In the center of the hall, on a throne of black onyx, sat an enormous woman with four arms and black skin. She was crowned, dressed in gold and scarlet, and wearing many jewels. Her long hair flowed upward as if blown by ceaselessly upwelling vapors. Her appearance was intimidating enough in itself, but on looking closely at her black face, Shaloma discovered something truly startling. Aside from their ebony color, Kgali’s features were exactly like her own.
She took a deep breath, bowed, and addressed the entity on the throne. “Your Majesty, I am here to retrieve the shade of Prince Thamus,” she said.
“Are you indeed?” said Kgali. “And are you willing to pay the required ransom?”
“I have nothing left to pay,” said Shaloma. “I have come naked into your presence, as I was instructed to do.”
“Yes, the dead must come naked from the world above, just as they come naked into it at birth. Even though you follow the convention, however, you are not dead. You must become more than bare-skinned to fully reproduce the condition of the dead. You must also put off your flesh, and be naked down to your bones.”
Shaloma shuddered. “How then can I be joined to Prince Thamus, who loves me after the manner of the flesh? Bones can’t make love.”
“Whosoever gives up flesh in the realm of the dead may also put on flesh when reborn in the realm of the living,” Kgali said. “That is the way of nature.”
“Are you saying that I can get my body back?”
“I say that all bodies are one in the cauldron of being. Don’t you see that I am your shadow twin, the oneness of your living and your dead selves? So I am to every creature, for I am queen of them all.”
Shaloma had little time to ponder the meaning of these cryptic remarks because she was suddenly seized by two leathery-winged trolls and carried up to a hook in the ceiling of Kgali’s hall. There she hung while her flesh rapidly melted from her bones and reduced her to a skeleton. Then one of the trolls flew up before her, bearing the shade of Prince Thamus.
“Look, king-victim,” Kgali called to him. “Do you recognize these bones?”
Thamus looked closely. Then he started. “Yes, I see the lovely white teeth of my sweetheart, Shaloma. I’d know them anywhere, even without the shapely lips that covered them.”
“Congratulations,” said Queen Kgali with a trace of irony. “You have proved yourself an unusually observant lover and have earned the life her sacrifice buys for you. One thing I charge you to remember always. Her sacrifice was made for love, whereas yours was made for pride. Never again be so foolish as to think you can love all humanity, unless you are capable of loving one person above all. Learn from woman how to be a man.”
Thamus hung his head and said, “I should never have doubted her wisdom.”
“Now begone, the two of you,” the queen commanded. “We’ll meet again in another time of shadows, because no one ever leaves the land of the dead for good.”
The trolls removed Shaloma’s bones from their hook. Her flesh quickly grew around them again, leaving her as whole as before. Thamus hugged her with delight, then she led him away from the queen’s hall, back through all the gates and levels of the underworld. As it was for those coming to earth to be born, for them all gates were freely opened and all rivers freely passed.
When the happy couple returned home to the palace, they were greeted by cheering well-wishers and honored by a great feast. Not only was Thamus revered as a god, but Shaloma also was revered as a goddess, assimilated to the same heavenly Mother whose shadow twin was said to live deep underground and govern the world of the shades.
She never told anyone—not even Thamus—about the mysterious resemblance between herself and Kgali. But she often pondered it, ultimately reaching certain conclusions about the connections between the human and the divine. These conclusions she wrote down in a book, which was kept in a secret place in the temple and was never read lest it upset the naive faith of the people.
When Prince Thamus and Shaloma became king and queen of their country, they did away with the annual sacrifices, proclaiming that the salvation of the people had been achieved for all time. And so it seemed, for the crops flourished each year with no more than normal agricultural care.
The couple lived happily ever after, until the time came for them to return to the underworld together. Eventually they were placed at the head of the people’s pantheon as the most important and most beloved deities. Every year, for many centuries afterward, a royal maiden formally performed Shaloma’s dance of the seven veils as a special charm for continuing life.
