by Donna Ingham
One day, you see, his mama called him in and said, “Son, I’ve got a job for you.”
“Yes ma’am,” Cupid said. You would go far to find a boy that was any more agreeable.
“There’s this girl named Psyche,” Venus said, “the king over yonder’s youngest daughter. They say she’s pretty enough to make a man plow through a stump, and I just can’t take the competition. Why, folks have stopped coming to my temples and lighting fires in the altars. They’re all over at the king’s place fairly worshipping this mere mortal of a girl—destined to get old and ugly and die someday, but I can’t wait. So here’s what I want you to do . . .”
Venus instructed her son to use his powers to make Psyche fall in love with the vilest, most despicable creature there is in the whole world. “Yes ma’am,” Cupid said, and off he went.
But see, Venus hadn’t thought this all the way through. She hadn’t thought about what might happen to her boy Cupid when he saw Psyche, and, sure enough, the minute he laid eyes on her it was as if he had shot one of those love arrows right smack dab into his own heart. Why, he could no more pair her up with a monster than a man in the moon. But he didn’t tell Venus that.
As a matter of fact, probably for the first time in his life, he didn’t mind his mama. No, what he did, see, was talk to Zephyr—that would be the west wind—who was considered to be the sweetest and mildest of winds. (I tell you, that’s not what we thought about the west wind when I lived up in the Texas Panhandle, but that’s another story.) So Cupid talked to Zephyr, and they made a plan. Since Psyche was still a forbidden woman and all—at least to hear his mama tell it—Cupid had Zephyr pick Psyche up for him and take her to a real nice palace he had picked out.
Well, of course Psyche didn’t know what was going on, but here she was picked up just like Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz and plunked down in front of this palace where nobody seemed to be at home. But then she heard voices telling her to come on in and make herself at home and clean up and get ready for supper. So she did. She had her a good bath and ate supper, but she was still all alone except for those voices and music just coming out of nowhere like she was in a movie. Psyche was a pretty spunky girl, though, and strange as it was, it didn’t scare her.
She wasn’t scared either when some fellow came courting in the dark there and wouldn’t let her see who he was. It was Cupid, of course, sneaking around, not minding his mama again.
Now, Psyche had heard those rumors about how she was going to get stuck with a monster for a husband and all, but when she listened to the sweet things Cupid was whispering in her ear, she just couldn’t believe that this fellow was horrible and ugly and monstrous. In fact, she figured that somehow she’d lucked out and this was the very kind of husband and lover she’d been pining for. So she quite willingly accepted him as her husband. Only thing was, he came to her only at night and disappeared during the day. She had yet to see him. He’d even warned her not to try to find out who he was or even what he looked like.
Then one day her two older sisters showed up and, maybe a little spiteful-like, they said her wonderful husband probably was too a horrible monster or else he wouldn’t be trying to keep his appearance and his identity such a secret.
“One of these days,” they said, “he’s going to turn on you and eat you all up, sure as the world.”
Even that didn’t scare her. Like I say, she was spunky. What it did do was make her more curious. So one night, after Cupid was asleep, Psyche just couldn’t help herself. She lit her little oil lamp, figuring she’d either be satisfied she was right or else maybe have to kill him if he turned out to be a monster after all.
She held the lamp up, and there he was, handsome as the day is long. Well, she was so delighted and astonished—and really kind of ashamed of herself, too—that she let the lamp slip a little and spilled a drop of hot oil on his shoulder. That woke him, of course, and he realized what she’d done, and after he’d told her not to. So he jumped up and ran away, but not before he hollered back and told her who he was.
“Oh, no,” she said. “The god of love. I was married to the god of love, and now he’s gone. Well, I’ll just go looking for him if it takes me my whole life.”
She wandered everywhere and finally showed up at Venus’s palace. And that’s where Cupid had gone all right, still being a mama’s boy and wanting her to put a Band-Aid on his burned spot. Venus had sent him right straight to his room for disobeying her in the first place, and she didn’t make it easy for Psyche to be forgiven and get her Cupid back either. You can bet on that. As a matter of fact, Venus gave Psyche these really impossible tasks to do.
