There once was a woman who was so old her white hair trailed the ground. She routinely began to catch glimpses of Lady Death watching her from behind The Veil.

The old woman determined she couldn’t die without first finding a way to heap wonderment upon her son, for that was all she ever wanted for him. And so, she loaded a cart behind a horse with all she possessed—a scythe and a spindle—and set off into the forest. For where else to find wonder than an enchanted wood?

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Lady Death trailing behind, but at a goodly distance. The old woman hoped this meant she had time enough left.

She traveled deeper into the dark forest than anyone ever had before. Still she found no magic, no wonder to take back to her son. Eventually she came to the edge of the world—the forest bordered by an endless sea. Here it was always night, always with a full moon. Not only that. The sky, trees, and ocean were all a vivid deep blue.

There was nowhere else to go, and the old woman thought it so peaceful she decided to stop and rest her cracking bones. As fate would have it, she hadn’t seen Lady Death in any number of days. “Good,” she said. “For I refuse to die until my son knows love’s true wonder.”  

Setting aside her clothes, she walked into the sea, feeling the tide pull against her long white hair—and her soul. After this she wandered in the blue forest with the moon beaming down through tree boughs, trailing her long white hair behind her.

The next morning she caught a glimpse of Lady Death a ways off in the forest where it was still green. “Don’t come for me,” the old woman whispered and hid quick. But she knew she had a problem.

The old woman knew how to make use of what little she had at hand. She put her mind to what solution there might be for Lady Death, and soon devised a plan.

With the help of her scythe, the old woman sliced off her long hair near the root, weeping all the while to lose its beauty. Next, she sat at her spindle and spun the white hair into long strands of glass. These she hung in the blue branches of trees until the woods were a shimmering, distorted reflection whichever way she went.

“I am no maiden, but this may save me,” the old woman said, her voice cracking with age as she rubbed her shorn head.

The next day Lady Death entered the blue of the forest at the edge of the world and blinked in amazement at the trees glinting with long, blowing strands of glass. She fast became confused, for she could only find an image of herself wherever she looked. Indignant, she went on her way.  

The old woman watched with glee. As she’d hoped, the glass had preserved and kept her safe from Lady Death!

As time passed, the old woman grew ever more frail. When she realized she could no longer climb onto her horse, she felt grief, knowing she would never return to her son. But the wind from the endless sea soothed her by blowing the strands of glass hanging in the trees. This made music like bell chimes, or harp, or violin, and gave her company.    

The music was so pristine it called to those believed not to exist:

Fairies.

Unseen for hundreds of years, fairies yawned and peeked out from beneath petal, moss, and leaf all across the land, in wonderment at the music which carried on the wind. As you might guess, they lost no time taking flight with intent to steal whatever instruments could make music so ethereal.    

The old woman wept when fairies began to arrive in streaks of green, violet, and gold light. Here at last, she’d found a source of wonder! She gasped to see what was once her hair, ripple with the afterglow of a fairy’s playful flight. The unexpectedness of it transfixed her. What she felt was sheer delight!

But, oh, how to take this magic back to her son? She wished for him to know it, too.  

She continued to marvel as the fairies kissed her shorn head and the fragile skin of her hand, dancing to the music plucked by wind upon glass strands.

Once the fairies realized that the old woman had little strength to stand, they built a spiral staircase around the trunk of the biggest, most glassy tree. They helped her climb up and lay her upon a soft bed they made of twined leaves.

They kept vigil as she slept with uneven breath. For they had fallen in love with her delicate limbs, as lovely as a tender sapling.

All the while, more fairies across the land heard the music and woke from their long sleep. There was one particular fairy who, flying over hill and dale in search of the beautiful music which had wakened her, forgot to take care not to be seen. She happened to pass by a stream where the old woman’s son sat unenchanted by the world and in disbelief of unseen things.    

He screamed in pure astonishment upon sight of a blue dress and bellflowers zipping by. “Was that—surely not—a fairy???” He clamped shut his eyes. He gulped and squeaked. Then, for once without thinking, he jumped on his horse to give chase to ‘nonsense,’ all the way to the ever-moonlit forest with its surging sound of bells, harp, and violin.

This is how he came to find his mother up a winding staircase, asleep in the weeping glass tree.

The old woman opened her eyes at the cry of her son. But behind him was Lady Death, who had been watching and waiting for him to seek his mother and had followed.

“Take the glass strands, for my legacy to give is unlapsing wonder,” the old woman said to her son. “It’s all I ever wanted for you.”

As the son watched, his mother’s skin became so thin that he saw the infinite glow of light which had always been within. 

The fairies fluttered and buzzed in excitement at this wondrous display of magic. They bade the wind to blow and so rock their exquisite old woman in her tree cradle, while singing her a lullaby to a crescendo of music:

Come awake, come awake

The world dawns with your wonder

Come awake, come awake

Let the bough fall out from under

At the last word of the last verse, a great wind rushed in from the endless sea and spun once more the spindle’s wheel. Lady Death swept up The Veil in her arms and let it fall. It passed over the length of the cradle where the woman lay curled.

With the passing complete, her spirit unfurled.

The wind gusted and the bough did break. The cradle did fall.   

Fairies threw their rarest magic. The old woman’s body, whilst tumbling midair, transformed into a cascade of luminous silver leaves.

The son bore witness as his mother glittered in a shower to the ground. There, in the moonlit forest blue, fairies gathered her up in their arms and spun to the music of glass hair. This whirlwind of fairy and leaves and spirit brought the son to his knees, and he found himself so lost in wonder—

He forgot his every last despair.  

The dance went on for days until the son grew so dizzy watching he knew he must go. He asked to be given his mother’s body, but the fairies refused, holding tight to the silver leaves with their long tapered fingers.

The son agreed to let the fairies keep her but said, “In return you must honor my mother’s legacy and allow me to take the strands of glass as she wished.”

The fairies made fierce faces at him, but the son kept his nerve until at last they agreed. He used the scythe to reap his mother’s glassed hair from the blue forest by the endless sea.

The son understood his mother and knew exactly how to love her. He traveled the world with her legacy until countless trees sung a lullaby of spindle’s glass. Hosts of fairies could not resist coming out from their sleepy hiding spots and into the open to dance. And all people everywhere fell into a great wonderment at the unseen being real after all.

This changed everything.

For this is love’s true wonder:

There is always more to Reality than what is perceived or known.

To this day fairies dance with the old woman. If you see a whirlwind of silver leaves, you may catch a glimpse of tiny wings. Or, an old woman’s wonder-filled eyes.

Her son sees with them all the time.

~The Lullaby of Spindle’s Glass is dedicated to my three sons for whom I wish a life of wonder, and to my own passed mother.