A thousand and one tales

Tale #10: The Old Lady And The Three Brothers

There was a road on which three brothers lived. The youngest of these brothers was a farmer, and one evening as he worked in the fields he saw an old lady walking past. He called to her and said, “My friend, it is a long road ahead, and almost dark. Why not join me for dinner and stay here the night, and continue on your way upon the morn?”

The old lady said, “I am but old and poor, with nothing save the hair upon my head, the clothes upon my back, and the hands I have with which to work.”

To which the man replied, “I expect no payment in return, nor do I wish to place an obligation upon you that you cannot fulfil. I offer my hospitality as a gift, for we are all travellers together in this world, upon a journey we know not where will end.”

“Then I will join you,” said she. “And thank ye kindly.” And they went together to the farmer’s cottage.

There the farmer, though it meant he would go hungry in the days to come, cooked for the lady a fine meal, and while they ate they talked of many things. Later, though it meant he would sleep that night upon the cold stone floor of the hearth, the farmer prepared for her a fine bed, with quilts of fur and blankets of homespun wool to keep her warm. And finally, though it meant by the next morning he would have no more, he piled the last of his wood on the fire and kept it burning until the darkness waned and the sun rose up and brought with it the warmth of the new day.

As she came to leave, the old lady said to the farmer, “You have been greatly kind to me. Although I would not wish to insult you by attempting to pay for that which was freely given, I hope you can accept a small gift from me in return.” And she reached up and took the hair from her head and placed it in the farmer’s hands, and as he held it he saw it was not hair but finely spun yarn of purest gold.

She left him then and went on her way. The road was long, as the farmer had said, and she met no-one on it for the rest of the day. As dusk was falling, she happened upon a large house by the side of the road. The second brother, a merchant, lived there, and on seeing the old lady passing by he came out and said, “My lady, it is a long road ahead, and almost dark. Why not stay here the night, and in the morn continue upon your way?”

The old lady said, “I am but old and poor, with nothing save the clothes on my back, and the hands I have with which to work.”

The merchant looked at her clothes, and saw they were made not from cotton, but from finely spun yarn of purest gold. And so he said, “Then I will have your clothes, for I should be able to sell them for a high price.”

“Then I will join you,” said she. And they went together into the merchant’s house.

The merchant gave her some bread, which was stale and old, and left her at the table to eat by herself. When she had finished he showed her to the cellar and, pointing to the cold stone floor, said, “Here is your bed.” And then he took her clothes in payment, and went back up the stairs and locked the door behind him.

The next morning at the break of dawn he unlocked the door and woke her up and threw her out on to the road. “You tricked me, you witch!” he shouted. “Last night these clothes were made of purest gold. Yet now they are nothing more than old rags.”

“It was your greed that tricked you, not I,” she said, and turned to the road and continued naked on her way.

The road now was longer than ever, and she met no-one on it for the rest of the day nor into the night. Eventually she fell down in exhaustion by the side of the road and lay there asleep until dawn.

The third brother, a king, saw her there and said, “How dare you sleep upon my road. Pay me what is rightfully mine or I will place you in chains and not let you go.”

The old lady said, “I am but old and poor, with nothing save the hands I have with which to work.”

“Then your hands it will be,” said the king. And with a desperate laugh the old lady reached up and throttled him dead.

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Notes:

1. Written on July 18th, 2014

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Tale #9: The Saddest King Of All

There was a king in the woods who was ever so sad. Every day he looked out of the window of his castle and sighed. “If only these trees did not block my view,” he thought. “Then I would be happy.” So he ordered his soldiers to cut down all the trees in the forest.

The next day he looked out of his window again, only now he could see another castle on the horizon. Again he sighed. “If only I had never seen that castle, I would still be king of all I surveyed,” he thought. “Then I would be happy.” So he ordered his treasurer to buy the castle from whomsoever it was that owned it.

