The Spirit of Christmas Eve, a fairy tale for enlightenment
Silver bells ring eerie on this cold Christmas Eve. Come inside, for ghosts of long ago roam and bring warning with fright. ‘Tis better to gather round the crone as she tells her Christmas story—the year is short, so open your hearts and minds and find meaning, lest a fearsome spirit visit you this night!
A Yeoman’s Daughter hatched a plan one dark Christmas Eve.
For she did love the manor lord’s son, but he would be forced to marry on Christmas Day the daughter of a most noble knight. Our Yeoman’s Daughter’s love was thwarted as she was deemed less suitable for such a match.
She could not bear to watch her beloved marry another.
Thus, she knelt in church before the priest to give confession. “Forgive me father, for I have sinned. For when I found in the stables the Knight’s Daughter in fornication with a peasant man of handsome face, I agreed to lie for her. It weighs on me most heavy.”
The priest, a favored adviser to the manor lord, gasped. “The temptress!” he said. Laying a hand on the head of the Yeoman’s Daughter, he forgave and in haste blessed her. Our Yeoman’s Daughter gathered shawl about her shoulders and watched as the priest hurried down the cobbled road to whisper in the manor lord’s ear.
A snow began to fall, and she stood motionless on this beautiful and holy night, frightened by what she had done. Yet what choice did she have? She could have no life without a husband.
A great wind blew of a sudden, banging church shutters. The gentle snow turned quick into a fearsome blizzard. With a cry, our Yeoman’s Daughter did shield her face with a bent arm. She called for help, for all the world had vanished in a swirl of driving snow and black shadows. How cold it was! The air was like frozen water in her lungs, and she squatted there in the church yard, reaching up her arms for help.
Alas, no one came to her. She heard the townspeople talking gaily to one another of eel pie and fruit pottage, and singing their Christmas songs as if no blizzard had set upon the town.
“Help me, please!” she shrieked. Terror seized her heart that she might be lost in the icy maelstrom, for tales of such were known to turn tragic. Her thin shawl and worn tunic could not withstand such cold. Standing, she stumbled this direction and that, but she could see no one, not the church, nor anything at all, until—
A hooded and looming figure appeared dark against the swirling snow. This frightened our Yeoman’s Daughter, who supposed Death had come to stalk her. She bolted and screamed for God to help her, but fell to crack her skull upon the frozen road. Whimpering, she peered up through frozen eyelashes to behold a glowing lantern hanging from the voluminous sleeve of the hooded figure.
“Surely, Death carries no lantern,” she cried in hope. Wavering to her knees, she clutched at heavy robes. “You must be sent by God to save me! Tell me your name, that I might give thanks for you.”
No answer came, and our Yeoman’s Daughter could not see within the dark hood. She trembled. This was all wrong. “Will you not speak to me?” she begged. No answer came. “Very well! At least do God’s bidding and save me!”
No sooner had the words passed her lips than the lantern glowed bright to turn the night to day, chasing away the blizzard. Before our Yeoman’s Daughter’s eyes a hearth appeared, with the Knight’s Daughter holding a small child in her arms as her husband, the manor lord’s son, stoked a merry fire.
The hooded figure spoke at last. “Never to come, never to come.”
The lantern flashed even brighter than before, and a new scene did appear out of the blizzard. The Knight’s Daughter stood before a gilded mirror, arranging cloth to hide a bruised face. She wept, asking her maid why the manor lord’s son no longer wished her to bear his children, and why her father had beaten her for what she had never done.
“Oh,” said our Yeoman’s Daughter and tried to turn away. “I…I do not wish to see her. Please. I cannot.”
But the hooded figure reached out and grabbed fast to our Yeoman’s Daughter, and to the Knight’s Daughter as well, reaching across time. The two women stood face to face and a curious thing did happen. They could not look away. In a time between a thousand Christmases and its Eve, they gazed into one another’s eyes. And it was as if looking into a mirror, for the two souls were one. What happened to one happened to the other. What one did the other had done. This they had never known.
“We are the same!” they said, both nearly fainting in surprise.
The hooded figure pushed back her hood and raised her lantern. It grew its brightest yet. A new vision did appear: a tree, heavy with ripe fruit in a garden where women did rightly dwell, no matter the stories of ancient men. Our Yeoman’s Daughter took the hand of the Knight’s Daughter. Alongside the Spirit of Eve on this and all nights before Christmas, they ate the sweetest apples, for nothing was forbidden.