The Crone stands dizzy in her windy doorway. Is it the full moon that woke her, or the scent of white roses? Stars trail jagged white lines like briars in the skies, and she finds herself caught between heaven and earth, hearing both truth and lies. Her heart with a tale is like unto a village—stitched and intertwined. Come, listen.

You’re invited to make what meaning you will.

A chambermaid woke on a chill morning in her bed with a briar sprouted from her chest.

There, it tangled into a thorned nest over her heart. She told no one. How she cried to have become a monster! Yet she considered it inevitable. Time and again had she noticed something wrong with herself, how she was different from others. Parties did not excite her. She preferred to be alone rather than say foolish things for others to hear. She found herself unwilling to reach out to others and pretended not to see their need, for all she could manage was her own relentless fear of being seen.

“You made me wrong,” she declared to the heavens, and knew it to be true.

Come midnight, this chambermaid stole down to the gardens outside the crumbling castle. As it happened, a hedgewitch cared for the queen’s gardens using a witch’s green art. She wasn’t one of those skinny witches, but a big round fat one, as juicy as an apple. The chambermaid took care not to be seen by the hedgewitch. She gathered what ingredients she needed to make a poultice for her heart and left quick as a rabbit.

The chambermaid woke each morning thereafter to find a new briar protruding from somewhere on her form. Briars twisted down her legs, twined to cut the flesh of her belly, and pierced her arms with a peculiar type of curled thorn. Soon it became necessary for our chambermaid to wear extra layers of clothing to soak up the blood—and most important, to hide the briars from view and bad opinion.

One moonlit midnight, the chambermaid gathered her poultice ingredients as usual in the castle gardens. The fat hedgewitch, who smelled of honey and was not unknowing of stealthy visits to her garden, noticed a stray briar peeking out from the high collar at the chambermaid’s neck, and another piercing her skirt.  

The hedgewitch stepped into view. “Let me help you, my belle.”   

“Leave me be!” said the chambermaid. “Can’t you see? There is something very wrong with me.”

The hedgewitch held up her gardening shears. She coaxed and cooed. The chambermaid shed her bloody and thorn-ripped clothing and stood naked, shivering beneath a slivered moon.

Snip, snip, snip.

The hedgewitch used her shears to cut away the briars from the chambermaid’s poor body from toe to brow. All was not made well. Still the briars grew when the chambermaid slept each night, for the poison had to get out somehow.

Poison always comes out.

Snip, snip, snip.

Both chambermaid and hedgewitch wearied of a nightly pruning of briars.

“Enough is enough,” said the hedgewitch. “We must choke out these briar-lies!” Then did she plant seeds beneath the chambermaid’s skin.   

A white chrysanthemum bloomed at one corner of the chambermaid’s mouth, and on the other side a red poppy. This is how she came to have dimples of blossoms. In days thereafter blooms so covered the chambermaid that no briars could take root. She no longer had use for clothing of the ordinary sort.   

“I am a monster no more,” said the chambermaid in a fit of fragrant glory. And she was happy for a time.

Summer came. The chambermaid visited the hedgewitch in her garden with a new problem. Betrothed to a miller’s son, she wept in fear that she might revolt him come her wedding night.

“There will be no hiding the ugliness which dwells beneath these flowers,” said the chambermaid. She trembled and raised a cloud of golden pollen. “What will my love think when he touches my scarred flesh? He will surely turn away, and my wounds shall be made new. I cannot bear it! Can’t you see? Intimacy simply isn’t meant for me.”

“Oh, go back to bed,” said the hedgewitch.   

Once the night turned deep and still, the hedgewitch brought forth an ancient book of poem-spells composed by oak trees. The hedgewitch crushed flowers upon her tongue, cradled the ancient book in one swollen arm, and read strange syllables from a parchment page meant to brew a healing balm.  

A divine dust rained down on the castle. All who slept inside woke and followed silvered sparks outside into the gardens.