THIRTEEN
In classical Greek myth Arachne was a mortal maiden so skilled at weaving that she aroused the jealousy of gray-eyed Athene, Goddess of all handicrafts, who ill-naturedly turned her into a spider to teach her that she must not compete with divinity. This was a revised myth, intended to belittle the Goddess herself in her aspect of fate-weaver. In this guise, Arachne was earlier manifested on Earth as her own totem spider. Our spinning and weaving ancestresses must have been mightily impressed by the delicate skills of spiders and naturally attributed them to the Goddess’s influence.
Another Greek name for the fate-weaver was Clotho, whose magical blood-red thread entered into the web of every life to bring about events in the earthly world. Centuries later, many Europeans still believed that women’s weaving, knotting, and threading charms could make things happen, to bring about the results of both blessings and cursings. Spiders remained sacred to the fairies, who were often said to wear garments of spider silk.
Rich ladies brought her skeins of fine silk, damask, and cashmere.
Once upon a time there was a poor widow with a talented daughter named Rosette, who was known throughout the countryside for her expert spinning and weaving. Though they owned little, Rosette was able to provide for her mother by means of her skill. Rich ladies brought her skeins of fine silk, damask, and cashmere, and paid her to weave beautiful fabrics and ribbons for their dresses. Local farmers paid her to spin sturdy wools and weave them into tight, weatherproof cloaks and trousers. Dealers in tapestry bought her products to resell for many times her prices. “Like a Rosette cloth” became a byword of praise for any fabric that was exquisitely made and full of colorful figures. Rosette’s mother often recounted how Rosette, from her earliest childhood, had been fascinated by spiders. She would sit for hours to watch a spider making its web, and afterward she would try to imitate the web with bits of string. She was always very solicitous of spiders. She would never kill a spider found in the house, making its web in an inconvenient place. Instead, she would take the creature carefully outdoors and place it where it could spin undisturbed.
Spiders seemed to trust her. They would hop up on her fingers without fear and gaze into her face with their eight tiny beady eyes while she carried them to safety. She used to say that any common garden spider had more skill at spinning and weaving than a hundred of the finest human artisans, and if she could do half as well as a spider she would be perfectly content.
When she came of age, Rosette was betrothed to her childhood sweetheart, a shepherd lad named Rambow. Inspired by Rosette, Rambow had taken to breeding sheep for especially fine, long-staple fleeces to be spun into soft but durable wools. All the villagers believed that when they were married, Rosette and Rambow would be forever prosperous because of their complementary skills.
Rosette’s village was part of the estate of the Baron Wrathchild, a cruel master who held the power of life and death over all his serfs. One day the baron happened to be passing Rosette’s cottage as she was spinning in the sun on her doorstep. Seeing her, he stopped and dismounted from his horse.
“I’m thirsty; fetch me a cup of beer,” he commanded. Rosette left her spinning and hurried to obey. As she handed the beer to him, the baron gazed keenly into her face.
“You’re a remarkably pretty wench,” he said. “What’s your name?”
“Rosette, milord.”
“Well, Rosette, come
tomorrow to my castle. I’ll make you one of my baroness’s ladies-in-waiting. It’ll be a big step up for a peasant girl like you.”
Rosette curtsied and said nothing. Like everyone else on Wrathchild’s estates, she knew well enough that the baroness’s ladies-in-waiting were nothing more nor less than the baron’s private harem slaves, waiting perforce not for his wife but for him. The baroness herself knew it and welcomed a situation that helped relieve her of the baron’s cruel, often violent sexual attentions. Each time a new recruit joined the harem, Wrathchild would concentrate his brutalities on her for a while, until she was thoroughly spiritbroken and eager to obey any command in order to avoid further pain.
When the baron rode away, Rosette burst into tears and ran to tell her mother what he had said. “It’s the end of my life,” she sobbed. “Now I’ll never be able to marry Rambow. I’ll never spin again. I’ll never be free. I’ll be a prisoner in that castle until I die. His prisoner—that ugly monster!”
