The Hanged Man: Part 7: Beltane
Post #58: In which Eurydice starts where she is ...
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In spite of the thought, she started in surprise, feeling naked, when she heard footsteps coming around the trunk from behind. She hurried to her feet, the scarf clutched in her hand.
Two women came into view, both elderly.
“She’s here,” said Verdani, gesturing with her chin, as her hands remained occupied.
“Welcome,” said one. “I’m Urd.” She looked like an old piece of rope, slightly frayed but tough and harsh to the touch, and capable of infallible knots.
“I’m Skuld,” said the other on a sigh.
“I’m Eurydice.”
“We know,” said Skuld.
“Why didn’t you tell me Mirmir would be the first to meet her?” Verdani demanded of Skuld, sounding irritated. “Poor girl. You know a snake killed her!”
“Sorry,” said Skuld without sincerity to the air in the general direction of Eurydice.
“It’s all right,” said Eurydice, because it was.
“There he is,” said Urd. Eurydice turned hastily, in the direction of Urd’s gaze, and watched Mirmir climbing up one of Yggdrasil’s trunks.
No one ever saw the top of Yggdrasil. It was lost in the sky, even from miles away. As coils of Mirmir’s body lifted and straightened, curling around the trunk, climbing out of sight, Eurydice wondered if he could climb high enough to reach the top. It seemed possible. As her gaze traveled upward, she noticed, for the first time, several branches overhead were festooned with hanks of yarn.
Urd noticed her look. “It’s a sort of storehouse,” she explained. “We don’t have room in the house for everything we spin. I store it here before sending it on to various weavers. Nothing is ever lost, you know. It’s all spun out and woven into a pattern. It’s quite a job to stay on top of it all.”
“I imagine it is,” said Eurydice in wonder. Her eyes followed the huge horizontal branches with their strange hanging fruit back to the trunk and down its fiber wrapping. “Doesn’t a distaff need to spin?”
“Oh, yes,” said Urd airily.
Eurydice looked at her, bewildered. Clearly Yggdrasil wasn’t spinning — couldn’t spin, yet the wheel hummed and fiber ran smoothly between Verdani’s hands, twisting obediently into thread.
“But it’s not spinning. Is it?”
“Isn’t it?” asked Urd.
***
“How can we help you, my dear?”
Eurydice had been waiting for the question. She’d thought about it during the miles of travel from Janus House and still didn’t have an answer.
“Hel suggested I come,” she began hesitantly, not wanting to say I dreamed I was supposed to come. “You know I spent time in Janus House?”
Verdani nodded encouragingly.
“I’m a tree nymph,” said Eurydice bluntly.
“You came to speak with Yggdrasil, then?” asked Urd.
“Yes. No. I mean — partly. I left my family a long time ago. I stopped being a tree nymph. Except I didn’t. I couldn’t, I mean. I thought I could stop. But then…things happened and I missed that part of myself and now I want to find it again.”
“How will you know when you’ve reclaimed that part of yourself?” inquired Verdani with interest.
Eurydice paused. She frowned, looking down at the scarred wooden table on which sat the remains of the meal they’d been enjoying. “When I’ve reclaimed that part of myself, I’ll feel better. Won’t I?”
“Better how?”
“Fixed. More sure about everything.”
“Hmmm,” said Urd.
Skuld scratched at her scalp with the point of her scissors and then tucked them in their place behind her ear again.
“Maybe she’s not a tree nymph anymore,” said Urd to Verdani. “She says it’s been a long time. Maybe it’s over and done — gone forever.”
“Probably so,” said Skuld in pessimistic tones.
“No,” said Eurydice. “I am a tree nymph. I’m sure I am. I look like all my people.”
“Show us,” said Urd suddenly. “Take off your clothes.”
Eurydice gaped at her.
“Tree nymphs always bear a close resemblance to their trees,” said Urd patiently. “Let’s look at you.”
Eurydice put her hands in her lap and twisted them together. “I can’t.”
“Oh, dear,” breathed Skuld, shaking her head.
“I don’t want you to see. I don’t let people see me without my clothes. I usually keep my hair covered, too.”
“Why?” asked Verdani.
“Because…because sometimes it looks…purple.”
“Does it?” asked Verdani. “How beautiful! Stop moaning, Skuld, and fetch some more light!”
