CRONE TALES

THE MAIDEN WHO WAS WASHED OUT TO SEA, a fairy tale for enlightenment

April 29, 2020 /

Outside the cottage window rain falls and may never stop. Ships are said to be lost and do wreck upon the rocks. Gather round, listen as the crone tells us the tale of a life changed by a long-ago falling rain.

Find what meaning you will.

 

There once was a maiden doted on by an entire village. Not a day of anguish had she ever known. This remained true until the village miller insulted a wandering sorcerer by mistake on a bright summer’s day.

The touchy sorcerer pointed his crooked stick at the sky, thunder boomed, and the heavens split open. The maiden’s village washed into the sea. She was alone in her childhood home at the time and completely unaware.

When she thought to wonder at the leaking roof and sounds of splashing against the walls, she opened the front door. The maiden gaped in confusion to see wooden houses like hers bobbing on enormous swells of dark water.

“Papa!” she shrieked.

Though she heard gurgling screams, the maiden received no answer from her father. She stood in the doorway and watched as countless villagers she loved slipped beneath the capsizing sea.

Frantic, she searched the house but found no Papa. The library was locked as usual, but no one answered from inside. The house pitched in the waves and she cut open her feet on broken bowls of glass. Her head began to pound. That’s when she found a closet in which to sit and howl.

By the next morning she had gone a bit mad. She jumped into the waves, intent on swimming toward the wind-carried voice of the cobbler’s wife from another bobbing house.

Tiny mermaids like minnows punctured our maiden all over with sharp teeth as she swam. There was not a small loss of blood. She barely had strength to pull herself back onto her porch. Leaning against the door, she looked out to see thousands of minnow-sized mermaids lifting their tiny hairless heads out of the sea to grin at her.

Back in the closet our maiden went.

Until she needed to eat. The cobbler’s wife shouted instructions, and our maiden sobbed as she dutifully ripped her dresses into strips to make nets. With these she managed to catch fish for her suppers.

Winter came. Our maiden stepped out on the porch to see ice chunks floating in the sea. And yet still the tiny mermaids circled her house, having put on blubber for the colder waters. Carefully, she knelt with grumbling stomach to pull up her nets.  

The fish had got loose. The knots of the nets had been untied. Baffled, the maiden blinked when ten thousand tiny mermaids rose to hold their heads above water. They wiggled clawed fingers for her to see.

“Oh, you unknotted my nets, you evil creatures!” the maiden screeched, pulling out her hair until she was half-bald. If you envision this correctly you will see she was no longer recognizable as the person she once was.

Later as our maiden shivered, muttered gibberish, and swept ash from the hearth, she found a key hidden between two stones.   

This was how she gained entry to her Papa’s library. She toted books to make a big crackling fire and warm her blue fingers and toes. Book after book she tossed upon the hearth. With nothing better to do, she opened one of the books and began to read.

The creaking house on the sea faded away. Our maiden lost all sense of time. Winter passed into spring with our maiden in wonder over worlds she’d never known could be. Her loneliness vanished, for she discovered that reading was the same as being in conversation with a great many voices.

When she’d read all the books, our maiden read them again. By this time a light had come into her eyes.

She needed more stories; she couldn’t get enough! Knowing exactly the kind she liked, she began to make them up.

Sitting on the porch as she imagined scenes on the swells of sea, she told a tale out loud. The tiny mermaids gathered to listen. They swooned from her poetic prose. Just when the heroine was set to die—our maiden fell silent.

The mermaids flipped. They thrashed the sea with their tiny tails while the maiden serenely waited. At last they gave up and spoke together in one melodic voice: “You understand us, you know our peculiar pain. For how else do you tell this tale of sorrow, this story of utter rage? We beg you for the ending. How will we—she—be saved?”

And our maiden leaned so close, she smelled the mermaids’ salted breath. She whispered the heroine’s transformation and how it came to be.

The mermaids wept in one another’s arms and died a little death.

How amazed our maiden’s neighbors were to see her walking on the sea. For the mermaids made a moving carpet for her to set her feet.

