The Hanged Man: Part 5: Imbolc
Post #38: In which a young woman begins to find her boundaries ...
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ROSE RED
Rose Red was determined to do better with her mother. She spent hours with her every day, encouraging the queen to try on her jewels and gowns, combing scented oil through her ebony hair and dressing it, standing in front of the mirror. There were moments when the queen appeared content in their companionship, but soon her unhappiness returned. Nothing helped her distress, though Rose Red tried everything she could think of. At last, the queen would bid Rose Red go. “You weary me! You make my head hurt!”
Dismissed, Rose Red went thankfully to her rooms, relieved and guilty. But she knew soon a servant would come with a message and it would begin again — trying and trying and failing to make her mother happy and healthy. She’d intended to make some excuse when the next invitation came from Vasilisa and not see her, for her mother’s sake, but when the queen unwillingly put the note into her hand and she noted her mother’s compressed and trembling lips and her hurt, betrayed expression, a kind of desperate rage boiled up within Rose Red and she felt she must get out of the castle and into the winter woods or break into pieces. In a blind need to escape she threw on her outdoor clothes and ran from the castle, furtive, hating herself, but free.
The woods were quiet and still. Chill air soothed her hot face. She threw her hood back impatiently. The path was imperceptible under snow but she knew the woods so well now she didn’t need it. She recognized trees — a tight clump there, a strangely twisted trunk here, the wound from a fallen branch on a trunk ahead. Gradually, her steps slowed and the peace of stark trees and leafless twigs began to calm her. Snowy lace made of ice crystals like fallen stars covered briars. A chickadee called cheerfully overhead and she looked up, finding the fluff of black and white feathers hopping busily among branches. She discovered the tracks of a hare and delicate vulpine prints. Her heart lifted at the thought of the stone cottage ahead.
Nothing was said about Rose Red’s precipitous departure the week before. Today three of the dwarves were at home, along with Rumpelstiltskin, Jenny and Vasilisa. The fire burned bright and the scent of baking bread filled the stone cottage. The dwarves sat around the large table at which they ate, sorting heaps of pebbles. Rose Red took off her winter clothes and went to see, curious.
“Sit down,” said one of the dwarves, patting the chair next to him. “We need another pair of hands for this work.” Seeing her puzzled look, he smiled. “Here,” he put into her hand a small stone, cut and faceted, the deep red color of a ripe raspberry.
“Oh! It’s beautiful! What is it?” She closed her fingers over the stone and it seemed to glow in her hand.
“It’s a garnet. So are these.” The dwarve gestured to a mound of pebbles in front of him. They’re not cut yet. Sit there, Rosie, and hold it in your hand a minute. Warm it into life.”
Rose Red relaxed against the back of the chair, looking with pleasure around the room. Vasilisa and Jenny talked quietly by the fire. On the table sat a large earthenware teapot and several cups. Loaves of brown bread cooled on racks on the counter next to the oven and another sat on the table, sliced, with a bowl of honey and a bowl of bramble jelly. She closed her eyes, absorbing the fragrance of firewood and bread and an under note of apples. She opened her eyes and saw a shallow rack of them on top of the stove drying. She shut her eyes again. The fire murmured softly to itself in the hearth. Jenny laughed quietly at something Vasilisa said, and Rose Red smiled in sympathy, though she couldn’t hear their words. On the other side of the table, Rumpelstiltskin and the Dwarve next to him bent their heads together.
“…seam today. They’re fine stones, but not so fine as the ones we found three years ago…”
“… my idea is to make it out of gold —see? It’s more delicate and lighter…” came from the end of the table where the two other dwarves were deep in conversation over a drawing.
The cushion against her back felt comfortable, like a firm embrace. The last of the winter chill on the skin of her face warmed. After her walk, she felt relaxed and comfortable and…somehow open. The opening filled with warmth and scent and familiar voices… “Love,” she thought. “I feel love — and loved.”
She opened her eyes with surprise at the thought. As though he heard her eyes open, the Dwarve next to her looked up from the rough garnets he sorted. His eyes were a warm hazel and his beard and hair brown, tied neatly with leather thongs. He smiled, studying her face.
