undine’s identity on their wedding night. However, their pasts, in the form of Huldbrand’s former love and Undine’s mercurial uncle, soon encroach on their charmed married life. Can their relationship overcome the differences in how humans and undines live? And can it survive when the truth behind the drowning of the Fisherman’s daughter is revealed?