And the lines she would twist onto tall wooden cones and wait for the women to come from the cottages all around to buy what wool she could sell them – that they might weave and knit the garments they needed for their daughters and sons to keep them warm as they worked in the fields or followed the sheep up over the hills.
Who taught her to spin? Why, Aylsa had a sister tall, born full ten years before her. And this sister taught her to gather, this sister taught her to spin. This sister would travel over hilltops far and wide to bring the snagged wool in. But one day, when Aylsa was still only a young’un small, this sister went down to the river to bathe, took off her dress that was mossy green and sewn all over with silver stars – slipped into the water and swam. She swam out into the river, but she never came back again.
Now day by day in the late afternoon, when the morning’s gathering was done, Aylsa would pull on her sister’s dress, all mossy green and sewn with stars – and walk where her sister had walked before, all down to the river and the bridge’s cold stone. There she would sit alone in the shadow, gazing into the deep, dark water, and this is the song that she sang:
“Spin me a song,
Oh sister dear –
Spin me a sister’s song.
The willows hang dark
And the willows hang low
Down by the bank
Where the tall rushes grow.
Spin me a song,
Oh sister dear –
Spin me a sister’s song.
The willows hang dark
And the willows hang low,
For the nights they are long
And the days are so slow –
Oh spin me a sister’s song.”
When she’d done with her singing, Aylsa stared deep into the water. There she saw her sister’s face gazing back at her. Now you know and I know, this must have been her own face reflected by the sun. But Aylsa could not guess this, for she lived all alone and had not looked on her own face since the day her sister left. Ten years had passed since that day and Aylsa had grown to look like her sister in each and every way. But she would gaze at her sister’s face watching from the water and wish as strong as the sky was clear that she could swim there with her. But she knew that she could not and she knew that she should not, for much as she longed to plunge into her sister’s arms, she knew that the river might take her.
But had the river taken her sister, or did she just swim away? No-one ever found her, though Aylsa had asked all the old’uns who came to buy her wool and she’d asked all the young men who came there fishing, but never a glimpse had they seen. Mayhap she’d grown tired of the spinning, or mayhap she’d found her a sweetheart, beyond the far bend of the river. So Aylsa stared at the water and she watched and she waited and she wondered.
But day by day as she sat under the echo of the bridge, Aylsa came to realise that there was a young man there watching her. And who was this young man? – you might well ask. Listen, and I’ll tell you. This young man’s name was Scillow and he lived up over the hill. And what did he do, all the day till the night? Why, he followed the sheep if they strayed out of sight. His dog Callum ran to his whistles and calls, scrambling up through the bracken and down to the fields, nuzzling and nipping at the laggers and strays till Scillow’s small flock was safe in the pen.
From the top of the hill, Scillow would watch come late afternoon as Aylsa walked down to the bridge to sit there peering at her sister’s face that she thought she saw in the water. Scillow would watch her and then he would listen, as she raised her voice high in song:
“The willows hang dark
And the willows hang low,
For the nights they are long
And the days are so slow –
Oh spin me a sister’s song.”
Each day Scillow sat and listened as her singing echoed up to the top of the hill. For Scillow he was lonely too – he had lost his brothers three all up in the mists of the mountain when the cold wind came calling. He longed to run down and sit there beside her, to take her hand in his and join her in her song. But the sky held him back, and the sheep’s call and the gorse brambles – and his dog Callum, who sat beside him and watched with an eye cocked to every move he made. But then one day he left his sheep behind him, and with his heart bursting and bounding he sped sliding and scrambling all down the long dirt track.
Dog Callum followed after, in one mind and two, yapping around his master and racing up to the sheep and back, till in the end they were too far away and grazing contented at the top of the hill. And so Callum stuck close by Scillow’s side as they came down to the path to the bridge where Aylsa sat singing.
Scillow paused. He was breathless and his brow full beaded with sweat. What could he say now he’d come all this way? He looked at the girl, hoping she’d see him, hoping she’d turn and ask his name. But Aylsa did nothing, said nothing at all, just stared down more closely at the face in the water and muted her song till she sang in a whisper, all under the shadow of the bridge. And Scillow, what did he do? Scillow did nothing, but just sat and waited and watched.
“When she is finished singing,” he muttered to Callum, “that’s when I’ll walk right up and speak to her.”
Callum pricked his ears and listened for the bleat of the sheep on the hillside. Scillow patted his head and waited and waited, but under the bridge, Aylsa sang on. Softer and lower, but still she kept singing. And she did not look up, and she did not turn round, till the sheep called louder from the top of the mountain and dog Callum nipped at his master’s ankles and led him away and away up the track.