The next day the king and all his court travelled there to the castle by the sea and set themselves up in their new home. In the morning he looked out of his new window and saw before him the sea. “I hate the sea,” he realised, sighing more deeply than ever before, for he knew the sea could not be controlled, and nor could it be moved away. “If only I was back in my old home, quietly away from the endless roar of the waves. Then I would be happy.”

So he went back to his old home, which was silent and empty. He sat down upon his throne, and began to weep. “If only there was someone here to talk to,” he said. “Then I would be happy.”

But there was no-one for him to talk to, for his family and the members of his court much preferred living by the seaside and would not return. And so he wept and wept, all alone, for the rest of his days.

As the years passed, the forest grew back up around the castle until the trees were thicker and darker and deeper than ever before (for there was no-one there to cut them back), and the many empty rooms of the castle were claimed by crows and foxes and other creatures of the forest (for there was no-one there to shoo them away), and in time the walls themselves began to crumble (for there was no-one to repair them) and eventually the king died, unhappy and unloved and unremembered, in the ruins of his home.

And all the while the city by the sea prospered.

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Notes:

1. Written June 6th, 2014
2. The title, premise and opening line of this story are inspired by (or parodies of) The Saddest Bear Of All

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Tale #8: The Three Wishes

In the country hereabouts there lived a poor farmer with twelve children and a loving wife. The children ate so much that the farmer always went to bed hungry and one day he said to his wife, “I wish, just once, that I could have a whole meal to myself.”

That week a sudden snow fell, and all of his children were overcome by illness and died. On Sunday, his wife roasted a turkey but in her grief she could not eat, and the farmer had it all to himself. He packed it in a basket and took it out into the woods with him for lunch.

Under a willow tree he sat down, and remembering his ill-spoken wish, wept with guilt and said, “I wish my children were here with me now to share this meal.”

The basket by his side began then to shake and looking inside he saw the turkey begin to judder and dance, and then, one by one, all twelve of his children emerged from the turkey’s ragged carcass.

They stood around him in a circle and he fed each one in turn until there was no more meat left. Seeing them all before him again, the farmer was overcome with joy and said, “I wish that all of you will always have enough to eat, no matter how little is left for me.” At this, the children grabbed hold of their father and pulled him deep beneath the ground and in the dark places there fed forever upon his soul.

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Notes:

1. Written on October 9th, 2013
2. The premise of this is taken from (I’m probably supposed to say inspired by) the short story Macario, by B. Traven, published in 1953.
3. There’s also clearly an element of The Monkey’s Paw by W.W. Jacobs (first published in 1902)
4. And also of course Charles Perrault’s The Ridiculous Wishes (from 1697), and all other fairy tale variants thereof.

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Tale #7: The Woman Who Was Granted Her Wish

There was a woman whose mother had died giving birth to her, and who thereafter lived alone with her father in a cottage in the woods. Although her father loved her very much, the sadness he felt for his lost wife whenever he looked at his daughter overwhelmed him, and for the rest of his life he never spoke to her without weeping.

On her 18th birthday, her father died and she was left alone. She ran outside and went into the woods and wept there under the stars.

While she wept a cat came down quietly from the branches of a tree and sat on her lap and said to her, “It breaks my heart to see someone so sad. Let me grant you a wish, so that you may know happiness.”

The woman thought of her father, weeping without his wife. And she thought of the mothers and fathers of her friends, and how much happier than her father they must have been, for she never saw them weep while talking to their children. So she said to the cat, “It must be companionship that stops one being sad. I don’t want to grow old on my own.”

The cat said, “So is that your wish, to not grow old on your own?” And the woman wiped away her tears and nodded her head. “And so it is and shall be,” said the cat, and it climbed out of her lap and was gone.

The woman felt no happier, although no sadder either. She went back to her cottage and went straight to sleep, expecting to find there beside her in her bed a husband when she awoke. But in the morning she was still on her own.

