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- Story - The Princess Angiola and the Ivory Tower
In the Woods where the Princess Angiola often played, and where she had once followed the White Fawn was a Tower. It was carved in ivory and was slender and high. There lived in the Tower an Angel who guarded the Forest. He kept from harm the children who played there, and to him belonged the White Fawn. Angiola had never seen the Ivory Tower, she did not know that it was in the Forest.
One day she was playing there and decided to go more deeply into the Wood; she wanted to find the White Fawn, but she did not see him, and everything was very still.
At last when she had quite lost her way, she came to a Hut with a Well before its door. There stood two woodsmen talking. Their names were Crispin and Johan.
When they saw Angiola they knew she was a Princess, for she wore a circle of diamonds on her head which shone like stars; and she had on a frock of white wool embroidered about the hem with scarlet and purple flowers.
She asked them the way out of the Forest, but they would not tell her. They were not kind men. Johan was the worst, he wanted everyone to think him good; but he was not, he liked to frighten children.
He thought he would frighten Angiola, and that would be very amusing. He took a long knife out of his girdle and showed her how sharp it was, then he held the point under her chin. She was terribly frightened, too frightened to move. Then he whirled the knife around and held it over her head.
Crispin laughed when he saw the knife whirling about Angiola’s head. But he stopped laughing suddenly. For he had seen standing behind the little Princess a tall Angel. His countenance was like an Angel of God, very terrible.
Johan saw the Angel too, and he was so frightened, and so anxious for the Angel to think him good, that he quickly dropped the knife into Crispin’s hand. But Crispin did not want the Angel to see him with the knife either, so he handed it back to Johan. And there Johan stood accused with the knife in his hand; and the Angel saw it all.
The Princess turned and clung to the Angel and said, “O, send these bad men away!”
And the Angel said to Crispin and Johan, “You have heard. Go, leave the Forest forever!”
Then Johan got down on his knees and begged the Angel not to banish him. He talked so humbly, and spoke so fair that any but an Angel would have been deceived. He said: “Pity a poor man, O, mighty one; I am an honest woodsman, and I love little children; I would not harm them for the world! The Princess will tell you that I was only playing. Let me stay in the Forest.”
While he talked he held the knife as though he would like to get rid of it if he could. He was hoping that the Angel would not notice the knife.
“Get up,” said the Angel. “Take the knife and cast it into that Well, and leave the Forest forever.”
Johan was so frightened at the awful voice and the fiery glance of the Angel that he trembled and could hardly rise. But Crispin pulled him up, and he threw the knife into the Well as the Angel had commanded him. Then they both slunk away as quickly as they could.
The Angel took the Princess by the hand and walked toward the Ivory Tower. The Princess said: “I thought that man was going to kill me, I was frightened; but when you came and they tried to keep you from seeing the knife, I thought it was amusing.”
“Yes, I thought so too,” said the Angel.
But although Angiola said it was amusing she held tightly to the Angel’s hand.
By this time they had come to the white Tower, and Angiola saw it for the first time. It rose tall and slender above them with its carved minarets at the top. The Angel took a golden key from his pocket and unlocked a door in the side of the Tower. They ascended many, many steps that wound up, and up, like the inside of a conch shell, until they came out on the top of the Tower. From there they could see all about the Forest and the distant purple hills.
The Princess looked down into the Forest beneath and asked: “Did you see those wicked men from here?”
“Yes,” the Angel answered, “and I saw the Princess Angiola looking for the White Fawn.”
“Does the Lord see like that?” she asked. “Does He see us when we do not know it, and send Angels to help us?”
“Yes,” said the angel. “Don’t you remember that He calls Himself our Strength, our Deliverer, and our High Tower?” As the Angel said this he lifted the Princess on to the edge of the parapet, and pointed to a distant spot.
“What do you see there, on the edge of the Woods?” asked the Angel.
“I see two men leaving the Forest, “said the Princess. “Where are they going?”
“They are going,” said the Angel, “to a place where children never are.”
“And we are safe in the High Tower,” said the Princess Angiola.
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Author’s Preface: “It is a wonderful thing for children to feel the beauty of the unseen, for them to see, however vaguely, that the spiritual world is more real and more interesting than the material world…. Very young children live in their imaginations. They are delighted to believe in a Heavenly Father who cares for all, and in Guardian Angels whom He sends to watch over his children…. [These] stories are offered to the children in the hope that they will strengthen this innocent faith….”
Author’s Note on “The Princess Angiola and the White Tower”: “This story was suggested by reading the following, in number 4393 of The Spiritual Diary [written by Emanuel Swedenborg, this is now usually called Spiritual Experiences]: Providence is as when one walks in a thick forest, the egress from which he does not know; but when he finds it he attributes the discovery to himself, whereas Providence meantime is as one who stands in a tower, sees the wanderings of such a man, and leads him without his knowing it to the place of egress. The incident in which Crispin and Johan take part at the well was suggested by the following, in number 4314 of The Spiritual Diary: ‘There was a spirit who wished to frighten infants…. He was concealed…but was manifested by a knife which he put into the hand of another, by whom, however, it was rejected, and thus fell back into his own, in consequence of which he was discovered.’”
“The Princess Angiola and the Ivory Tower” and the author’s comments are from pages v, 29-32, and 77 of The Golden Heart and Other Stories by Amen Pendleton, illustrated by Eudora Sellner, published by the General Church Press, Bryn Athyn, Pennsylvania, 1987. They are used here by permission.