Skuld rose with a sigh and brought two lamps from the kitchen, setting them on the table in front of Eurydice. She bent and looked into Eurydice’s self-conscious face.
“Eyes, too,” she said, and resumed her seat.
Eurydice covered her hot cheeks with her hands.
“I bet,” said Urd meditatively, when you cover your hair people don’t look closely at your face and eyes, do they?”
“No,” said Eurydice.
Three pairs of eyes fixed on her. After a moment, she rose to her feet and removed her clothes.
“Oh, well, olives, obviously,” said Urd. “That’s why her hair and eyes look purple, too. The exact color of a ripe olive. Black with a sheen of purple.”
“Olives have those beautiful thick twisted trunks, don’t they?” asked Verdani with interest. “Can’t one be actually inside some of the old trunks?”
“Yes,” said Eurydice. “We used to sleep in them. The branches twist and curve around us, forming a perfect shape for our bodies to rest in.”
“They’re not tall trees, though,” said Urd.
“The farmers prune us,” said Eurydice, looking down at herself. “They want to be able to reach the olives, you see, so they prune us until we’re short and stubby and fat…”
“Ah,” said Verdani.
Eurydice reached blindly for her clothes and put them on, wiping her face with her sleeve. She resumed her seat.
“Well,” said Urd. “Congratulations are in order. You’ve reclaimed yourself as a tree nymph. I’m glad to see you feel ‘fixed’ and ‘better.’”
Verdani giggled.
Eurydice gave a choked snort.
“Eurydice,” said Verdani. “My dear. Acknowledging the entirety of what and who we are isn’t always pleasant. You’ve already reclaimed yourself as a tree nymph. You didn’t need us to help you with that. You told us yourself what you were. Anyone with eyes can see what you are. Why do you hide yourself?”
Eurydice shook her head, tears running down her face. “I want…I want to be someone…I want to be worth something, not just a tree with a thick trunk! I want to be more than a tree nymph…or a wife…not even pretty…”
Skuld got up, went into the kitchen and returned with a linen dishtowel wrung out in cold water. She handed it to Eurydice, who took it without looking at her.
“Th..th…thank you,” said Eurydice, and buried her face in the cool cloth.
“Well,” said Verdani a few moments later, “now that we’ve embarrassed you, made you cry and you’ve regained your identity as a tree nymph, what else can we do for you?”
This time Eurydice did laugh, though she felt tears close by, like the edge of a storm cloud. She ran a hand over her puffy face. “It’s hard to put it into words,” she said. “I have an idea I’m a kind of…doorkeeper.” Her mouth felt sticky and she swallowed the last of her water.
“Interesting,” said Urd. “Say more.”
“It’s mixed up with dreams I’ve had and stories from other people,” said Eurydice. “I think there might be something about me that helps others find a path forward.” She groped in her pocket and laid the jeweled key on the table. “And then there’s this.”
Urd reached out with a lean arm and picked up the key, examining it closely. She passed it to Verdani, who pushed her glasses up from their resting place at the end of her nose in order to study the key. Skuld took the key reluctantly and set it hastily down, as though not wanting to touch it. She looked down at it on the table, shaking her head.
“Oh, dear,” she said, “oh dear. I remember the endings in this.”
Eurydice picked up a fork and idly traced scars on the table with its tines. “I know it sounds crazy, but the key came to me out of a dream. In Hades, I found a door and I’ve dreamt of that door. I don’t know if I’m to find a door and unlock it with the key, or if I am a key, or if I’m to give the key to someone else. Hel told me the Fountain of Urd is a source of power. I guess I thought I might find answers here, or some kind of clarity about what to do next. I know Yggdrasil drinks from the well and Mirmir guards it. Am I allowed to drink the water? Is it accessible? Is there a ritual or an offering I must make?
“I’m sorry to disappoint your expectation of grandeur, my dear,” said Verdani, “but you’ve been drinking water from Urd all evening.”
Eurydice looked at her empty cup in surprise.
“We wash dishes in it, too,” said Skuld helpfully, “and our clothes.”
“Hel makes it sound like the Fountain of Youth or something,” Urd grumped to Verdani. “Why make such a deal out of it? Lots of people get their water from a well, after all! And why call it a fountain? It’s just a plain well.”
“I suppose fountain sounds more important, and beautiful. People like to worship things, you know,” Verdani replied. “If you enjoy access to something solemn and important, then you get to feel solemn and important.”