For instance, first Psyche had to sort out a big old pile of grains—wheat and poppy and millet and so on—into their proper heaps by nightfall. Well, lo and behold, some old-fashioned red ants (I’m sure that’s what they were because I’ve never met a nasty little fire ant yet that would help anybody do anything except get stung) took pity on Psyche and came to her rescue. A whole bunch of them got busy and sorted all those seeds into neat piles and got that deed done well before sundown. Venus wasn’t a bit happy when she saw that, so she came up with another impossible task.
This time Psyche had to collect a tuft of wool from each member of a huge flock of mean-spirited sheep with golden fleeces. The sheep were down by the river, and just about the time Psyche was ready to throw herself into the water and put an end to her misery, some kind of river god spoke to her through a green reed there and told her to be patient and bide her time and use her head.
“Rest up,” the god whispered, “and wait ’til the sheep go through the briar patch yonder to their watering place. Then you just go along behind and pick up the tufts of wool the briars pull off.” Wasn’t that smart?
The next chore got a little tougher still. Psyche had to go over to a big black waterfall, the headwaters of the awful River Styx, and fill a flask. Venus had set that up, you see, because she knew no mortal creature could get to the waterfall. The sides were way too steep and rocky and slimy.
By this time, though, you know Psyche is going to have help, and sure enough, down flew an eagle. Yes sir, he just flew down and took the flask right out of her hand, flew over to the waterfall, filled the flask, and brought it back. Simple as that.
Venus was getting pretty provoked. Still she kept on. Next she gave Psyche a box.
“Go,” Venus said, “go down to the Underworld and have Persephone fill this box with her beauty.”
Persephone was agreeable, as it turned out. She filled the box and gave it back, warning Psyche not to open it. You remember they did that to Pandora, too—told her not to open her box. Naturally, just like Pandora, Psyche couldn’t stand it. Her curiosity got the better of her, and she was just going to take one little peek. Once she cracked open that lid, though, she fell immediately into a deep sleep right there on the ground, just barely back from the Underworld. It’s a wonder she didn’t get pulled back down.
Meanwhile, back at Venus’s place, Cupid finally roused himself into action and decided to sneak out the window of his room and go looking for his wife. He found her all right, dead to the world, so to speak. He knew to wipe the sleep from her eyes, and then he poked her awake with one of his arrows. At last he’d become proactive.
He figured only Jupiter could get this mess straightened out, so Cupid went straight to Olympus and put his case before the head god. Jupiter called a council meeting of all the gods and goddesses, including Venus. There would be no excused absences.
“Look here,” Jupiter said. “Cupid and Psyche are married, fair and square, so here’s what I’m going to do. I’m going to make Psyche immortal like the rest of us.” So he gave her ambrosia to eat, and poof! She was immortal.
Well, that changed the situation. Venus could hardly object to having a goddess for a daughter-in-law. Besides, she probably figured with Psyche up on Mount Olympus with a spoiled husband an
d children to care for, she wouldn’t be turning mortals’ heads anymore down on Earth. So she couldn’t be much of a rival after that.
That’s how it happened, the Romans say, that Love and the Soul—“soul” is what Psyche means, of course—sought and found each other and came together in a union that could not be broken.
Even if Cupid was a mama’s boy.
The Coming of the Bluebonnet
Probably the best time to visit central and south Texas is in the spring, when the wildflowers bloom. From late March through early May, vast stretches of the rolling hill country on down to the coastal plains are covered with the colorful blossoms of Indian paintbrushes and Mexican blankets and bluebonnets, the Texas state flower. One of the most enduring Comanche myths in Texas and the Southwest is about the bluebonnet and how it came to be. Folklorist and storyteller J. Frank Dobie collected this tale and published his version in Tales of Old-Time Texas in 1928. His notes say that the first appearance of the tale in print was in 1924 in Legends of Texas by Mrs. Bruce Reid. Author and illustrator Tomie de Paola produced a children’s picture book version of the story in 1983. Retaining Dobie’s earlier plotline, this is the way I tell it.
