In a quiet corner of old Copenhagen, nestled within the small, weathered district of Nyboder, there once stood a crooked little house. Its red bricks were half-hidden beneath creeping ivy, and behind it, in a narrow, shaded courtyard, grew an old Elder tree.
It was no ordinary tree.
Its trunk was gnarled and split with age, and its limbs bent at odd angles as though they'd grown that way from years of watching. The people of Nyboder understood what that meant. They avoided it, mostly, and whispered warnings to one another as they passed:
"The Hylde-moer lives in that tree."
"The Elder-Mother watches."
"She doesn’t take kindly to being disturbed."
But not everyone listened.
A young man lived in the crooked house with his wife. They were expecting their first child, a daughter. Wanting to craft something special for her, the man took his tools and went into the courtyard. Without a second thought, he cut several branches from the Elder tree. With care, he carved them into a cradle, smooth and lovely.
He never asked permission.
There are old ways to handle such things, and he followed none of them.
He didn't speak the words:
"Hylde-moer, Hylde-moer, allow me to cut thy branches."
He didn’t wait, or listen, or spit three times on the ground. He simply took the wood and began to build.
The baby arrived on a cold, clear night beneath a shivering moon. They named her Mette.
But from the moment she was laid in the cradle, something was wrong.
She did not cry like other infants. She shrieked—raw, high, unrelenting. Her legs kicked hard, flailing as if something were tugging at them. Each night was worse than the last. No lullaby soothed her. No comfort could calm her. Her mother grew pale and hollow-eyed. The father began to dread the darkness.
On the third night, as windless silence wrapped the court, the mother turned to the window.
And she saw a face.
A woman’s face, just beyond the glass—long and pale, with bark-colored skin and eyes dark as wet soil. She stared in from the tree.
Then came a groan from the Elder’s twisting trunk, and the baby screamed louder than ever before.
At dawn, they went for the old washerwoman who lived nearby. She came with a handful of rowan berries and a pouch of coarse salt. When she heard what had happened, she shook her head.
“Fools,” she said. “You built a cradle from Elder-wood and never asked leave of the Hylde-moer? No wonder the child can’t sleep. She’s been pulled by the legs each night.”
That morning, they burned the cradle.
The smoke curled into the gray sky, and the ashes blew across the cobbles. That night, Mette slept soundly. Not a single sound escaped her.
From that day on, no one in the court so much as brushed the Elder tree without good reason. If they passed it at dusk, they walked a little faster. Children claimed its branches moved when the light grew low—swaying, bending, even peering through the windows.
And when someone did need to take from it—only when there was no other choice—they followed the old ways.
They stood before the tree in silence. Then, softly and with respect, they said:
“Hylde-moer, Hylde-moer, allow me to cut thy branches.”
They waited.
They listened.
Then spat three times upon the earth: ptoo, ptoo, ptoo.
Only then would they raise a knife.
Because she is always watching.
And she does not forget.
