Concurso gótico. Tale 7. A Legend from Beni Snassen

It is said that in the mountains of Beni Snassen, north-west Morocco, where the wind blows with a woman’s voice and the night smells of damp earth, there once lived two brothers and their daughters.

One of them was bald, with a serene face and dark eyes. The other had long, glowing hair, as black as if it took up the moonlight.

The two girls grew up together like sisters. But the bald one’s heart was full with envy. Every time the sunlight slided through her cousin’s hair, something inside her would burn in silence. Until one day, consumed by that blind fire, she led her cousin to the foot of a thorn tree hidden deep in the forest. With trembling hands, she took the girl’s hair and tangled it in the branches until she was trapped.

The young girl screamed, begged, and cried. Their parents ran to help her, but the thorns were stronger than them. Every attempt to free her made her bleed. In the end, exhausted and broken, they left her there, trusting that sunrise would save her. But the sunrise never came for her. Only a light. A strange light began to visit her each night (a distant spark that moved among the trees, like an eye watching her). The girl shook and spoke aloud:

“If you are my father’s light, come closer; but if you belong to the devil… stay away from me.”

Every night she repeated the same words, waiting for an answer. And each night, the light remained silent, barely moving. Until one new moon night that, tired of waiting, she whispered: “If you are the devil’s light… come closer.”

Then the light rushed toward her, burning like white fire. A shadow with a man’s face (the devil disguised as a rescuer) rose from the glare. He tried to pull up the thorns away, but not even his hellish strength could break them. Furious, he took a knife of light and cut her hair, that symbol of beauty and pride.

The echo of the cut rolled across the entire forest. The girls of the village felt a chill, and sadness. There would never again be a hair as beautiful as hers.

The devil looked at her in silence. He had taken what she loved the most, and in return, he kept her soul. From that moment on, the young girl never cried again. Her tears turned into dust. Her heart, once white and pure, became black as the darkness.

It is said that, since then, she walks through the forests of Beni Snassen, a faceless figure, veiled in shadows where her hair once had fallen.

And on new moon nights, when the wind whispers through the thorn trees, you can hear her whispering: “If you are my father’s light, come closer… and if you are the devil, stay away from me.”

But it is far too late. The devil now lives inside her. This story has been told from generation to generation ever since.