“I never wanted to feel important,” sighed Skuld, “and I refuse to be solemn.” She looked mournfully at Eurydice, who couldn’t help but smile. Skuld looked as though she’d never been anything but solemn in her life.
“We’re not a bit solemn,” said Urd. “No one who watched us swimming in the Well of Urd would ever call us that.”
“You swim in the Fountain of Urd?” Eurydice asked, astounded. She had a mental picture of three naked old women splashing one another in a well laced with tree roots.
“Sometimes,” said Urd matter-of-factly, “we’re mermaids, you know.”
“Mermaids?” Eurydice’s voice squeaked with surprise.
“Don’t tell her that,” begged Skuld, scarlet faced. “Everyone will find out!”
“Can we get back to the subject?” asked Verdani irritably.
“What was the subject?” asked Urd. “I forgot.”
“The subject was Eurydice telling us what she wanted from the Well of Urd,” said Verdani impatiently. She turned to Eurydice.
“So, my dear. You’ve been drinking water from the well since you arrived. Do you feel powerful and filled with mystical revelation?”
“No,” said Eurydice. “I feel exactly the same.”
“Of course, you do,” said Urd stoutly. “Sensible girl. The fact is this pomp and reverence is ridiculous. You don’t need anything you don’t already possess.”
“I don’t?” asked Eurydice.
“You don’t,” answered Verdani. “Child, if you want to find out who you are and what you’re for there’s only one thing to do.”
“I want to know what to do next, how to be a doorkeeper.”
Verdani fixed her with a sharp eye. “I repeat, if you want to find out who you are and what you’re for and what to do next, there’s only one thing to do.”
“What?” asked Eurydice.
“Be yourself,” snapped Urd with an air of finality.
“You say you think you may be a doorkeeper, is that right?” asked Verdani, more gently.
“Yes.”
“The first person you open a door for is yourself. Allow yourself to be. Allow your body to be. Be who you are, fully and joyfully. You don’t need to be fixed and you don’t need to be different. Let that go. What’s needed is you, yourself, nothing more and nothing less. The source of power is — you.”
“We all come to it,” said Skuld hollowly. “We must be ourselves. Everyone else is taken.” She shook her head. “There’s no help for it.”
Verdani caught Eurydice’s eye and rolled her own in silent amusement.
Eurydice grinned, feeling suddenly light and free. “What about the key?” She looked from Urd to Verdani.
“The key came to you,” said Verdani. “When it’s time to do something with it, you’ll know.”
“All I do is just…be? That’s it?”
“It sounds easy,” said Verdani, “but actually it’s much harder than making offerings and pilgrimages and observing rituals. Creating something to worship is easy. Learning to respect and honor ourselves is terribly difficult. How do you feel about going around with your hair uncovered?”
Eurydice put her hand up to her hair, flipped a lock over her shoulder and examined it in the lamplight. She dropped it. “Uncomfortable,” she said.
“Naturally.”
“I see.” Eurydice sobered. “If I work at being myself, though, the rest will work out? I’ll find a place to belong and I’ll know who I am and how to be a doorkeeper?”
“You will,” said Verdani. “Start where you are. You’re an olive tree nymph. You’re a doorkeeper. Be those as often as you can, as well as you can, and see what happens.”
***
Eurydice stayed with the Norns. She was glad to be off the road. It was good to stop putting one foot in front of the other.
There was plenty to do. Verdani spun, day after day, hour after hour, keeping up a stream of talk about what was happening as she spun. She called this “Current Events,” and Eurydice understood why Urd and Skuld were often away on their own business. In their absence, Mirmir had the benefit of Current Events. When Mirmir was absent, Verdani told the tree. Eurydice was a welcome fresh audience.
Urd astonished Eurydice the day after she’d arrived by running nimbly up a ladder to a thick bough of Yggdrasil. Once in the tree, Urd climbed from branch to branch, hanging new skeins of fiber and fetching others to transport to weavers around the world. Urd moved about the tree with strength and grace, as at home as if she was in her own living room.
It was Urd who wrapped Yggdrasil’s trunk in fiber for Verdani to spin. She was the keeper of what had happened. “I don’t feel a daily monologue on ‘Past Events’ necessary, though,” she told Eurydice with some acerbity.