“Hush, you mustn’t speak so,” her mother said, looking fearfully around as if she expected one of the baron’s guards to be listening. She too was in despair. She could think of no way to save her daughter. She petted Rosette and kissed her, saying faintly, “But you’ll be able to wear fine gowns and jewels.”
“Yes, with bruises and blisters under them!” Rosette cried fiercely. “I can’t stand it, Mother. I’ll run away.”
“Then you’ll be a fugitive serf, subject to a summary death penalty whenever you’re caught,” her mother said. “Oh, dear, what have we done to deserve such misery?”
Rosette and her mother wept themselves into a state of exhaustion and went to bed, hoping to find a solution to their problem in the light of a new day. During the night, Rosette was awakened by a mysterious glow beside her bed. She opened her eyes and saw a strange lady standing there. She was tall, with clear silver gray eyes, long silky gray hair, and very long fingers. She wore a filmy white gown that seemed to float in the air around her.
“Who are you?” Rosette cried.
“I am the fairy Arachne, patroness of weavers,” the lady said. “My servants, the spiders, have heard your distress and summoned me to help you. I can save you from Baron Wrathchild.”
“Oh, tell me how!”
The fairy gave Rosette a skein of red silk that had an unusual iridescent shimmer. “Don’t go to his castle tomorrow. Instead, sit at your loom and weave a picture of a man dressed like the baron, falling from his horse into a ditch, with his leg bent at an unnatural angle. Weave this red thread into the figure.”
Rosette did as Arachne instructed her. At the same time that she was weaving her picture, Baron Wrathchild’s horse happened to stumble and threw him into a ditch, where he suffered a broken leg.
For some months thereafter, the baron was laid up, waiting for his leg to mend, cursing and berating his doctors and attendants, making life burdensome for all around him. Rosette hoped that he had forgotten her. Unfortunately, when he had recovered and could ride again, the baron turned up at her door, demanding to know why she had not presented herself according to his order.
“Come tomorrow without fail,” he told her. “I’ll give you a new satin gown. That should be incentive enough for any peasant.”
He rode away, leaving Rosette and her mother again in tears.
During the night, the fairy Arachne reappeared at Rosette’s bedside.
“Help me, dear fairy,” Rosette cried. “The baron is determined to have me.”
“Don’t be afraid,” said Arachne, giving her another skein of red silk. “Instead of following his order, sit at your loom tomorrow and weave a picture of a nobleman in bed, pale with sickness, and doctors hovering about. Weave this red thread into the figure.”
The next day, while Rosette was weaving, Baron Wrathchild suddenly fell sick with a disease that none of his doctors could identify. He became too weak to rise from his bed, almost too weak to eat or drink. Most of his attendants secretly hoped that he would die. His wife certainly hoped so.
He didn’t die, however. After some months had passed, he slowly recovered and regained his strength. By the time spring came again to the world, he was up and around.
Rosette and Rambow, assuming the baron would not remember his demand for Rosette, were planning their wedding, which was to take place in the greenwood and be attended by all the village swains. The couple wandered happily together over the meadow, hand in hand, as Rambow tended his sheep. Rosette had told him what had come of her encounters with the baron. “Kindness to spiders certainly pays off,” Rambow had commented. “Who’d have thought it?”
Meanwhile, a tapestry dealer visited Rosette’s cottage and saw the two pictures she had woven with the magic thread.
“These are the most magnificent things she’s ever done,” he said to Rosette’s mother. “I’ll give you five gold sovereigns apiece for them.”
The poor widow was stunned by such a munificent offer. It was enough to buy her bread and beer for several years. She accepted at once. The dealer wrapped up Rosette’s pictures, greatly pleased, sure that they would fetch at least fifty gold sovereigns apiece.
Actually, he sold them a few days later for sixty-five gold sovereigns apiece, to none other than the Baroness Wrathchild.
The pictures were hung in the baroness’s drawing room and soon caught the eye of the baron. Looking closely at them, he recognized uncanny likenesses to himself, the trappings of his horse, the hangings of his bed, and other details associated with his recent misfortunes.
