Red feather
By: with illus. by Davine.
Publisher: J. Messner
Published: 1950
Place of publication: New York
Language: eng
Number of pages: 149
First sentence: Once upon a time there was a poor woodcutter and his wife who lived at the end of a village and at the edge of a forest.
Description: Red Feather is a novel-length literary fairy tale for the higher-end middle reader or younger "young adult."  It is a coming of age story of a young woman, a former changeling who was switched with a mortal counterpart as an infant, and has grown up among fairies, ridiculed and without powers, believing herself to be mortal, until one day she sets out to seek her true place in the world.
Notes: FULL SYNOPSIS

1. Enough to Go Around – Anna, the wife of a poor woodcutter, has given birth to a daughter in the depths of winter.  While the husband is out calling the villagers to celebrate, the wife surprises fairies in the nursery in the act of leaving a changeling, and they depart in haste without taking the real baby.  Now there are two identical infants in the cradle.  The village priest christens both sleeping babies, hoping the fairy child will disappear; but it does not work.  Fritz, a small beggar boy, holds out a finger to the babies – one of them sleeps on, but the other wakes and grasps his finger.  Anna is distraught, lamenting that she has lost her child, but the woodcutter chides her gently that they have rather found a child, and they will love and care for both of them.  The villagers celebrate the christening.

2. A Maid for the Queen – Some weeks later, the fairies return to amend their mistake.  They are fearful of the anger of their queen, who has planned the exchange of infants to obtain a superior mortal parlor maid and who is not aware of the failure of her plan.  Now the fairies cannot tell the babies apart, not even Amanda, the highborn fairy mother of the baby who has been transformed into the mortal look-alike.  They brush the girls with thyme and lavender, hoping that the mortal child will go cold from the magic, but it does not work.  The king and queen’s young son Strephon is with them, and he holds out a finger to the babies – one of them sleeps on, but the other wakes and grasps his finger.  Amanda laments her child’s uncertain fate and weeps real saltwater tears: both the feelings and the tears are strange for a fairy.  She blames her strange emotions on the fire in the hearth; eternal spring reigns in Fairyland, and no warming fires are used there.  The fire also affects Strephon.  The others tell Amanda that they have no choice but to steal one baby in haste, never knowing for sure, and never telling the Queen.  They take one child and depart for Fairyland.

3. The Sculleries of Fairyland – Years pass.  The stolen baby, Rosemary, is a small, thin scullery maid working in the royal castle kitchens of Fairyland.  She is scorned by all the rest of the castle help, both as a mortal with no magical power, and as an incompetent maid to boot – a failure of the Queen’s experiment in spite of all attempts to train her.  The petulant Queen conducts a white-glove inspection and finds dust in Rosemary’s work area.  She determines to punish the girl, but the King, who manages his Queen  with subtle flattery, reminds her that mortal servants in the World get Thursday afternoons off, and that might help Rosemary be a better maid.  It is duly decreed:  Rosemary will be free from noon to seven in the evening each Thursday.

4. First Thursday Out – Rosemary heads for the fields, running from the derisive laughter of fairy children on the castle walls.  She weaves a rope of wild field poppies to hold up her long uniform skirt, and running from the children’s voices she finds a hollow tree. On entering it she discovers a door to a room with an old woman living in it, who sits knitting, and who gives her a shawl and sends her out into the mortal World, where winter is beginning.  Rosemary loves the falling snow, which she has no memory of, and makes friends with village children, especially one girl her own age (Lisa) to whom she feels drawn.  A young man with a red feather in his cap that flickers like flame joins them; Rosemary knows he is a fairy.  They all play in the snow; a snowman they build comes to life by magic, and the children run away in fear; then the older villagers, who have reason to mistrust fairies, give chase.  The fairy lad and Rosemary escape when they find a doorknob in the snow that opens on the home of the old woman in the tree.  Rosemary accuses the lad of spoiling everything with magic – he insists she performed the magic, which she denies.  Angry, she leaves the hollow tree without him and goes back to the castle to work Thursday evening.