“I thought so,” he said, pleased. The others at the table looked up from their conversations. “Garnets,” said the hazel-eyed Dwarve with satisfaction.
“Try this one, child,” said the Dwarve sketching the design. He reached over the table and dropped another pebble into her hand. “Hold it for a minute, like you did the garnet. Warm it.”
Rose Red looked at him uncertainly but closed her fingers gently around the stone. She felt self-conscious with the others’ eyes on her. The Dwarve next to her went back to his work, brown fingers stirring gently among the stones. The others, too, returned to what they’d been doing, and she relaxed. This time the stone didn’t warm. It felt like a stone, rough and unpleasantly hard. It was the same size as the garnet she’d held but it didn’t fit so comfortably in her hand. She opened the loose fist she’d made around it and rolled it in her palm with her forefinger. She didn’t want to hold it in her closed hand. She looked up, feeling as though she was failing, braced for disappointment or disapproval.
“I’m sorry,” she said to the Dwarve who handed her the stone. She reached out and gave it back. “Nothing happened. It didn’t get warm like the other.”
The Dwarve smiled into his beard. “Very good,” he said with approval. “It’s not you.”
She looked at him, mouth open with surprise.
He laughed. “The garnet is you. It speaks to you. Garnets are for passion and sensuality. This,” he held up the rough stone she’d returned to him, “is a diamond. Diamonds are valuable and this is a fine one. When it’s cut, it’ll be clear and bright with fire in its heart. We’ll make a heavy gold necklace or an elaborate ring with it, and a rich and powerful and probably beautiful woman will wear it. But it’s not you.”
“My mother wears diamonds,” said Rose Red, who rarely mentioned her parents in the company of her friends.
“Naturally. I haven’t seen her but I understand she’s very beautiful, and a much-loved queen.”
“Yes,” said Rose Red briefly. But, she thought to herself with a burst of pleasure, I like the garnet better than the diamond.
Jenny came to the table and poured out tea, passing plates of new bread spread with honey and jam.
“Let’s hear a story,” said Rumpelstiltskin.
“Show off,” said the Dwarve next to him. “You just want some attention!” He shook his head censoriously at Rumpelstiltskin.
“I want a story,” said Rumpelstiltskin in a louder voice. “And I want Jenny to tell it! And I want another piece of bread!”
Jenny laughed, spread another piece of bread with honey and brought it to him. Rose Red saw them smile at each other and Jenny brushed his bearded cheek with her hand in an affectionate gesture.
Jenny curled up in a chair set sideways to the fire so she could see Vasilisa on the rug at her feet and the others around the big wooden table.
“Once upon a time,” she began, “there lived a miller who had a daughter.”
“A beautiful daughter,” interrupted the Dwarve next to Rose Red.
“A beautiful brown and gold daughter,” said another.
“A beautiful brown and gold daughter with hair like plaited wheat,” said the third.
“Do you want to hear the story or not?” demanded Jenny, color staining her cheeks.
“Be quiet!” demanded Rumpelstiltskin, glaring around at the others. He winked at Rose Red and she giggled. Vasilisa laughed.
“Once upon a time,” Jenny began again, “there lived a miller who had a daughter, but his wife was dead. He was poor, this miller, and thought a great deal about how to get more money. He longed to be a rich and important man. He wasn’t happy in his work, so he didn’t try to become a better miller and earn a living that way. He wanted to find an easier way. One day he realized his daughter was old enough to be married, and he made a plan.
The miller ingratiated himself with the kitchen servants of the king by selling them his best flour (which wasn’t very good) for the cheapest price in the kingdom. Occasionally he made bold to visit the king’s court with oily words of flattery in his mouth and in this way the king himself grew to recognize the miller and know his name. The king was also interested in ways and means of collecting and possessing money, and he was unmarried and in need of sons.
One day, the miller, finding the king momentarily alone, whispered in his ear that he knew of a beautiful young woman who could spin straw into gold.
Naturally, the king was interested in such a young woman! The miller pretended to be uncertain and hesitant about revealing the identity of the girl, but dropped hints here and there until the king was in quite a frenzy of curiosity and greed and demanded to know who the young woman was. The miller, with much humility, admitted the girl in question was none other than his daughter.