What of Aylsa? Did she not feel pleased that a young man would climb all down from the hill just to listen to her song? Did she not wish that he would talk to her and ask her to walk along with him? You know that she wished this and you know that she did not, for she thought she never could look so fine as her sister who watched her each day from the water. And so she hid herself away under the echo of the bridge.
The days went by as the tall clouds drifted across the sky and mist rolled over the crags of the mountains. Did Scillow come again to listen to the singing? You know that he did. You know that he left his sheep far behind at the top of the hill – and in the end his dog Callum no longer followed but lay flat-bellied in a hollow, guarding the flock. And did Aylsa wait, wishing that he would come? You know that she did, and you know that she did not. She longed to look as pretty as her sister in the water, so that she might step out boldly in a fine dress to meet him. But some days even her sister did not come. In days of rain when the clouds were grey, she would stay hidden in the dull muddy water, and Aylsa would sing to entice her out from the shadows of the reeds:
“Spin me a song, oh sister dear – Spin me a sister’s song.”
One fine day when the sun sparkled across the river, the sister in the water came to greet her. Aylsa smiled and her sister smiled too and held out her open arms. As Aylsa leaned forward, her long hair skimmed the surface and then dipped under. She felt as though her sister was tugging her, and so Aylsa lowered her head still further, and began to wash her hair where she knelt. It was as if her sister’s long fingers were kneading her scalp, combing out her tresses and stroking her neck, just the way she used to. Aylsa sang, her lips close to the water, as if she was breathing her sister’s breath.
Then Aylsa straightened and her hair swung back in an arc of sparkling droplets. She span around, her arms reaching skywards as she pulled her dress up over her head. She folded it carefully and placed it in the shadow under the bridge, before turning and diving into the water. As her arms reached out, so too did her sister’s, drawing her in and drawing her down, holding her in a cold embrace – and yet she felt warm as the water caressed her skin. Down she swam and down, deep into darkness, searching for her sister there in the water, wanting to be with her, wanting to become her. Wishing that she could step out of the water looking just as she looked – then she could wait on the bank for Scillow to come down from the h
ills and listen to her song.
She swam on and on with the current, diving and bobbing with her sister, as if at last she had become her and found her true self there. As she swam she sang, further from the bridge and further, around the bend in the river, until at last she was out of sight. And just at that moment, who should happen along? A girl whose hair was dark as dark. Was not Aylsa, for she was in the water. Was not Aylsa’s sister, for she was gone these ten years long. Why no, twas Ravenhair herself, happening along the way.
She rested under the shadow of the bridge and dangled her feet in the cool clear water – and then she spied a dress all folded in the corner, just where Aylsa left it. Ravenhair ran her hands across the cloth, all mossy green and patterned with stars shining silvery bright – finer by far than her own drab smock which hung dull and dusty from her journey. She picked it up and held it to her, swinging it first this way and then again the other.
“Who could have gone off and left such a fine dress behind?” Ravenhair pondered as she glanced about to left and to right. Nobody else was anywhere in sight and so Ravenhair slipped from her own garment and left it bundled up in the corner while she bathed herself in the river. When she was done, she took a fancy to pull on the dress of moss green and silver that Aylsa had left there. The dress felt fresh, the dress felt fine and Ravenhair knew she could walk a road and another road more before the moon began to shine.
But what of Aylsa? Aylsa was swimming alone in the river, singing to the sun and the skylarks and the willows as though she was her very sister that she had always wanted to be. Soon enough and soon she began to feel hungry, and she ducked and she swept through the cool clear current all the way back to the bridge. There she hauled herself up onto the bank and stood as water trickled in rivulets from the strands of her long black hair.
Aylsa looked this way and Aylsa looked that, but the fine long dress of mossy green was nowhere to be seen. And then at last she spied Ravenhair’s smock, all dull and dusty and crumpled in a bundle underneath the shadow of the bridge. Aylsa gasped as her song trailed away. This weary garment was not hers at all, but her own dress was gone and she had nothing else to wear – and so she shook the droplets from her body and pulled Ravenhair’s dusty smock up and over her head.
The cloth was coarse. It hung heavy and awkward and she could feel the weight of the miles it had walked dragging her shoulders down.
“Whose dress could this be?” Aylsa wondered, though she had little choice but to wear it – and set off along the path to the house where she lived with her spinning wheel all alone.
All alone and alone, Ravenhair wandered on along the track, wearing Aylsa’s dress sewn with silver and green. Before too long she met a man who stood in the dust at the side of the road, watching every step she took as she came closer to him. Soon enough and soon she was stood by his side. Ravenhair smiled at him, for she was wont to smile at anyone she met along the way.