The chambermaid was the last to prance sleeping from the castle. In the garden she found bodies strewn upon the ground, and spirits of all those from her life at the castle waltzing in the full moonlight together. How surprised the chambermaid was to see the queen’s spirit waltzing with the spirit of her worst enemy—the king. The most vicious guards pointed their toes alongside priests. And there! Those who had once forgotten the very existence of the chambermaid—or judged her selfishness—now excitedly beckoned her to join in the silent waltz.

The hedgewitch herself brushed past the chambermaid like a big revolving globe. Briefly—their eyes met. And the gaze was everlasting, with no beginning and no end.  

Spin, spin, spin.

Under a poem-spell, the chambermaid dropped her body to the ground as she once had her clothing for briar-pruning, simple as that.

Holding her breath and closing her eyes, the chambermaid held out a cupped hand.

She waltzed and whirled, as drunken and drowsy with true love as the heavens which look down upon a spinning earth. The chambermaid twirled into Wonder. Her vision cleared to match that of the heavens, for all the dancers spun so fast that their many faces blurred into One.

She saw what is seen from above. 

Spin, spin, spin.

A knowing came unto the chambermaid. She would not marry the miller’s son. It was too late for that, for in this One dance it was impossible to see and love a separate anyone at all. What happened next was only natural and what you might expect. 

The chambermaid dissolved into a poem.

The hedgewitch fit this new verse—which was once a chambermaid—into her ancient book. Thereafter, she spoke the chambermaid-poem to anyone suffering the affliction of briars. For the poem gave rise to a thorned stem that grew a single white petal so inviting that a thousand bees landed upon its cupped hand.

And all the castle’s people grew sweet as honey and as swollen with bee stings as was the hedgewitch. For she applied the chambermaid-poem as the silky balm it was. This made queen, king, and servants so soft they more easily smoothed into one another.

The heavens took over after this, spinning the earth to spread the poem-balm both near and far away.

Spin, spin, spin. The verse appeared as bright pollen carried on a honeyed wind.

For all who hear the chambermaid-poem even today, a briar’s spell is broken and a white petal is added to a single, long-stemmed rose. This makes the heavens too love-drunk-drowsy to do anything other than keep spinning the earth and make intimate what seems to be not. 

This is the only alchemy that interests the heavens in any way whatsoever. The remaking into One is the one and only divine plot.

Now you know why—in every corner of this earth—twirling with cupped hands is a gesture of Love.

Aristotle is supposed to have said: “Love is composed of a single soul inhabiting two bodies.” I wonder if it could be truer to say, “Love is composed of a single soul inhabiting all bodies.”

One wonders how else peace on earth can ever happen.

And when love speaks,

the voice of all the gods

make Heaven drowsy

with the harmony

~Shakespeare

(Notice the Bard gives the gods a single voice.)

If you found yourself twirling with cupped hands by the end of this story, I invite you to subscribe to CRONE TALES. It’s free, and I write one or two new tales a month to help pitch you into wonder and enlightenment 🙂

Curious as to what inspired this tale as I sat to write? It’s a song by King Harvest. Here you go:

DANCING IN THE MOONLIGHT

PRETTY PLEASE LEAVE A COMMENT BELOW! I WOULD LOVE TO HEAR HOW YOU RECEIVED THE CRONE’S TALE. 

IMAGE CREDITS:

Featured image: <a href=’https://pngtree.com/so/retro-texture’>retro texture png from pngtree.com</a>

Image of briars: kisspng-tree-branch-snag-clip-art-tree-top-view-5abc67dd68d106.7605402215222967974293

Image of book by Gerhard G.

Woman dancing beneath moon: a href=’httpspngtree.comsoaugust-15’august 15 png from pngtree.coma

Girl dancing on flower: <a href=’https://pngtree.com/so/wallpaper’>wallpaper png from pngtree.com</a>