The king demanded to see her at once and that night her father presented her to him.
Now, the miller’s daughter had no idea in the world what her father had said about her. She kept herself neat and tidy and did her best to take care of her father and help him with his business, but no thought of marriage had entered her mind, and she couldn’t imagine why the king should take any notice of her at all.
Imagine her surprise when the king showed her to a room filled with straw and containing a spinning wheel and a stool!
‘Your father tells me you can spin gold out of straw,’ he said, lighting a candle. ‘Set to work and prove your skill. If you don’t spin this straw into gold by dawn, you’ll die.’ Without another word, he went out the door, and she heard the key turn in the lock.
Well! The miller’s daughter understood at once that her father sought to enrich himself at her expense, and with this ridiculous boast to the king had caused her imprisonment and likely her death, for she’d no hope of spinning straw into gold. Her foolish, greedy father had murdered his only daughter and probably destroyed himself in the bargain, for the king would find out he’d been fooled.
She could do nothing to help herself, and she resolved to wait quietly and patiently until morning and face whatever might come. She couldn’t help weeping, though, for she felt afraid and alone and didn’t want to die.
Suddenly the lock turned, the door opened and a little man appeared. He wore clothing of muted colors with bright touches of lichen orange and green. He had a russet beard and hair and green eyes. The top of his head reached just above her waist.
‘Good evening. Why are you locked in a room full of straw, weeping?’ he inquired.
‘The king has ordered me to spin gold out of this straw by dawn or lose my life and I don’t know how to do it!’
‘Very well. I’ll teach you to do it, but it will do the king no good at all!’
The miller’s daughter didn’t pay much attention to the last part. Hope welled up in her heart.
‘You can teach me to do this?’
‘Oh, yes. Sit yourself down. I’ll stand.’
The miller’s daughter, with some trepidation, made herself as comfortable as she could on the stool.
‘Take up a handful of straw,’ said the Dwarve, standing at her shoulder, ‘and look at it. Make friends with it.’
She took up a handful of straw. It was fresh, golden and smelled of field and sun. The Dwarve lit a candle and the straw glowed in its light. The sheaf felt weightless in her hands, whispering as she stirred it.
‘I watched them plant it,’ the Dwarve said in a low voice. ‘I watched them plow the field and clods of earth broke up under the plow. The horses left hoofprints in the soft earth and it followed the blade like a curling brown wave. Then I watched them sow the seed and Yr the sun and the moons looked down and the maiden came, she who is Ostara, she who is Mary, and she blessed the seed. Behind her came he of hooved feet with his flute and he fertilized the seed and played over it, calling it into life.’
The miller’s daughter found herself gathering the sheaf tightly together, binding it, her hands knowing what to do as she listened. She felt she was in a dream.
‘Then I watched the first green break through the earth and I heard roots stretch their way down. I watched rain come, and dawn, fresh and cool, and dusk. Birds flew overhead and insects crawled among the seedlings. Day followed night and night followed day and the seedlings strengthened and reached up, and roots climbed sideways and down, weaving together.’
The Dwarve stopped speaking but the miller’s daughter watched her hands at work and the spinning wheel began to turn. The Dwarve began to sing in a low voice, like water running over gravel, and the miller’s daughter gasped, hands stilling.
‘I know that song!’ she said. ‘My mother used to sing it to me. It’s a cradle song!’
‘Your mother sang it to you before you were born,’ said the Dwarve. ‘It’s a song of quickening seed, birth into light and growth.’
The miller’s daughter began to sing too, hesitantly at first as she searched her memory for words, and then with more confidence. Song mingled with hum of spinning wheel.
The Dwarve began to speak again but the miller’s daughter continued to hum, feeling the song vibrate in her throat.
‘Then the grain ripened, with heavy heads, and I watched reapers come. The green and gold man and his lady, maiden no more and big with new life, were there, and the reapers harvested with sharp curving blades, sweating in heat, hands callused and muscles supple. At noon they rested in shade, drank and ate and dozed. And then women came and gleaned straw from the fields. They bent and gathered, bent and gathered, binding sheaves together until their backs ached and their hands blistered so animals might be bedded, corn dollies made, bee skeps woven and baskets fashioned. And so you might take dead stalks of life and spin straw into gold…’
He stopped speaking and joined her again in song. Underneath her hands the gathered sheaves of straw spun into a fine gold thread. Straw whispered in her hands and song swelled in her chest. The wheel spun. Straw and thread showed the same gold in candlelight.