Back in the days when it did not rain, there lived a little Comanche girl who had no name. Oh, she might have been called She-who-stays-at-the-edge-of-things or She-who-seldom-speaks. And it was just so now that she stood at the edge of a gathering of her people and said not a word as she watched the dancers dancing and listened to the drummers drumming. They sent up their cries to the Great Spirit to know what they must do to end this terrible drought.
The ground had dried and cracked. The grass had withered and died. There were no leaves on the trees nor on the bushes and certainly no fruit or berries. So the animals had gone away— even the jackrabbits. All that was left was old coyote, and he was gaunt and hungry. It had been a hard winter, and many of the people had died.
The little girl who had no name watched as the warriors joined the drummers and the dancers. She saw them take their knives made of flint and bone and cut themselves and lift up their cries to the Great Spirit.
Finally the Great Spirit answered and said what the people must do was offer a sacrifice, a sacrifice of their most prized possession. It was to be a burnt offering, and they were to take the ashes from that burnt offering and scatter them to the four corners of the world—to the north and south, the east and west. Only then would the drought be broken.
The people talked among themselves. First of all, they didn’t know what was their most prized possession. And even if they did, would they, could they be unselfish enough to give it up?
They continued to talk as they walked back to their own tepees, and finally, the only one left at the edge of the council circle was that little girl who had no name.
But she knew. She knew what was the most prized possession among her people. And she held it in her arms. It was a doll. It was a doll made in the form of a warrior clad in buckskin decorated with bits of bone and colored seeds. It was wearing a belt made out of wildcat teeth, strung together with the twisted hair from the tail of a buffalo. Its eyes and nose and mouth and ears were painted on with the juice from berries. On its head were feathers, bright blue feathers from that bird that calls, “Jay! Jay! Jay!”
That little girl loved her doll as much as any Comanche mother loves her child, and she knew what she must do. First she went back to her own tepee and lay down on her buffalo robe. Clutching her doll to her, she listened to the night sounds: the footfall of a dog, the last lone wail of the coyote, the cries of the night birds, and finally, the deep and even breathing of her mother and her father and her brothers and her sisters. She knew it was time.
She got up off her buffalo robe and, still clutching her doll closely to her, she reached into her own tepee fire and pulled out the one stick that still had an ember glowing at its end. Then she stepped out into the night.
There was no moon that night, but there was enough starlight to see to gather sticks and twigs and take them to the edge of the council circle and build a fire. She set that fire off with the ember from her own tepee fire and watched as the flames began to catch and grow. As they did, she offered up her own plea to the Great Spirit, saying that she hoped her offering was a worthy one and that, if it was, she would like to have some sign that it was so.
The flames continued to grow until, with tears in her eyes but resolution in her heart, she at last thrust her doll headfirst into the fire. She stepped back from the circle as the smell of burning feathers and scorching buckskin arose.
When the fire had consumed her doll and there was nothing left but ashes, she waited until the ashes cooled and then gathered them in both hands. She scattered them to the four corners of the world—to the north and south, the east and west. Then she was so exhausted that she simply lay down right where she was and fell asleep.
She awakened before first light and stretched her hand out along the ground. But what she felt was not ashes. No, it was something soft—as soft as the feathers on the head of her doll. And what she smelled was not that acrid odor of burning feathers and scorching buckskin. No, it was something sweet, something fragrant.
The little girl jumped up and ran back to her own tepee. She got her mother, and together, hand in hand, they walked back toward that council circle just as the sun was coming up. What they saw before them was a sea of blue, for everywhere the little girl had thrown the ashes there were now flowers—bright blue flowers, as blue as the feathers from that bird that calls, “Jay! Jay! Jay!”
