Turlekin was a woodcutter who lived on the edge of a vast forest with his daughter Juniper. The forest was dense and dangerous, especially by the stream which came out the mountain rock. People had drowned in that stream, and some nights in the dark of winter you could hear their spirits howling. Wasn’t it the brother of a prince who disappeared not far from that spot? His horse ended up back home, and down the river one day floated his cloak, but no other trace was found. Oh, but that was years ago, in the dim and shady past.

One fine morning at breakfast Juniper said to her father,

“Daddy, I get scared being here by myself all day alone. Make me a harp so I can play it when you are gone all day cutting wood.”

“I can’t do that,” he replied. “We have no money for strings or tuning pins.”

“Don’t worry about that,” she told him. “I’ll gather lots of black berries and sell them in town to get money.”

So Turlekin went out with his axe to look for a suitable harp tree. He selected a giant willow that bent over a lovely clear stream. Its roots wove into the rocks and the water, and its leafy branches trailed in the flowing surface. With the first swing of the axe the tree quivered slightly. With the second blow a great sigh sounded in the top-most branches and all the song birds flew out from their nests. With the third blow of the axe Turlekin heard a clear melody as if the tree were singing. It sang,

“I am sweet and I am strong.
Carve me hollow and shape me long.
Strings of gut, you’ll do no wrong.
Then will I sing a mournful song.”

“Hmm,” thought the wood-cutter. “Here is a talking tree that wants to be made into a harp.” So he chopped it down, cut out a choice piece of the log and dragged it back to his cabin on his cart.

When Juniper saw the lovely piece of wood she clapped her hands and headed into town to sell her buckets of fine fresh blackberries. Meanwhile, the woodcutter set about shaping the harp. First he carved the pillar and formed a beautiful pattern on the front. He carved out the body as he would a boat, all in one piece, but with holes down the center for the strings to go through. Then he built the neck, with holes for the tuning pins all in a curving line. When he assembled the three pieces together he once again heard the voice of the tree. This time it sang,

“I am weary, I am old.
A hundred years in rain and cold.
String me with gut and not with gold,
And a dreadful tale will be told.”

When Juniper came home and heard about the songs she was thrilled.