The Norns had a childlike love of stories. At the end of the day, when the last meal had been eaten and the dishes washed, Eurydice told all the stories she’d learned from Maria, Kunik, Mary and Molly, as well as stories from her own people.
Verdani had been spinning hemp when Eurydice arrived, but it was nearly gone. The next material had been a subject of some acrimonious debate, with Skuld in favor of flax. “The blue flowers are so cheerful,” she said dolefully, “and they’re blooming now.”
Urd favored lichen and moss.
“How on earth do you wrap a distaff in lichen and moss and spin it?” asked Eurydice, astonished.
“Oh, it’s simple,” Verdani answered. We gather lichen, fungi, and moss — it’s the perfect time of year for it — and wrap them in cobwebs. Then Urd puts it on the distaff, Yggdrasil, I mean, and I spin it.”
“What does it make?” asked Eurydice, fascinated.
“It makes the threads of life, networks of filaments too fine to see connecting every plant and tree in a forest. It spins spores and mushroom gills, insects and bacteria, tiny leaves and stalks, mats and layers.”
“My knees hurt for weeks after we do that one,” complained Skuld.
“You don’t get enough exercise,” said Urd. “You’re lazy and your muscles are weak.”
“I don’t,” agreed Skuld promptly. A gleam in her eye surprised Eurydice. “I am and they are. I should work harder. You work so hard, Urd. Would you like me to take over your job for a while? It would be good for me and you’d get a rest!”
“Oh, give it up Skuld!” said Verdani crossly. To Eurydice, she said, “She’s always trying to get out of her job.”
“I don’t know why I’m stuck with the worst job,” said Skuld. “Why am I the one who cuts? Everyone’s afraid of me. I’m always to blame. All I can talk about is what shall happen, and nobody wants to hear about that unless it’s good.”
“But endings are only beginnings,” Eurydice began and then stopped. Skuld looked at her in amazement, her depressed aspect suddenly interested and animated. Eurydice remembered who she was talking to, lost her confidence and swallowed the rest of what she’d been going to say. “Aren’t they?” she asked weakly instead.
“Say that again!” demanded Skuld.
“Well, I don’t know, of course, because I’m not wise like you are,” began Eurydice.
Urd made an impatient noise. Eurydice caught her eye and Urd scowled at her.
Eurydice pulled herself together. “In Hades, I learned endings are beginnings. The words describe two sides of the same event. If you’re in charge of endings, then you’re in charge of beginnings, too. Beginnings can’t happen unless an ending happened first. Don’t you see?”
“I’m in charge of beginnings,” said Skuld, as though tasting the words.
Urd looked at Verdani with an eyebrow raised high.
“Why, I’m like… a mother!” said Skuld. “I’m a midwife! I help new life come into being!” She took the scissors from behind her ear and looked at them in wonder. “I’m not a destroyer, I’m a creator!” She wandered around Yggdrasil and out of sight, looking raptly down at her scissors and mumbling to herself.
“Well,” said Urd grumpily. “There’ll be no holding her now!” But Eurydice saw a smile in her eyes.
“Well done, Eurydice!” said Verdani. “Thank you! Poor old thing’s been moaning and complaining for hundreds of years about her part of the job.”
“Thousands,” corrected Urd.
Eurydice felt nonplussed. “No one ever suggested that before?” she asked tentatively. “You’re so old, so wise…”
“You do possess a tendency for grand expectations, don’t you?” inquired Urd.
“We’re just like you, my dear,” said Verdani. “Doing our best every day and learning as we go. I think it’s safe to say if someone suggested that to Skuld before she didn’t hear it properly. Now she has, and you’ve made our lives much more enjoyable.” She looked up at Urd, who leaned against Yggdrasil. “Let’s celebrate by doing flax next. Skuld’s right, it’s the season, and we can take care of water for the summer if we do a good solid lot of it.”
“What do you mean, water for the summer?” asked Eurydice.
“Have you seen flax growing wild in fields and along roads and paths?” asked Urd.
“Yes,” said Eurydice. “It makes me think of water, too, blue pools and puddles.”
“Exactly,” said Urd. “Flax is a good fiber for making cloth, but it has a scent of water about it and part of what we spin will be threads of water gurgling and trickling here and there across Webbd.
“Also, dew, rain and mist,” said Verdani. “Summer water. Do you see?”
“I see,” said Eurydice, marveling.
(This post was published with Edition #58 of Weaving Webs and Turning Over Stones.)