Sprites dance in a trail of stars along the water’s edge and beneath the bridge to pinch the toes of trolls. Stories live here, and tiny mouths pass them in twinkles. The crone has ears to hear such tales, and she knows one to tell for those who cannot bear things they have once done. Sit and listen. 

Find what meaning you will.

There was a maiden in a quaint village near a bubbling brook filled with spirits, sprites, and spoons. She tried her best to be a beautiful and proper girl, suitable for a fine marriage match. But it was all a lie. 

One breezy evening the villagers celebrated a bang-up summer crop with music and dancing. The maiden twirled, careful to hold out her hand prettily and step lightly. Suddenly, there were gasps and cries of fear. 

An ogress interrupted the dance. She held a wildflower, aglow with tiny fairies buzzing about its nectar. Her bulbous chin quivered. She was an emotional ogress.   

“I want us to be happily ever after,” the ogress said to the maiden. She buckled to one knee. “Will you be my wife?” 

The maiden’s mother rushed to her daughter and wrapped a protective arm about her shoulders. “How dare you humiliate my daughter,” she spat. In a fever she shrieked: “Pitchforks! We need PITCHFORKS here!”   

Villagers jeered at the ogress. Roosters clucked in panic. The wildflower’s tiny fairies opened wide their eyes. 

“Wh—why do you pr-propose?” the maiden stammered, keenly aware of all eyes upon her. “You are an ogress, an unacceptable match for me. Um. Off you go?”     

The ogress appeared confused. She stretched forth the wildflower. Tiny fairies buzzed the maiden’s nose. 

The maiden swatted and turned her face away.   

Having misplaced their pitchforks, villagers threw tomatoes on forks at the ogress. She shielded her head with an arm and hurried away. When no one was looking, the maiden ran after her to the bubbling brook of spirits, sprites, and spoons. There she found her beloved ogress waiting as usual but dripping tomato sauce. 

“Forgive me,” the maiden begged, falling to her knees and taking the ogress’s enormous hand. “But why did you not follow our plan to elope? There is no other way for this to work.” 

The ogress trembled. Now she knew for sure what she was: ugly—and  smelly besides. (It may be you are unaware that an ogress’s eyesight is poor, and she believed the maiden swatted at her nose due to stink, for the ogress could not see the tiny fairies which buzzed at the maiden’s face.) 

“You should marry someone else,” the ogress whispered to the maiden. And our ogress lumbered away.   

This is how our maiden’s heart came to stop. She fell into a sleep so deep no one could wake her. The mother paid healers to come. They offered spoonsful of potion to the maiden’s lips and prodded her feet with red hot pokers from the hearth, all to no avail. “What a disappointment she was,” said her mother. “There will be no grandchildren.” And she left our maiden for dead on her bed.

The spirits, sprites, and spoons found this state of affairs to be tragic. “True love will wake her,” they promised and searched across the queendom for the ogress. After three years they found her in a valley of buttercups and told her of the maiden’s sleeping death.    

The ogress dropped everything. 

Villagers screamed in rage to see the ogress again. She paid them no mind and entered the cottage where the maiden lay with no beating heart. The ogress found a bowl and filled it with water. She washed the maiden’s long hair as she reminisced. 

She had many stories. “Do you remember when we–?” each began. The maiden’s eyelids fluttered. The ogress spoke quiet and slow, loud and fast, depending on the story. All ended with the ogress laughing. The maiden smiled in her sleep and stirred. She woke just as the ogress began the last story they shared together. 

The ogress laughed when she finished the tale of betrayal, and the maiden was astonished. (She was forever astonished at things; this is why the ogress had fallen in love with her in the first place.) 

“You laugh at how I hurt you,” she exclaimed. “How can this be? Have you really forgiven me?” 

“You require no forgiveness,” the ogress said with a light heart. This is how she set the maiden free. For no words of forgiveness could ever take away the maiden’s guilt and shame—only the ogress’s own freedom from the betrayal could do such a thing. 

“You are grinning at me,” the maiden pointed out. Still astonished.   

“I no longer believe bad things about myself,” the ogress said with a shrug. “It’s a simple thing, once you see the good sense in it.”

Our maiden’s face was sore confused. The ogress couldn’t hold it back. She began to giggle. She laughed so long and hard and true that the maiden herself began to chuckle. Soon they fell to the floor together with laughter. It is late and this is a good place to end this tale. 

You should know this is a true story. The spirits, sprites, and spoons bore witness to it all. When they told this tale across the land, there was amazement. “What is this hair washing nonsense?” many a peasant and nobleman asked. “The ogress was supposed to kiss her. Why didn’t she give her a kiss?”   

The spirits, sprites, and spoons gave answer in one gentle voice, which is how the best answers are given. “Even better. The ogress gave her laughter.” 

“And did they marry?” the many asked. (They just didn’t get it.) 

At this point the spoons rightly lost their patience, but the spirits and sprites replied. “No. Happy endings prefer to happen in unexpected ways. The ogress had married a princess while the maiden slept. But that’s another story.” 

“And the maiden?” 

“She lived a long life astonished by things. She freed everyone she could of regret and shame by never believing they could hurt her. To be astonished and to offer freedom is all that is required to be a crone, so you could say that is what became of her. She was halfway there from the beginning.”