Copyright Oggbashan May 2020
The author asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.
This is a work of fiction. The events described here are imaginary; the settings and characters are fictitious and are not intended to represent specific places or living persons.
This is inspired by the Lehar song: Vilja.
A Vilja is a wood nymph that lives in a stretch of woodland. She is immortal as long as the wood exists and appears to men as a very attractive young adult woman with a slight green tinge to her skin. A Naiad is a water nymph associated with springs and streams. Those are my versions in this story.
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It all started because I was seriously annoyed with a local house developer. He had a record of applying for permission to build houses where the council, and local people, didn't want them put. He was invariably refused permission and then used his expensive lawyers to get approved on appeal. That meant he did not have to contribute to improved infrastructure like roads or schools.
Unusually he had applied for planning permission on land he didn't yet own. It was eight acres (3+ hectares) of neglected woodland at the edge of our village. I remembered it from my childhood and youth. We called it the haunted wood because some people claimed to have seen a scantily clad young woman there after dark. It had been the place where we kids built dens, climbed trees and much later met girls. My children and grandchildren had enjoyed it as I had. If that developer got planning permission on appeal, as he would be refused by the council, he would cut all the trees down and build an estate of shoddy houses.
The woodland was part of a farm and the farmer had died a couple of years ago. His heirs were selling off the farm in a number of lots and the woodland was a separate lot with a low reserve as the trees were not valuable for cropping, being overgrown and neglected. The ground was very uneven including a spring and a valley for a stream, the source of a local river. The developer intended to remove all the trees and re-profile the land to provide a flattish area for a housing estate.
I had money from the sale of three houses I had bought at auction, renovated, and then sold as modernised houses for a considerable profit. I decided, if I could, to outbid the developers for the woodland. It helped that the council had issued a very comprehensive rejection of the developer's planning application a week before the auction. They had the backing of a considerable number of residents who were raising money to oppose any appeal the developer might make. My girlfriend Monica was away visiting an elderly relation but I am sure she would approve of protecting that woodland. She, her children and grandchildren, had played in that woodland.
The auctioneer announced the lot and added that planning permission had been refused and the council had indicated they would strongly oppose any appeal. There were a number of protesters with banners about the woodland outside the auction venue.
The estimated sale price was low, as was the reserve. The developer had left a bid of more than the reserve price but was not present because he felt, rightly, that he would face considerable protests if he turned up in person. I bid a thousand pounds more. The developer's absentee bid outbid me by another thousand. I upped my bid by another two thousand and won. I had paid about twice the real value, still a relatively small amount, but I had stopped the developer's plans.
When I had completed the paperwork I walked out of the venue to be met by the chairman of the protesters. They knew I had bought it.
"Well, Adrian, you have bought it," he said. "What do you intend to do with it?"
All the protesters were waiting for my reply.
"Nothing," I said loudly.
"Nothing?" the chairman queried.
"Nothing," I repeated. "I intend to manage it to be enjoyed by my grandchildren, and the village's children."
"What do you mean by 'manage', Adrian?
"The firebreaks have been allowed to be overgrown. I will reinstate them. The barbed wire fence is in a poor state. I will remove it. I will remove diseased trees and replant. Until now there have been signs around it saying 'Private Property, No Trespassing' which generations have ignored. They will go but I cannot change the situation without buying public liability insurance which would be very expensive. Anyone going into the wood would be at their own risk, as has been the case for decades but I will not stop anyone. We can all use it as we have done for all my lifetime."
My words were greeted with cheers. I had to join them across the road in the public house where I was bought more drinks than I could manage. I managed to have a quiet word with the chairman and discussed the possibility of a community-led management trust to take over in the future and fully once I was no longer around. I was pleased that I had walked to the auction venue. I couldn't have driven after so many drinks.
Whether it was too much alcohol, or just wishful thinking, while in bed that night I seemed to be visited by a young scantily clad woman who said she was the Vilja.
"Vilja?" I asked in my dream.
"Vilja? That is the name of the wood nymph of the wood you have saved. If you hadn't, I would have died when the wood was cut down. I only exist because of you, Adrian. I am grateful and will show my gratitude. Just relax and enjoy."
She seemed to ride me to the edge of orgasm again and again. I seemed to have the stamina that I might have had in my twenties, but not now as a grandfather and widower who hadn't done this much with my girlfriend Monica. Yes, Monica and I had been in bed together but we had been slow and gentle, allowing for our aging bodies. The wood nymph Vilja was demanding and very passionate. Although I was her passive victim, she took far more out of me than Monica had ever done.
Just before I went into an exhausted sleep I seemed to Vilja say:
"Be in my and your woodland at dusk tomorrow to meet me in reality."