She scolded herself for believing in dreams and wishes, and resolved to find a cure for her unhappiness herself. That afternoon she went into town and chose for herself a husband. He was a sailor, and spent 11 months of every year at sea. Every January she would see him to his boat, and every December, after almost a year on her own in her cottage, she would welcome him back. And while she seemed not to age a day while he was away, he looked older by the year.

When he came to retire she appeared no older than 25, and more beautiful by far than ever, for her beauty was now complimented by her kindness and her wisdom. Yet he by now was aged and weak, his back bent, his hair grey, and his features set in a permanent scowl of discontent.

During her long years of marriage she had learned to love being alone, for it gave her the freedom to think and to dream, and to learn and grow wise. When her husband came home for good, by day she tended to his needs without complaint and with a gentleness he was not necessarily deserving of. At night, while he slept, she would step outside into the woods and take a moment for herself, for in the day she felt at times more like a servant than a wife. She could feel her life ticking away with each moment that passed in his service.

On the morning of her 70th birthday she noticed her first grey hair, and that very afternoon her husband died. For the first time in ten years she was alone. She ran outside and went into the woods and wept there under the stars. While she wept a cat came down quietly from the branches of a tree and sat on her lap and said to her, “I granted you a wish once, so that you would know happiness. It breaks my heart to see you so sad once again.”

“I am not sad, although you granted me no wish,” she said. “I am on my own again, and happy for it.”

“I granted you no wish?” said the cat. “Yet you are not old.”

“Old? Look at this grey hair and tell me I am not old.”

At that moment the sky cleared and she saw the cat clearly in the moonlight.

“Dear cat, my friend,” she said. “How is it that you are still so black, with not a grey hair anywhere upon your fine furry coat?”

“I grow not old, for I keep myself to myself, and am always on my own.”

And with that the cat climbed out of the woman’s lap and went on its way and was gone. And the woman was left on her own to ponder the wish she had been granted all those years before.

They say she is still out there somewhere in the woods, more beautiful than it is possible to describe, and although she is on her own she is not alone, for she has herself. She waits now for no-one, and shall never let you see her, no matter how long you look.

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Notes:

1. Written in July 2014

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Tale #6: The Farmer’s Daughters

A farmer and his wife had a daughter, and they both loved her with all of their heart. They called her Red Rose, and they lavished her with love. Two years later they had another daughter, but this time the farmer’s wife died giving birth to her. The farmer called this daughter Black Death, and cursed her with his every breath.

The two sisters grew up reflecting the uneven treatment they received from their father. Red Rose, who was given nothing but praise, was fair of face, with long red hair and a confident and friendly nature. Black Death, however, was scolded and beaten daily and treated with naught but contempt and malevolence, and she grew up to be awkward and fearful and shy, with lank black hair and a sickly pallor to her skin.

One day, just after Black Death had turned 16, the farmer travelled to the city on business, and he took with him the farm’s full compliment of cows to sell at the market. He considered his daughters finally old enough to safely leave on their own, and anyway he was glad to be away from Black Death for a while. She still raised in him a furious hatred and despair that he could not control and which had not dimmed over the years but had instead grown stronger with every passing day.

Without the constant attacks from her father, Black Death, who called herself Raven, gradually became less withdrawn. Red Rose, who was usually forbidden by her father from helping her sister, shared with Raven the daily chores around the house and her work in the fields. Raven, who was forbidden by her father from playing with her sister, joined Red Rose in her games in the garden, and in the evening they swam together in the river that ran near their house.

By the end of the fifth day, Raven had begun to laugh and smile, and she said to her sister, “I wish this week could last forever. It has been to me as if a dream. But alas by Sunday our father will be home, and he shall wake us the next morning and all this shall be gone. It will be as if nothing has changed nor ever did. A dream fading away like all the others come the break of day.”

Rose, who loved her sister, said, “Let us run away together, far away, and never mention our father again.”

But Raven said, “He would never let us go. You due to love, and me due to hate. And when he came eventually to find us he would forgive you, and blame everything on me, and my punishment would be even more severe than that under which I suffer now.” And so they did not go.