The sea villagers had once known a meek and silly maiden, and now before them was a woman wise. She held them captive with grand stories and gazed upon them with calm eyes.

To say the maiden’s ordeal had made her who she was is not exactly true. There was another ingredient, there must have been, or else her neighbors would have changed as had she.

The secret, of course, was in the locked library.

When a woman is shown the world and hears its many voices inside of books, she naturally feels compassion and moves to soothe its many hurts.

Not long thereafter the houses of the sea villagers washed up upon the beach of a beautiful queendom. To enter the pearl gate required words of wisdom, and the maiden was chosen to offer such on behalf of them all.

“I know who I am,” she said in great humility. 

“And who is that?” the queen asked.

“The many in one woman,” our maiden answered.

The gate swung open. The queen recognized a crone, however young, when she met one.

 

If you enjoyed this fairy tale for enlightenment, you may subscribe to receive Crone Tales for free HERE.

And please leave a comment below, I LOVE COMMENTS!  🙂

And yes, that IS a vintage Cinderella image and I DID replace her glass slipper with a stack of books.

~Cricket

 

22 Comments

  • Sissy

    June 4, 2020 at 1:00 pm

    Love these – and this one in particular. Such treasure to share. Thank you.
    I am sure the longer works will be wonderful!!!

  • Mary

    May 2, 2020 at 10:22 am

    Oh I love your fairy tales! I look forward to my email from you. But have to say, The Maiden who was Washed out to sea, is my favorite. It’s the books! They light the way. Thank you!

    • Cricket Baker

      May 3, 2020 at 7:36 am

      Thank you, Mary! I have gotten the best reaction on this story and I’ve been thinking on that. I’m so happy you enjoy the crone’s tales 🙂

  • Barb Murray

    May 1, 2020 at 7:11 pm

    Oh how I enjoy your tales of “reality”!
    Spun words of wisdom and grace.
    Lovely, absolutely lovely. Thank you♥️

  • Blackbead the Pirate Laureate

    April 30, 2020 at 11:50 am

    Absolutely wonderful! I shall share this marvelous story with every woman in my family. THEN, I shall share it with every man, too, so that they may have some small insight into the power of a crone. Keep writing, my friend! I will always remember your challenge and the poem it inspired in me.

    “Have you ever written a pirate ghost story . . . ?”

    • Cricket Baker

      April 30, 2020 at 12:34 pm

      Praise from you is high praise indeed, Steve! That’s so funny that you mention it, I was just remembering the pirate ghost poem yesterday! It was so atmospheric and woman-strong, I loved it:)

  • Christine

    April 30, 2020 at 1:45 am

    What a wonderful tonic that dropped in my ‘in’ box this morning!
    I was instantly captivated by this lovely story, when I really should have been working!
    A perfect distraction on a typically wet, grey English morning.
    Thank you.
    xx

    • Cricket Baker

      April 30, 2020 at 9:01 am

      🙂 Well, at least it’s such a tiny story you won’t be gone from work for long! I’m so happy you liked it. Thank you for the comment, it’s much appreciated, Christine!

  • jules

    April 29, 2020 at 4:45 pm

    Oh, I just love your stories. The image of the little mermaids with sharp teeth…and tiny flipping tails. Wonderful!

  • Cat

    April 29, 2020 at 2:20 pm

    Lovely story. I’ve always said that adversity opens the door to wisdom. I can’t help but wonder what she would have been like if her father had shared the library with her.

  • Maggie

    April 29, 2020 at 12:53 pm

    Yes! Loved it. I like to think I need more but then I think how wonderful to have bitesized portion of joy which will slip easily into a busy day. Thank you. xxx
    Love the house even though I don’t want it to be bobbing in the waves xxx

    • Cricket Baker

      April 29, 2020 at 2:44 pm

      It’s actually hard not to write more! They’re always longer on the first draft and I work to cut them down. I’m finished up a mystery novel (I can’t stop myself from tweaking it) and I may write a novel-length fairy tale next. We shall see, but that could be fun! Thanks, Maggie,for the comment 🙂