In the morning I had little energy to drag myself out of bed. I seemed to have been well fucked, far more than I was used to, and beyond my physical capacity.
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I was tired all day. It might have been a dream but my energy level was depleted as if I had really being making love more than half the night. After lunch I drove to near the woodland and went into it clutching a notebook to list the things that would need doing. I hadn't actually been into the woodland for a decade.
Shortly after walking into it I was met by a group of children. They rushed up to me.
"Thank you, Mr Simmonds," one of the older boys said. "We love this place."
One of the younger girls presented me with a bouquet of wild flowers she had gathered as she saw me coming. I was touched, even if technically they were my wild flowers. As I made my way through the woods I met several other groups of children. They all wanted to thank me in person.
The obvious things in my notebook were what I had mentioned last night - the firebreaks, the barbed wire fence and the notice boards. But there were several diseased trees that would need removing before they infected others. Although I made a note, I knew that the woodland contractors I would use would identify them individually. But most of the woodland was native English trees of a considerable age. Some had fallen but I had no intention of tidying the woodland up. As it was it was a great playground for the local children.
I hadn't forgotten last night's dream of Vilja. I wasn't sure whether I should be in the woodland at dusk but I was so involved with assessing what need to be done that I didn't notice the time. I was just turning to walk back to my car as the light was too dim to record anything else when a half-naked woman walked out from behind a tree.
"Hello, Adrian, I am pleased you have come," she said.
I didn't take in her words. I was reacting too much to her attire. She was wearing a bikini top that seemed to be green leaves and a very tiny bikini bottom under a translucent green sarong. She flung her arms around my neck and kissed me very effectively.
When she stopped I was too short of breath to say anything. I held out the posy of flowers.
"For me?" she asked.
I nodded. I still couldn't speak.
"Thank you, Adrian," she said. "I will keep this as a souvenir of our woodland."
"Our woodland?" I managed to speak at last.
"Yes, Adrian. OUR woodland. You own it. I am the resident nymph. Without you I would have nowhere to live. I am grateful and now we have met I can do more than make you dream of me."
She kissed me again. I was very much aware of her erect nipples, barely covered by her bikini top, digging into my chest through my shirt. She seemed to be in her late twenties but as a wood nymph I presumed she was immortal as long as the woodland survived.
When I could speak again I asked:
"How old are you, Vilja, and how long have you been here?"
I shouldn't really ask a woman's age but Vilja seemed too young for me.
She laughed. It was a delicious sound.
"How old? Put it this way. I was worshipped as Astarte in this woodland before the Romans came to England. They worshipped me as Diana and ever since then some locals have worshipped me as one aspect of the mother goddess. Did you know the local witches' coven meets in the woodland?"
"No, Vilja. I'm not surprised. I would not be surprised if many things happen in the woodland."
"Many local children were conceived here - before and after marriage." Vilja said. "It is supposed to be lucky to make love here. It is - because I make it so. I am a benevolent spirit and despite being worshipped as Astarte and Diana I have never been a virgin, or at least not since I became adult. In the old days the locals used to send adult male virgins to stay in the woodland overnight. They and I enjoyed that. But adult male virgins are very rare now. So - I have to make do with whoever I can. Sometimes it is men who have come into the woodland for sex and been rejected by their partners. But now, Adrian, I have you."
"You have me? My girlfriend Monica might object. And if you are as demanding as you were in my dream last night, I might not survive long. I am a widowed grandfather, not a young male virgin."
Vilja looked disappointed.
"I haven't had a man for nearly six years," she said. "Perhaps I was a bit too demanding in your dream last night..."
"Too demanding? I'm knackered, worn out. I couldn't do as much again for a couple of weeks, Vilja, even if it was just a dream. Monica and I make love slowly and carefully about once a week, all we can do at our ages."
"OK, Adrian, I'll try to be less demanding. But now..."
Vilja threaded a hand into the crook of my arm.
"There's someone else who wants to meet you."
She guided me down the rough path to the spring-fed pool that I had used for skinny dipping when young.
"The developer was going to concrete around the edges and put the stream in a culvert. But you won't. So..."
Another young woman emerged from the pool, stark naked.
"Meet Nadine, the naiad of this spring."
Nadine walked up to me, pressed her wet body against me and kissed me.
She pulled back from the kiss but still hugged me.
"Like Vilja, I owe you a lot, Adrian. Concreting my pool and putting my stream into a culvert would have been painful for me, if not fatal."
Nadine kissed me again.
"The two of us will protect you, Adrian. Our powers are limited but we will use them for your benefit."
