-
The Lullaby of Spindle’s Glass, a fairy tale for enlightenment
Keep in mind as you listen this isn’t one of those stories about a sleeping death which maidens so often find themselves caught up in…but something deeper. Something more. Listen closely.
It’s up to you to find what meaning you will.
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.
As for you, the one growing older by the day—how can you soothe the hurt of life going by so fast? By turning attention to the promise that the time is ripe for you, the one sweetened by age, to spin your own magic (love) that lasts.
This Crone Tale is dedicated to my three sons for whom I wish a life of wonder, and to my own passed mother.
And, to you and you
and You.
~Cricket Baker
If you liked this spindly story of love and wonderment, I hope you subscribe to receive new Crone Tales by email HERE. 🙂
I LOVE COMMENTS! You may leave one below. When I hear what people like, it helps me to write more of it.
Featured art of long white hair at night by:
decorative paintings PNG Designed By 千图网 from <a ref=”https://pngtree.com/”>Pngtree.com</a>
Blue fairy image by Wikina
-
The wife lost in the midwinter woods, a fairy tale for enlightenment
Stew simmers on the stove and a bright hearth’s fire burns. After a lone walk by pale starlight in the forest dark, the crone returns. She has a wintry tale in mind to tell. Listen. Find what meaning you will.
There was a crone in need of shelter from the bite of a cold winter’s night. She came upon a village and knocked upon the door of a snowy cottage.
“I can offer a cup of hot pottage,” said the wife who lived there. Her eyes darted about. “But then you must go, and quick.” She gestured to a pot that bubbled on a grate over the fire.
The crone lifted the first oniony spoonful to her cracked lips as the door banged open. The husband stopped in the doorway, a dead fox slung over his shoulders, and glared at his wife. “What is this? Who eats my food?”
The crone gave clear answer. “I am a traveler in need of food and shelter for the night. In exchange I will bless this house.”
“You are nothing more than a begging hag!” The husband grabbed hold of the crone and tossed her out the door. There she landed on her poor leg, snapping the bone. The crone made no sound but turned to look back. Fixing her eyes on the wife, she blew her a magic kiss. This is the end of the crone in our story. The night was too cold; I’m sorry to tell you she died in the wind and the snow.
The next morning when the wife woke, it wasn’t only with bruises—there was fur covering her face.
“This is all your fault,” complained her husband. He pulled back a fist. “That hag you let in surely threw a curse with that blown kiss!” The wife ran from the house. The husband gave chase, but she entered the midwinter wood where he dared not follow.
There the wife wandered lost in the white moonless forest in her gown and bare feet. Wind blew and trees leaned at the wife so that she shrieked to get away. This, on top of howling wolves. When a pale dawn arrived, she found a tree set apart from the rest, with a door set into the ancient wood atop gnarled roots.
She knocked, and when no one answered, she let herself inside the burrow.
Inside she discovered a table with chair, a small bed, and a hearth stacked with wood. Straightaway she made a fire to warm herself. Once her body stopped its shivering she climbed into the bed beneath the quilt, exhausted. The howling kept up, but then woods are meant to have wolves.
Our wife slept all day and back into the night. Once awake she quickened the fire and made herself a meal from a sack of seeds found in the cupboard. With her belly goodly filled, she set about tidying the tree burrow to clear its blanket of dust. This is how she found a hooded red cloak beneath the bed and soft boots that fit her feet.
“I wonder if I might stay,” she told the tree and heard its branches stir. Feeling cozy and most welcome, she decided not to return to her village for the time being, for who there would take kindly to her face with its fur?
By day she walked the white woods, talking all she pleased, giving her opinions to various trees on a myriad of things. Mushrooms grew in the snow for her to find. Winter berries, too. Once upon an evening a pack of wolves tracked her as she went along, but when she turned her furry face upon them, they bowed. After this she found rabbits left upon her doorstep. With these she made a tasty stew.
Each night she buried deep in her bed’s quilt and with drowsy eyes gazed at the hearth’s glowing embers. The burrow’s branches swished above her head and creaked most pleasant in the wind. She felt safe.
