This is from Chap 2 - the story of the Handless Maiden begins to weave into the narrative here.....
The women sat before the fire and talked softly of the work to come when the shearing was done. As they planned the vats of dye, the spinning and weaving, Assie sat on the bench with Dotta at her feet, playing at cat’s cradle with Sissie. The thread was tied in a single loop, and held between the finger and thumb of each hand. Each took the thread from the other making a different pattern every time. They were very good at it and could keep the thread twisting and turning between their two hands for hours.
Dotta shouted and wriggled and reached up her chubby hands to join in, yelling “I want to! I want to!” There was no shushing her once she got an idea fixed, so Assie held the little fingers against her own and they moved together, palm to palm. As she concentrated on calming her little sister, Assie could hear the quiet words of the women Seidr folk. Murmuring talk about things Assie knew of. The healers and workers of magic, a gathering of the northern hall, coming together as they did every year. It was Assie’s secret hope that one day she would join them. But something else had come into the voices. A tremor terrible deaths. Assie strained to hear merciless. She thought she caught the Priest’s name, Eldgrim, and then something low and urgent fire in the thatch.
“All were burned?”
Her mother’s voice was raised in horror and disbelief; Ingrun’s hand on her knee, leaning forward to sush her, and gesturing to where Assie and Dotta played. Fire. Dotta’s little fingers held up against hers, as they made a new cradle together. All burned. Her little sister was excited to be allowed into the big girl’s games and her bright curls seemed to tighten into knots with delight. Nothing left..
At last the murmuring talk of the women sank into a flat, unhappy silence. The news had chilled them both. The burning peat sank to a low ember, and as they had every night for as long as Assie could remember, they settled to hear a story. Her mother looked long at Assie in the firelight and said
‘tonight I shall tell you The Handless Maiden”, and she began to tell a tale that starts like this.
Once there was a farmer who lived on a hillside near the woods. His land looked over wide valleys and tall peaks, but it was hard land to farm. He had only a small spring, and he and his wife had to work hard drawing water. They lived in a little wooden house that they shared with the animals, and were glad of the warmth in the winter. For a long time their life went on together in a cycle of hard days and dark nights, but in time a little daughter was born to them, and they loved her with all their hearts.
Assie caught the soft loving look that her mother gave her, and the back of her throat began to ache. She had listened to this story many times but tonight it seemed to take on a burden of love, and of sorrow that it had never carried before. The story of a little maiden who grew strong and straight. How her father made a foolish promise to a stranger. She always wondered how he could be so stupid. Couldn’t he see the trap that was laid for him? Her mother was coming to that part of the story now and her voice took on a lilting tone as she sang out the words.
As the farmer walked home from the market he fell in with a dark tall man on the forest road. If he noticed a smell of smoke and burning, he was too polite to say so, and if he wondered what such a man, wearing fine but rather dusty and old fashioned clothes, was doing on the road, he didn’t ask. He just said “Good day to you sir” and walked on. But the stranger fell in beside him and they went together for a little while. The farmer sighed again and the stranger said
“You are not a happy man”
The farmer looked surprised:
“Indeed sir I have much to be thankful for, but life is hard and we struggle to get by”
The stranger smiled and said to him quietly:
“If you then could have anything you wanted, what would it be?”
“Oh sir, just to be comfortable, and never again have to worry about not having enough”
Again the stranger smiled, kindly and broadly:
“I could grant that wish for you, if you will give me whatever lies behind your house over there”
“If you grant me that wish you shall have whatever you want!”
They both laughed at the joke of it and walked on, down the path and around the outbuildings to the house. And there standing behind the house, waiting for him to come home, was his beloved daughter.
There! All in one moment he had promised away his happiness and his future. Just as she had this afternoon. The thought of her own heedless promise rose in her mind unbidden, and stayed there like ice. But she had made a better bargain hadn’t she? It was so hard to be sure. She would be leaving her mother, maybe that was a betrayal. Her mother seemed to want her to stand on her own two feet, like the little maiden standing in the circle of salt. But that was later in the story. First a year must pass, they must go off to market and buy all kinds of trinkets and luxuries. And the farmer’s promise must weigh heavy on his mind. Her mother’s voice continued weaving the familiar pattern; the passing of time, the farmer’s bargain reaching its time.
When they arrived at the farm, the farmer trembled as he opened the gate, lest the stranger be already there waiting for them. His wife saw his hand shake and said to him
“What ails thee dearest? Do tell and we shall do all we can to put all to rights”
“Alas” said the farmer “ I fear you cannot. A year ago today I made a bad bargain. I promised my daughter to a stranger who told me that he had the power to make our lives comfortable forever. And tomorrow he will come to close the deal”
At that the farmer’s wife fell to weeping and shouting. She berated her husband for a fool and an idiot, and railed at him all night long. But the daughter stood very calm and quiet. And when her mother was exhausted, she simply said
“Father, mother, do not worry. Let the stranger come. I will be ready”.”
Her mother’s voice soothed Assie as they listened and watched the fire burn down to embers. The girl in the story was ready to meet what came. She didn’t flinch or turn away, she didn’t blame or curse. She stood strong and did as she needed to. Her mother’s voice tonight seemed rich and full, a music all of its own, Assie looked up and caught the dark depth of her eyes. Through the words of the story she could hear her mother say very plainly. “I love you my dearest. Be strong and true. Be faithful”. She lost track of the story then, all that she could hear were her mother’s loving thoughts and her single powerful wish. She closed her eyes and replied in the velvet dark of her mind, as the coals on the fire died. “Erd, Werdandi, Skauld, Three Norns who weave our fate, I will be faithful. I will be strong.” Quickly adding “protect and keep me safe” as she remembered Fr Eldgrim.
