I first heard this story from my aunt, when I was about fourteen or so.<\/p>\n
We were making jam in the garden out of old plums, my aunt, my sister and me, all of us stood around the kitchen table we\u2019d dragged out there for the afternoon, our hands stained yellow and brown, the knives slippery in our fists.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen I was little,\u201d she said, as if it had actually happened to her, as if it was actually true, \u201cwhen I was little, not much older than you two, we lived in Mundon still, your mum and me, at your grandparents\u2019 old house, that you probably don\u2019t remember,\u201d she said to my sister, \u201cand that you definitely won\u2019t,\u201d she said to me, \u201cin the months between your grandparents dying and us all having to leave. But I worked here in Maldon.<\/p>\n
\u201cI had to walk through the woods to get to work,\u201d she said. <\/p>\n
\u201cThere aren\u2019t any woods,\u201d I said, \u201cnot near here.\u201d <\/p>\n
\u201cThere were then,\u201d she said. \u201cThey were here, here and all the way down the road, before the towns began to sprawl towards each other, and everything was thinned out a bit and made plain.<\/p>\n
\u201cI walked through the woods because it was quicker than the road, and it was nicer, too. And safer, I thought, away from the trucks on the road that threatened to knock you into the bushes, leaving you caught there in the branches like an old carrier bag tattered into wisps in the wind.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat\u2019s that? Yes, of course we had carrier bags then.\u201d<\/p>\n
(The way I\u2019m telling it, and the way I remember it, was that it was me making these interjections, but it was almost certainly my sister, for she always understood that stories are a collaborative thing, dialogues rather than monologues, while I was content just to listen, to learn.)<\/p>\n
\u201cThe path was always overgrown, in the summer, in the spring,\u201d my aunt almost sung. \u201cWe hung a sickle on a hook by the stile at the edge of the woods, and you\u2019d take it with you when you walked your way along the way, and you would hack away at the brambles and the branches that got in your way, and you\u2019d leave it at the other end of the path when you’d gone all the way through, so that someone else could use it when they went back the other way.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t know if I was the only one who walked the path or the only one that had the good grace to keep the path, but the sickle was always there waiting for me, in the morning, in the evening, in the lateness of the night if I\u2019d been out. But I was a big girl even then. Especially then,\u201d she laughed. \u201cAll that lifting at the warehouse did wonderful things for your arms. I wielded that sickle like a bloody scythe.<\/p>\n
\u201cA stream ran through the woods, winding back and forth across the path so that I had to cross three bridges. And on my way home one day I met the devil on every one.<\/p>\n
\u201cAt the first bridge he looked at me and said, \u2018Let me have a kiss, and only then will I let you pass.\u2019 And so I gave the devil a kiss and I crossed the river and continued on my way.<\/p>\n
\u201cAt the second one he was there again. \u2018Let me\u2026\u2019 Well,\u201d my aunt laughed, \u201c\u2018Let us,\u2019 he said, \u2018let\u2019s fuck, and then and only then will I let you continue on your way.\u2019 So I stood against the tree and let the devil have his way. And a very good way it was, I\u2019ll have you know. A very good way indeed,\u201d my aunt laughed. <\/p>\n
And my sister blushed and so I expect did I. <\/p>\n
\u201cAt the third bridge,\u201d my aunt said, \u201cthere he stood again. He waited until I was near and then he said \u2018We\u2019ve kissed, you and I, and we\u2019ve loved, so now all that\u2019s left is for us to marry.\u2019 \u2018And then you\u2019ll let me continue on my way?\u2019 I asked. \u2018Of course,\u2019 he said. \u2018Of course.\u2019<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd I know I was young, and I know I was stupid, but really, I thought. Really<\/em>. What did he take me for? So I told the devil to give me his hand, and he held it out for me to hold.<\/p>\n \u201cI swung that sickle down so hard it went clean through his palm and pinned him to the bridge.\u201d<\/p>\n My aunt held up a plum between her fingers and sliced it apart with her knife. She picked the stone out with the tip of her blade, then threw the halved plum into the pot.<\/p>\n \u201cAnd,\u201d she said, \u201cI went on my way.\u201d\f<\/p>\n __________<\/p>\n Notes:<\/p>\n 1. Written in July, 2014<\/em><\/p>\n__________<\/br> I first heard this story from my aunt, when I was about fourteen or so. We were making jam in the garden out of old plums, my aunt, my sister and me, all of us stood around the kitchen table we\u2019d dragged out there for the afternoon, our hands stained yellow and brown, the knives […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[19],"tags":[20,115,21,23,22,114,32,98],"class_list":["post-222","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-a-thousand-and-one-tales","tag-a-thousand-and-one-tales","tag-aunts","tag-fairy-tales","tag-fiction","tag-folk-tales","tag-old-tales-are-made-new-in-the-telling","tag-sisters","tag-the-devil"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/accumulationofthings.com\/things\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/222","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/accumulationofthings.com\/things\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/accumulationofthings.com\/things\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/accumulationofthings.com\/things\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/accumulationofthings.com\/things\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=222"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/accumulationofthings.com\/things\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/222\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":223,"href":"https:\/\/accumulationofthings.com\/things\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/222\/revisions\/223"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/accumulationofthings.com\/things\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=222"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/accumulationofthings.com\/things\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=222"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/accumulationofthings.com\/things\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=222"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Support An Accumulation Of Things<\/a><\/h3>If you like the things you've read here please consider subscribing to my patreon<\/a> or my ko-fi<\/a>. <\/br><\/br>Patreon subscribers<\/a> get not just early access to content and also the occasional gift, but also my eternal gratitude. Which I'm not sure is very useful, but is certainly very real.<\/br><\/br>(Ko-fi contributors<\/a> probably only get the gratitude I'm afraid, but please get in touch if you want more). <\/br><\/br>Thank you!<\/i><\/br><\/br>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"