He stormed into his wife’s bedroom and dragged her out of bed, shouting, “Where did you get those tapestries?”
When she told him, he went off at once to the dealer and learned that the weaver was Rosette. Wrathchild immediately summoned the inquisitors and told them that Rosette was a witch who had cast two spells on him. The first spell made him break his leg, the second made him sick. To prove it, he showed the pictures.
The inquisitors arrested Rosette and tied her to the ducking stool to subject her to trial by water. The theory of ducking-stool justice was simple enough for anyone to understand. If the defendant drowned when held under the water, she was proved innocent. If she didn’t drown, she was proved a witch and must be executed. Either way, the inquisitors won and earned a hefty proportion of her worldly goods.
They ducked Rosette in the village pond, while Rambow and her mother stood with the crowd, looking on and wringing their hands. Rosette was held under water for a very long time. Everyone was sure that she must have drowned. But dozens and dozens of water spiders gathered around her, each hauling its little silken bell filled with air. They covered her nostrils with silk and gave her the air to breathe.
When she was drawn up and found to be still alive, the inquisitors convicted her of witchcraft and sentenced her to be executed the next day. The baron instructed the inquisitors to imprison her overnight in the tower room of his castle. He still craved her, and intended to ravish her during the night as she awaited her death.
Poor Rambow was devastated. He helped Rosette’s weeping mother home to her cottage, then went and sat alone in the meadow where he had so recently walked with his sweetheart. As he dabbed at his tears, thinking of one desperate plan after another, he was startled to see a tall lady standing beside him, having appeared without making a sound. “Who are you?” he cried.
“I am the fairy Arachne, patroness of weavers. I will tell you how to save Rosette.”
“How, how?”
“Wait in the bushes at the foot of the baron’s tower after midnight, with traveling provisions and two horses. Be sure you’re not seen by anyone. Rosette will escape from the tower, and you will ride away together. Go to the eastern country, and don’t return. You will meet a good destiny.”
Rambow trusted the fairy and hastened to make his preparations. He informed Rosette’s mother but told no one else of his plan.
As dusk fell, anyone who might have been looking would have seen something ve
ry curious on the baron’s tower. A strange, dim, pulsating column was forming, from the ground all the way up the wall to the single window in the high turret. An observer at closer range might have realized (just before darkness obscured it) that the pulsating column was formed of thousands of spiders climbing the wall together. They were making something, but the mat of little legs and bodies was so thick that their work could not be seen.
In the turret room, Rosette sat drooping on a wooden bench, feeling desolate and hopeless. The night drew on. She supposed it to be the last night of her life. She was regretting all the years she would never have, the love she would never feel, the children she would never bear, the works of art she would never weave.
She was roused from these sad reveries by the sound of a key turning in the lock. The door opened, and there stood Baron Wrathchild, a leather whip in his hand. A guard locked the door behind him.
“So, weaver, we meet again,” he sneered. “This time you’ll obey me, I think. I’ve come to take my own revenge for your witchcraft, before the holy men take theirs. You have no thread to weave me another catastrophe. Tonight the catastrophe will be yours.”
She jumped up from the bench and cowered against the wall. He advanced on her, struck her once with the whip, and threw her down on the floor. As he was bending down to tear off her skirt, her terrified eyes looked past him at the window. There she saw the face of the fairy Arachne, scowling like a thundercloud.
The fairy seemed to shrink and darken, folding herself up on the windowsill. She turned into a huge black spider wearing a blood-red hourglass sign on its round belly. The spider darted across the floor and up Baron Wrathchild’s back to his bare neck, where it sank its fangs into his flesh.
The baron screamed, fell down, and tore at the spider, which adroitly eluded his clawing fingers and scrambled over his writhing body to Rosette’s side. “He is a dead man,” said the spider’s tiny voice in Rosette’s ear. “Go to the window now and climb down. Your lover awaits.”
Feminist Fairy Tales Page 11