The dreamless nights were the ones that filled Mavourneen with despair. Every day she woke without so much as a glimpse of her prince and she worried she had done something wrong. The bear had not returned either, which neither ceased her worries nor lessened them. 

For the next twenty-six days she dreaded and no solace came. For twenty-five nights she sat out late on the balcony for the bear to return and she lost courage each time he never showed. She nearly didn’t stay out on the twenty-sixth night, but the new moon dragged her out just as it had done the night the bear came.

Lo there below her was the brown bear, looking up at her carrying in its mouth a yew branch. She wept there for she had nearly believed her love had died, but there was the bear, the bear who gave her hope of seeing him yet. 

From the moment she saw him she rushed to the rail with such a force she nearly knocked herself over. “Bear! Oh you’ve come back to me!” She laughed and rested herself on the bannister. “Forgive me my bear, I had doubted that you would return. You show me now that you are loyal and good to your word.” She stared back at the beast who was watching her and smiled. Sighing she sat down, tightly pulling a blanket around her shoulders. 

Both the bear and Mavourneen sat watching the other in content silence. The princess would occasionally say something to the bear but go silent again. They carried on through the night like this until Mavourneen grew tired. Leaving to her room she cut a lock of her hair, tied it with a ribbon, and folded it into an envelope. 

Brandishing the envelope she returned to the bear, “Mavourneen, my name is Mavourneen,” she called out, giving the bear the envelope as a gift just as she had given him the necklace, “Will you return again? The next new moon?”

The bear took the envelope gentilly in its mouth, looked up to her, and it answered silently with a single nod of his great head. 

She watched that bear leave to the woods, when he was out of sight the princess found her eyes heavy with drowsiness and she headed to sleep.

When the princess woke she ran down to see what had become of the yew branch. Kneeling down she found an envelope addressed to her. With little patience she opened it, finding a lock of red hair tied in a gold ribbon.

She smiled, pulling out the parchment that accompanied it. A poem. 

>>--->

Hushed, silent, fantasies and dreams 

Are all my heart seems to know

 Pushes and pulls and stresses my seams

And if I were to share them my happiness would surely grow

Out of place I feel in your kaleidoscope

I am a moth while you fly with painted wings

And I beg my heart not to fall down this slope

My fair princess, you are rich with many things

If you should, for just one moment brief, pay me mind

My heart would shout and I would dance at your feet

I’m much more than silence, you’ll find

Even so, I have more than the soft verse, neat

But silent dreams and silent fantasies remain silent

While I, the last withered rose, am left to pine 

Fallen beneath the Yew tree and there to stay

To someone sweet

To someone kind

To someone charming

To someone like you

My sweet Mavourneen

>>--->

At the very bottom it was clearly signed “Eoghan.”