On Sunday, the sisters were working in the fields when they heard a screaming by the river. They rushed there to discover a woman had been knocked into the water by her two cows, and was now being drowned beneath them as they clambered into the water to drink.

Raven, whose arms were strong from years of toil and could pull as strongly as an ox, grabbed the cords around the cows’ necks and hauled them up the river bank and back into the fields. Rose, who spent many of her days swimming in the river and was as agile as a fish, dived into the water and pulled the lady to safety.

“You have saved my life,” the woman said to the sisters. “Tell me anything you want, and I shall repay you as best I can.”

Red Rose said, “I have received nothing but kindness and riches my whole life, regardless of what I have deserved. Yet none have brought me happiness, for the only thing I want is for my sister to know joy, and be free of her life of torment.”

And Raven said, “My sister suggested we should run away together, for it is our father who torments me and has prevented me from ever knowing joy. But if we leave he will search us out until we are found, so he can punish me and reclaim my sister. For in love and in hate he considers us his own.

“But this week our father has been away, and today it is that he returns. So all I ask is that you come with us to meet our father, and tell him the kindness we have done you, in the hope that it will help convince him to let us leave. Then your debt to us will be repaid.

“For if he does agree to let us go and to leave us be, for as long as we live, both me and my sister can know true joy.”

And the woman said, “It will be done,” and she went with them to the road through the woods, and there they waited for the farmer’s return. When the old woman saw him approaching, she told the sisters to hide in the undergrowth with the two cows, and to remain quiet until all had been agreed.

“I will give him a chance to show his kindness,” she said to herself, and then to him she said, “Sir, your daughters saved me this afternoon from drowning, and I owe to them my life. In repayment for their deeds I wish to take them with me to my castle, where they can live like queens, for I will treat them with a kindness and generosity unknown in this part of the world. They shall want for nothing, and be happier than any who have come before or since.”

“No,” said the farmer. “I will not let you take them from me. They are my daughters and mine alone to keep.”

The woman said, “If their happiness is not enough, I offer you all my money and the great vast expanse of my lands, for I rule a great world. You shall be a king there without equal, and your daughters and I can stay here and toil as farmers upon the land.”

“My older daughter, whom I love, is all I have left to remind me of my wife, and as such is more precious to me than even the greatest treasure. Every time I look upon her face I see the beauty of her mother, and briefly I am happy again. No money nor power in the world would be enough to let me give her up,” said the farmer. “As for my other daughter, whom I detest, glad would I to be rid of her. But what she took from me can never be returned. To honour the memory of my wife, whose life she stole, her punishment must go on. And not for anything can I set justice aside and let her go free.”

“Then I shall return to you your daughters,” she said. “And you can go on your way.”

The old woman brought forth from the undergrowth her two cows. “Here is Red Rose,” she said, pointing to the cow with red-brown fur. “Here is Black Death,” said she, pointing to a cow of black and white. “Take them with you, and forever be gone from my sight.”

At this she rose up, and took on the appearance of a great witch, and in horror the farmer took the cows, believing them to be his daughters transformed by a great and terrible power, and he hurried away with them to his home and did not look back. Then the old woman took Red Rose and Raven to her realm, which was as vast as she had said, and vaster still, and there she treated them as if they were her daughters, and as if they were her friends.

“Oh Red Rose, look at what has been done to you,” said the farmer when he got home, and sadly stroked the red cow’s back. “Oh Black Death, look what you have done to her,” he said, and struck the black and white cow harshly with his hand.

The cows, although docile in temperament, were old and strong, and also stubborn and immovable, and they remained unmoved by both his kindness and his spite. In this way he lived out his days, his love and his hate stripped of power, and eventually he died. And on that morning the cows walked out beyond his fields and disappeared into the mists at the river’s edge.

As for the sisters, it is said they were never parted for as long as they lived, and nor were they ever unhappy again, in this or any other of their lives.

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Notes:

1. The first draft of this was written between June and November 2012, but this version is from May 2015

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