‘Life and death,’ she whispered.
‘Death and life,’ the dwarve replied. ‘End and beginning. Anyone can turn gold into straw. Few can spin straw into gold.’
Hours passed. The miller’s daughter relaxed into the scent, texture and sound of straw, and into the old cradle song her mother had sung to her. The Dwarve stood quietly at her side, gathering armfuls of straw and handing them to her as he hummed and sang.
As though waking from a long dream, she realized the room was empty and the Dwarve held the last sheaf of straw. Dawn showed at the high narrow window. The Dwarve blew out the candle.
The miller’s daughter spun the last of the straw and then turned to the Dwarve. She took his hands in hers, palms up, and kissed them, first one and then the other. Her tears fall onto his palms, as though watering her kiss.
‘What’s your name?’ she asked.
‘My name is Rumpelstiltskin, my dear.’
‘I’m Jenny.’
‘I know.’ He smiled at her, green eyes gleaming. ‘It’s not over yet, but now you can manage on your own,’ he said. ‘Don’t fear!’ He turned on his heel, opened the door and shut it gently, and she heard the key turn.
She was winding gold thread into skeins when the door opened a while later. The king stood in the doorway, freshly washed and clothed, and looked in amazement at the empty room and skeins of golden thread. Jenny stood, curtseyed, and waited with bowed head.
The king plainly didn’t believe his eyes. He walked around the room as though expecting to find the straw hidden in a corner. But the room was bare, containing only spinning wheel, stool, candle stub and neat skeins of gold. He himself had locked the door with the only key the night before. He’d slept with the key under his pillow and the door had still been locked this morning. He could hardly believe his luck. This girl — not beautiful but young and no doubt capable of bearing children — this girl could spin gold out of straw! He’d be rich! Rich beyond his wildest imaginings! He went to the door and called for a servant. One appeared immediately and the king ordered him to take the skeins of golden thread to a storeroom, the most secure in the lowest cellar of the castle. The servant, looking amazed, disappeared with his arms full of gold.
The king peremptorily dismissed Jenny from his presence. ‘Go home to your father. Tell him I’ll send for him later this morning to make arrangements.’ With that, he turned her over to another servant to be escorted out of the castle and took himself off to breakfast.
He could hardly eat for excitement and after a few hasty mouthfuls he went down to the storeroom to gloat over his gold. He unlocked the door with three keys, flung it open and found before him the storeroom — filled with straw!
Jenny was exhausted and hungry. She made her way home and found the miller anxiously waiting. During the night, he had considered the consequences of his boast and was in great fear for his life by the time the sun rose. He wasted no joy on Jenny’s safe return, but at once began to question her.
‘What happened? Why are you home? Is the king angry?’
Jenny moved neatly about the kitchen, bundling together a loaf of bread, some fruit and water. The pot still held tea. She poured herself a cup and cut a thick slice of bread for her breakfast. She looked at her agitated father and saw an aging man who had never been satisfied to do an honest job for an honest living.
‘I spun straw into gold. The king sent me home with a message that he’ll speak with you later this morning.’
‘You did what? But…I made that up! No one can spin straw into gold! You can’t do that!’
‘I can. I did. Ask him. He saw it.’
He gaped at her.
‘You sold me, Father. You sold me to that greedy king who loves no one and nothing but his wealth and cares only about increasing it. I won’t marry him and I’m leaving this place today. Now.’
‘You can’t leave, you chit! You ungrateful brat! What about me? What about the business? You’ve no place to go — no friends. What about the king?’
‘You explain to the king. You take care of yourself and the business. You have nothing I need. I’ll make friends and find a place in the world.’
She left the kitchen, went to her bedroom and swiftly packed a few possessions. She tied her bundle together, took a last look around the house, nodded to her father, and left, taking the path by the mill stream where the big wheel slowly turned.