5. The King’s Study – Rosemary has taken to wearing a rope of poppies for a belt, which she weaves daily with fresh field blooms.  One morning she is promoted from the kitchen to replace a parlor maid the Queen is punishing.   The parlor fairies make fun of her and give her the tedious, hated job of dusting the King’s library, one book at a time.  But she becomes absorbed in reading, which she discovers she can do untaught; and the king comes in and surprises her, commenting kindly how different this is from usual parlor fairy behavior.  The King, it is revealed, knows everything, but as a matter of policy he never does anything about it.  She asks him if she could learn a little magic from reading, even as a mortal.  He sighs and does not answer her directly, but goes on signing new laws that are piled in his desk, telling her that some fairies are happy to keep these laws, and others to break them.  Then he gently reminds her, at the stroke of twelve, that it is Thursday afternoon.

6. The Baron’s Castle – Returning to the hollow tree, Rosemary finds the old woman absent but the shawl is laid out waiting for her.  She steps out into the World and soon finds Lisa, who is a baker woman’s foster daughter, with a basket of bread to deliver.  The girls continue to the local Baron’s castle, to deliver a wedding gift of bread and fine linen for the Baron’s daughter Margot, who is about to marry a foreign prince.  Margot, who loves a young shepherd, is despondent.  Sad for her and at a loss, Rosemary takes a moonstone ring from a table of gifts and hands it to Margo, to show that Lisa’s linen cloth is so finely woven that it will pass through it. Rosemary then gives her the rope of poppies she wears, which reminds the Baroness of the fields she and her lover have wandered through in summer.  Margot asks Rosemary to come and help her dress; weeping, she drops the moonstone ring, and Rosemary picks it up and tries it on.  They hear the shepherd singing under the window of Margot’s tower chamber.

7.  A Moonstone Ring and a Red Feather – The shepherd climbs up to the chamber.  The lovers embrace, but without hope, as the bridegroom’s party is heard arriving in the courtyard below.  Rosemary feels compelled to save them.  The chamber walls are tapestried with a hunting scene – a young man with a red feather in his cap is depicted leading several horses.  Rosemary knows him for the fairy lad.    She orders him to “be quick” – the tapestry comes to life and the four young people in the chamber  mount the horses as the Baron tried to break down the bolted door.  The moonstone ring on Rosemary’s finger glows brightly – the four horses ride out through the tower stones on a bridge of moonbeams and escape as the door is battered open.  Far away the horses come to earth.  Rosemary exchanges clothes and shoes with Margot, who cannot move in her heavy golden gown.  Margot bids her keep the ring, in gratitude, and because now it is filled with her magic; but Rosemary still believes it is all the fairy lad’s doing.  They leave the young shepherd couple and ride on for hours, until daybreak, when they finally find the doorknob and the hollow tree to return to Fairyland.  Rosemary permits him to walk her home this time.  He insists that he appeared because she let him know he was needed.  She returns very late, in the heavy gown and gold slippers, which are now her only shoes, changes the fine gown for her spare uniform, and goes to her scullery, where she is roundly scolded.

8.  The Gold Slippers – Rosemary works all week in great anticipation of returning to the World and trying new powers that she can still scarcely believe in; then on Thursday she is told that she will have no more Thursdays out.  She protests until she sees the decree, signed by the King, and then despairs until she remembers his words that some fairies will be happy to break the law.  She determines to run away; the gold slippers have become strangely animated and seem to be leading her.   There is a masked ball that evening, and since she cannot slip away without being seen, she dons the golden gown, weaves a mask of her poppies, and boldly goes disguised to the ball.  The King – knowing everything but doing nothing about it – asks her to dance; the gold slippers seem to know what to do, and she dances with the best, though she has never done it before.  In the minuet, they are joined by Amanda.  Rosemary and Amanda are strongly moved by each other’s presence, though neither knows why.  Rosemary leaves, feeling torn.  The fairy lad follows her, and tries to dissuade her, to convince her that she belongs in Fairyland, but to no avail.  The gold slippers rush her through the fields so quickly that at last she kicks them off and continues barefoot and sorrowing.  A violent wind, lightning and lashing rain arise as she nears the hollow tree:  a sign that someone is leaving Fairyland forever.