One day as our woman took a walk amidst flurries of snow, she noticed strange stitches in the sky. An unseen hand sewed more and more stitches until the heavens bruised black and blue. At last, she realized that the stitches were not stitches but birds. They made an awful sound like none other she’d ever heard. The ravens easily spied her bright red cloak moving swift in the white forest below. They dived from the sky, breaking branches to reach our woman and fly about her in a whirlwind of black wings. She fended off their sharp talons as she ran for her burrow. Once inside, she slammed the door only to fall back on her bottom as birds pelted into the wood. She heard her beloved tree groan with the weight of countless ravens landing upon its branches. This made her angry.
“What do you want?” she hollered through the door.
A solitary screeching voice bid her greeting and said:
“We seek a rib!”
“A what?”
“A rib, a certain husband’s wife, are you she? This wife must return to her husband’s side from whence she came. Tell us the truth, what is your name? Do not lie, or we will know. A sorcerer’s spell is cast upon us to tell us so.”
And then the unkindness of ravens shrieked in awful chorus over and again:
Please, if we don’t find the rib,
We shall suffer the blame.
Must we peck out your eyes?
Just tell us your name!
Our woman clutched her ears, so horrible shrill did the ravens sing. She opened her lips to give her name to make the chorus stop—
And couldn’t be more surprised to find that she could not.
The notion of a name seemed absurd. How could she have one and whatever would it be? For her mind was as clear and vast as the sky, and she breathed into her lungs the traveling wind. Her being was no less deeply rooted than the standing trees. Her dreams moved with the moon, and she had rivers of life’s blood flowing within her veins. What had happened was this:
She’d become so wild she’d forgotten her name!
That’s when she knew.
“I am of the earth, not of a man,” she said, astonished.
You should know that when any woman comes awake, she suddenly sees this exact same thing. Never mind old stories which proclaim that in the beginning woman was born of a man. Forgive my old woman’s laughter, but everyone knows it never happens that way.
Think on this and see. And ask what the purpose of men telling things backward might be!
As for our wild woman of the earth, she opened the burrow door and told the ravens: “I am most definitely not a rib. Not only that. I have no name to tell you that is wholly true. For I am me, but also wind and river and tree.”
The sorcerer’s spell upon the birds made certain this confession was accepted as pure fact. “You are not the rib we seek,” the birds shrieked and beat their wings to fly away and never come back.
Nameless. Wild. And free. Our woman delighted that she now possessed a knowing like none other she’d had before. What this meant was this:
She’d never after be deceived.
What a very good thing! For when the sorcerer’s ravens couldn’t find what the husband wanted back, he gathered what courage he had and set out into the woods. Eventually he found the tree burrow and peered through its window to see a woman with a furry face tending a fire inside.
“You must come home now,” he called out to her. For he was weary of burnt suppers.
Our wild woman opened the door in surprise. Looking into his eyes, she could see he had not changed. He was not wild as she but remained unnatural with false stories—he was tamed. This is how she knew it best to say nothing at all to him and went to shut the door. But first—
She offered him a wolfish grin.
And he ran all the way home.
Okay, so this one is a smidgen longer than flash fiction is supposed to be…but I couldn’t cut any more words, my apologies!
A little commentary: This story is not at all meant to be anti-men. I have a husband and three sons whom I love and adore. No, it’s meant to point to equality, nothing more.
What isn’t separate but is like unto all the world is just plain difficult to give a name, is it not? Just as our wild woman discovered.
And as, perhaps, may you. There is no need for you to ‘make a name’ for yourself. How much better to fall into the thrill of being whole by blending into all the beautiful world? You can choose to be:
Nameless. Wild. And free.
If you found meaning in this wild tale, I very much hope you subscribe to CRONE TALES.
I so love comments! You may leave one below:)
-
THE MAIDEN WHO WAS WASHED OUT TO SEA, a fairy tale for enlightenment
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
-
The witch in the wishing well, a fairy tale for enlightenment
On the cottage porch is both sunshine and shade. Women gather here with silver spoons and marmalade. Cozy beneath quilts, the crone rocks in her chair and remembers a witch who found transformation deep in the earth. Would you like to hear the tale? Listen. Find what meaning you will.
A patch of dark forest encircled a witch’s cottage in the middle of a village. Also in this village were cruel children who tormented a small girl with a lisp and crossed eyes. Day after day they dropped her down a wishing well and left her to scream in terror.
In an effort to have one day’s peace, our little girl hid in the patch of dark forest. That’s when she got to watching the witch’s cottage and got an idea. For she knew that no one messed with a witch. Not even wolfish children.