Rumpelstiltskin sat on a rock in the middle of the stream with a fishing pole in his hand and a string of fish tied to his belt. He wound up his line, hopped nimbly from stone to stone across the stream and fell into step with Jenny on the wide path.
‘Do you know any other songs?’ she asked.
And so it was the king discovered everyone must spin their own gold from their own straw. The skill is not a gift that can be taken or given…or stolen or sold. It might be learned, though, from the right teacher.”
Jenny’s voice stilled and into the silence a low, gentle melody unfolded. It was tender and sure, deep and rooted, like an old apple tree that’s blossomed and borne fruit and stood naked in the winter for uncounted seasons. The song flowed into the stone cottage, joined by the brighter, sweeter tone of Jenny’s voice. Her singing wove in and out of the Dwarve’s deeper song and Rose Red’s eyes filled with tears at the supple beauty of it.
That evening Jenny walked Rose Red home through the early winter night.
“Jenny, what are the Dwarves? More than little men who mine!”
“Oh, yes,” Jenny thought a moment. “Well, they’re actually one branch of a larger family, the Dvorgs. They live deep underground, in the roots of the world, and never come into the sunlight. The Dwarves branched away from the Dvorgs and possess the same skill and wisdom, but they can tolerate sunlight. They’re great craftsmen and smiths. No one has such skill with metal and gemstone as the Dvorg families. But I think you mean something more than these facts?”
“Yes. What are they to you and Vasilisa?”
“There are no women Dvorgs.”
“Really?” said Rose Red in surprise.
“No. Young Dvorgs are born in the earth underground. The Dvorgs say there’s no need for women and don’t like them. Yet dwarves are spirits of fertility and they understand primal forces of life. In many ways, they represent female energy. They’re great and wise teachers. A long time ago one of the first Dvorgs who ventured above the ground, Jasper, met a young woman who was alone and possessed no parent or guide. He took her under his protection, like a foster father. That was the beginning of the Dwarves, and ever since then, Dwarves have been helping and teaching girls who are alone.”
“Like your mother?”
“Yes. I don’t remember her. I was a very young when she died. But Rumpelstiltskin loved her and watched over her…and me, though I didn’t know it. He’s kin to these dwarves and Vasilisa knew them, so we became friends together. In a strange sort of way, the Baba and the dwarves are alike. The Baba sounds horrifying to me — I’ve never met her — but she has a kind of primal wisdom that she teaches to some few who dare to learn from her. Vasilisa is one of those. I’m not that brave. Rumpelstiltskin is a gentle teacher.”
“Do you think the dwarves want to teach me?” asked Rose Red in some consternation.
“I think we’re all fond of you,” said Jenny with a smile in her voice, though her face was invisible in the darkness. “What if they did want to teach you?”
“What if I can’t learn?” countered Rose Red. “What if I fail? I’m not like you and Vasilisa.”
“No. You’re like your own dear self, Rosie,” said Jenny. “Evidently, the dwarves find something good and valuable in you, something worth nurturing. They’re hard to deceive. I think you can trust their wisdom.”
She reached down and took Rose Red’s hand in her own and they fell silent, walking.
“I’m fond of you, too,” said Rose Red in a small voice after a time.
Jenny laughed and squeezed her hand. “I wish you wouldn’t doubt yourself. I wish I could make you see yourself the way I see you — the way we see you. During those days and nights with the Baba when Vasilisa learned how to wash things clean, how to sift and sort one thing from another and how to hear the voice of her intuition, she didn’t feel brave or strong or beautiful. She felt scared and alone. That night I spent learning how to spin straw into gold I wasn’t doing anything special or brave. I just didn’t want to die in the morning! I was angry and hurt and frightened. Our teachers found us and found something worthy in us. The gifts of wisdom they gave us were not like a lesson learned well and repeated. They were an experience of life. If they choose you as a student you won’t even know you’re being taught until the wisdom is yours. You can’t fail. You need only be.”
The castle wall loomed before them. The girls embraced and Rose Red felt Jenny’s lips on her cheek and then against her own lips. They held each other for a moment and then Jenny turned away, back into the wood, and Rose Red lifted the gate’s latch and went into the castle grounds.
(This post was published with this essay.)