The little girl told her mother about the sacrifice, and her mother told the little girl’s father, and the father told the men of the council. Soon everyone had come out to see this sign.
Then it began to rain—a soft, gentle, refreshing rain that began to close up the cracks in the ground. Soon the grass began to come back and green up, and leaves began to appear on the trees and the bushes. Soon there would be fruit and berries. So the animals all came back, and the warriors had something to hunt again.
The people had food.
That is when the little girl got her name. From that day forward she was called She-who-loves-her-people.
Every year that same flower comes back all over Texas. It covers the hillsides and roadsides and creeksides and lakesides. We Texans call it the bluebonnet. It is our state flower, and it is a harbinger of spring. But, when you know this story, it is also a reminder of love and sacrifice—two things that are valued in every culture.
The Ghost at Hornsby’s Bend
Texas ghosts have appeared—and some still appear, folks say—all over the state. One ghost story chock-full of history is that told about early settler Josiah Wilbarger, a man who survived his own scalping, with the help of a ghost. It takes place near Austin, the state capital, where Wilbarger is buried in the Texas State Cemetery. His actual home was on Wilbarger Creek, near today’s tiny town of Utley, and his nearest neighbors, who also figure in the story, lived at Hornsby’s Bend, just east of present-day Austin.
Sarah Hornsby was a little woman with black hair and black eyes. She’d been a Mississippi Morrison, of good Scottish stock, and she still sang those familiar Scottish airs in her clear soprano voice:
When a body meets a body
Comin’ through the rye . . .
Oh, and there was rye all right, vast stretches of wild rye covering the valley where she and her husband, Reuben, and their eight children had settled on the east bank of the Colorado River in Stephen F. Austin’s new colony in Texas. A league of land they had—more than 4,000 acres—in their headright.
And they had neighbors: Josiah and Margaret Wilbarger and their son, John. Their headright was at the mouth of a creek along another bend in the Colorado. When he arrived in 1830, Wilbarger was the first settler on the outer fringe of Austin’s colony, and, until the Hornsbys arrived in 1832, his nearest neighbor had been s
eventy-five miles away. All the settlers out that far had to watch out for Comanches, who still considered this land to be part of their territorial hunting grounds. The women as well as the men certainly took an active part in the defense of their homes. The story goes that the Indians saw Margaret Wilbarger calmly molding bullets and reloading guns during an attack one day, and they dubbed her “Brave Squaw.” And when Reuben and her sons had to be away from home, Sarah Hornsby was known to dress up in her husband’s clothes, shoulder a gun, and march around the house and the yard and even down to the fields to make any waiting, watching Comanche believe that at least one man, maybe more, was still at home to guard the “helpless” women and children.
The Hornsbys were a sociable and hospitable lot, and they often had men or whole families staying with them as new settlers came to find their headrights. Such was the case in August 1833.
A man named Christian and his wife were at the Hornsbys, as were two young men named Standifer and Haynie, just come to Texas from Missouri to look at the country. Those three—Christian, Standifer, and Haynie—were joined by another man named Strother, and they rode out with Hornsby’s neighbor, Wilbarger, to the northwest as a surveying party.
Along about Walnut Creek the men came upon an Indian and hailed him, but he made off through the cedar to the west. At noontime the men stopped just above Pecan Spring to have some lunch. Wilbarger, Christian, and Strother unsaddled and hobbled their horses; Haynie and Standifer—those two young men from Missouri—were nervous and left their horses saddled and just staked them out to graze. Just as the men settled down with their corn pone and beef jerky, they were suddenly fired upon by as many as fifty Indians brandishing rifles and bows and arrows.
The nearby trees were small and offered poor cover, but the men took what cover there was and returned fire. Strother was mortally wounded in the first volley, and a rifle ball caught Christian in the thigh. Wilbarger sprang to Christian’s aid and then jumped back behind his tree, but by this time he had an arrow in his left calf and a flesh wound in his hip. Then another arrow pierced his right leg.