9. Settling Down in the World – The old woman tells her it stormed that way years ago, when they brought the baby to the World.  She gives Rosemary good village clothes to wear and tells her that she can only go back if someone sends for her.  Rosemary is sure that will never be.  Stepping into the World, she goes to the cottage of Lisa and her foster mother Gretchen.  They take her in, and she works hard with them and shares their home and love.  But the moonstone on her finger has grown dull and lifeless; the safety and routine of the village are oppressive to her, and as the heady, “dangerous” spring comes on, it becomes intolerable.  Rosemary takes to wandering on long, woodland walks, thinking without cease about Fairyland.  She also sees, or think she sees, small red flickers of flame in the trees, in the stream.  She wonders if it could be the fairy lad and his red feather.

10.  The Boy in the Forest – Rosemary confides in the old priest, the same one who christened the two babies years ago.  He comforts her that she will find her way.  During a woodland walk, Rosemary meets a young man come back from serving as a drummer boy in the wars:  it is the little beggar boy Fritz, grown and returned to replace the old woodcutter.  As they talk, she sees a red flicker in the stream.  She agrees to meet Fritz later at Gretchen’s house.  When he leaves, the fairy lad appears to her.  He is Strephon, the boy prince who was present at the botched exchange of the babies, and now he tells her that both he and Amanda want her to return.   She tells him that she must only say goodbye to Gretchen and Lisa.  But at Gretchen’s house, when Fritz sees the two girls together, he knows them suddenly for the two babies.  Gretchen now fears that her Lisa, whom she has raised since the long-ago death of the woodcutter and his wife, will be taken away by fairy treachery.  None of them is sure which of the girls is the real fairy.  Besides, Rosemary knows now what the Queen wants; and a changeling fairy must always be left behind for a stolen mortal child.  Lisa, really the baby Mary, must go before the Queen, who alone will decide.  Lisa thinks it is all nonsense, but agrees to go for the experience.  Taking leave of Gretchen, they meet Strephon waiting in the forest.  Fritz tells Lisa he will await her return at the old woodcutter’s cottage, and the others find the door to the hollow tree.

11.  The Fairy Child – They tell the old woman of their fears, but she sends them all out into Fairyland, already confident that things are turning out just right.  Common-sense Lisa does not like anything about Fairyland, but she is serenely content that she is just visiting anyway.  Rosemary, however, is in great fear for the outcome.  In the castle, the two girls dress in fine gowns, and Rosemary weaves poppy wreaths for their hair.  They try to find out for themselves which of them is the fairy, and nothing happens; Lisa is afraid for the first time.  When they come before the queen, and she finally hears the story, Her Majesty’s wrath rises; but the King smoothes her down with praise for her wisdom in such matters, and the Queen poses a housekeeping question as a test.  Lisa candidly points out some cleaning that the great hall still needs.  The excited Queen recognizes the competent mortal she hoped for all along, and determines to keep Lisa, enchanting her so that she cannot move.  Everyone pleads, but the Queen is adamant, so Rosemary challenges her openly.  Rosemary’s crown of poppies begins to flame, and the moonstone ring glows.  She points her finger straight at her mortal double, and Lisa vanishes in the moonbeams and escapes.  The King calms his magically bested wife with praise for her brilliant solution; the girls’ identities are now known to all.  Rosemary joyfully takes her rightful place in Fairyland, surrounded by the love of Amanda and Strephon, home at last.
Table of contents: title: Enough to go around; title: A maid for the Queen; title: The sculleries of Fairyland; title: First Thursday out; title: The King's study; title: The Baron's castle; title: A moonstone and a red feather; title: The gold slippers; title: Settling down in the world; title: The boy in the forest; title: The fairy child