“If I had the power of a witch they couldn’t hurt me again!” she declared and marched up to the cottage.
The witch opened the withered wooden door. “I always wanted a daughter,” she said.
Our little girl slipped inside. The door closed tight.
Twelve years passed with no villager seeing the little girl and thinking nothing of it (not even her parents). In the meantime she studied as apprentice to the witch. When she finally turned the last page of the witch’s ancient book of magic, she declared herself safe from the wolfish children ever hurting her again.
“It’s time for me to get out of this cottage for a while,” she said with relief, for twelve years is a long time to study. The witch stayed behind as she was now old and decrepit in her bed.
As it turned out, the wolfish children had grown up as well, but the new witch of the village recognized them at once. As she passed them by, with a tilt of her head to bring them into focus with her crossed eyes, she spoke with guttural verse the spells to get her revenge.
The grown children’s eyes widened and turned milky white to make them blind. Their tongues shriveled in their mouths to become ash. They spit and spat. The villagers shrieked in fright and huddled with bowed heads as the new witch walked through the village with her chin held high.
When she got good and ready, she returned to the cottage in the patch of dark forest. “You are the only one left who doesn’t fear me!” she declared with glee.
“Even I do, a little,” the old witch said from her bed. “You are a better, more heartless witch than ever I was.” And then she died with pride. Now the witch’s cottage belonged to the witch with a lisp and crossed eyes.
In an effort to appease the new witch in the village, a cake was baked and delivered to the cottage in the patch of dark forest. Brave villagers placed it upon the doorstep, knocked, and ran away quick as rabbits.
Our witch opened the door. Her jaw dropped in surprise. No one was there and so she lifted the cake and took it inside.
“They remembered my birthday,” she exclaimed and sliced into the cake with the excitement of a little girl. But her smile fell away when a frog’s leg stuck to the edge of the knife. When she placed a piece of the cake upon a plate, no less than six bulging frog eyes stared back at her.
Our witch grew very, very still. “This is what they think I eat,” she whispered to the empty cottage.
There are moments in life and this was hers. She received unsolicited (divinely delivered) proof that she was never going to get things arranged so she could be happy. For our witch, the proof was not in the pudding, but rather in the cake.
A froggy cake.
Our witch with a lisp and crossed eyes sat before the hearth’s fire, wrapped in blankets, and wept for her existence.
By midnight she was curled up in the corner on the floor.
By dawn she’d left her cottage forever to go stand at the wishing well. “I wish I were dead,” she said. And, with no help from a wolfish pack of children, our witch placed a bare foot in the well’s bucket and held tight to the rope to lower herself down the narrow well and into the water far below.
You may be unaware, but when a witch sits unmoved with her demons, they will at some point give up tormenting her and go away. They will leave her in peace. It was no different with our witch.
After 40 or 49 days (depending on which version of this story you hear), the sun shone into the depths of the well. It did this with Silence and not with a spell.
Thereafter, our witch felt quite content to stay put.
Villagers (who had no idea the witch could hear) stood by the well and begged for their wishes to come true, tossing in copper coins as bribes to they-knew-not-quite-who…
“If only my feet were tiny…”
“If only I could spin straw into gold…”
“If only I was kissed by a prince…”
Our witch in the wishing well heard every word. She felt pity for those who believed they needed their wishes to come true, for she knew what it was to be frightened—and thus confused.
And so, she answered each wish with a wordless spell.
Not one spell she cast indulged a belief of what would set things right. There was no spell cast for beauty or riches or a whole different life. The spell for each well-wisher was the same. It was
One. Spell. Only.
(There was only one she’d ever needed to learn, only one to have on demand. Let this be a lesson to you who believe thick ancient books will give what only a stint in stillness can!)
She’s still there in that well, our witch with a lisp and crossed eyes. If you find her, ask for what you will, but know this: Your wish won’t matter to her one little whit. Like everyone else, you’ll get the same gift:
An overflowing bucket of not needing to wish.
Ahh…you’re waiting for the revelation of the spell. I’m sorry to tell you that I cannot tell it, for a wordless spell cannot be put into words. Do not feel anxious, for this will not stop you from receiving it.
Neither can I tell you the end to this story, for how could the experience of immortality ever end? It is an everlasting
“And she lived happily right now.”
If you found meaning in this witchy story and would like to receive Crone Tales for free via email (I write about two a month), you can subscribe HERE.