Scillow, for I know that you know it was him, looked surprised, for the girl with the long dark hair that he knew, who wore a dress all mossy green, had never smiled at him before. At first he stood and gawped at her, but then he returned her smile.
“How do you fare?” Ravenhair enquired, and was puzzled when Scillow just stared – for how could she know that he’d waited so long for a girl in this very dress to walk by this way. And now here she stood, all close by his side speaking to him as plain as the day – and his mouth opened wide, but no words could he find for this girlen he took to be Aylsa.
Ravenhair laughed and shook her head and then Scillow laughed too.
“What is your name?” asked Ravenhair. “And tell me – what do you do?”
“I’m Scillow,” his tongue stumbled. “And I keep sheep – there up on the hill so high.”
He pointed, and Ravenhair looked, up to where the sky met the peaks of the hills, with a flock of white clouds all sat at the top.
“Why, your sheep are so big they block out the sun!” Ravenhair exclaimed and laughed again and Scillow laughed too and told her everything he knew about Callum his dog and how to read the wind and the way that his flock would get lost and then find themselves again, all up in the mist and the dew.
Ravenhair smiled and listened.
“And tell me,” Scillow asked her, “what do you do? For I see you each day there under the bridge, all alone and alone.”
Ravenhair frowned.
“I’m travelling to Arleccra to find Greychild,” she told him, “all along the Pedlar Man’s Track. I have never come to this bridge before.”
Scillow scratched his head. “How could this be?” he wondered.
“Sing me,” he said, “the song you always sing, when I see you each day there beside the water.”
Ravenhair frowned again.
“I know many songs,” she said. “I know the song that Greychild taught us, that his mother sang to him:
Coddle me, coddle me,
My darling son.
I’m leaving you here
Till the crying is done…”
Scillow listened but then shook his head.
“No – that’s not the one,” he said.
Ravenhair’s eyes lit up and she flipped her fingers as she sang:
“Tie me a ribbon –
I’ll wear it so well;
It will whisper me secrets
That I’ll never tell…”
Scillow rubbed his eyes. Ravenhair’s voice was hushed to a whisper. But then he shook his head.
“No – that’s not the one,” he said. “The song I remember is a sister’s song, where the willows hang low – down by the bank where the tall rushes grow.”
Ravenhair shrugged and then she turned away.
“I have no sister,” she said. “And I must take me now to Arleccra, for the way is long and long.”
“Won’t you stay and sing me just one more song?” Scillow pleaded with her, hoping she would remember what Aylsa sang, though he could hear his dog Callum calling for him, high up on the hill.
Ravenhair tossed her long dark tresses and threw back her head and sang –
“There was a girl who had a man, his name it was Tom Tattifer…but I do not know the song you crave – and now I must truly go before darkness falls.”
“When will I see you again?” Scillow asked.
“The road is fickle and the road is strange,” Ravenhair replied. “Who ever knows who any of us will meet all along the way?”
She smiled and kissed Scillow lightly on the side of his face and then was gone around the bend in the track. Scillow stood puzzled, staring after her. For so long he had waited for the girl in the green dress sewed with silver stars to speak one word to him. Now all at once she had tarried with him, had laughed with him, had sung for him – though ne’ery the song that he’d heard her sing so often. Scillow touched his cheek. She had kissed him. He could still feel the soft moist breath of her lips – but the girl herself had gone.
Scillow trudged slowly back up the hill, gazing down at the fields spread out below, and way in the distance a river winding on its journey to the sea. He scrambled through bracken and the coarse grip of gorse, his boots knocking loose small flurries of stones, until he reached the top. Dog Callum came running, yapping at his ankles, leaping up in greeting and then lying flat, belly low to the ground. Scillow followed where the dog’s nose pointed, across the bare hilltop to the towering sky.
“Where are my sheep?” Scillow asked as Callum ran off and then tracked back, tacking through the heather to be sure Scillow followed him. But the sheep were gone. “What have I done?” Scillow moaned. “Been spending all my days waiting for this girl – now this very day she’s kissed me soft upon my cheek – why this is the same day I’ve lost her and all my sheep are gone as well!”
Scillow sat on the hilltop with dog Callum close beside him. Down below on a bend in the road, far away and far, there he spied a girl in a green dress walking, but all around him on the windswept hills his sheep were
nowhere to be seen.
Ravenhair walked on and on until she came to a leafy lane. There, standing at the corner as if she had been waiting, stood Aylsa wearing a dull and dusty smock. Each girlen stopped and looked at the other, both with their hair all shiny and black – remember how I told you?
Aylsa stared at the green robe sewed with silver stars that was draped over Ravenhair’s shoulders. Ravenhair paused. What could she say? What should she say? She knew that this dress was not her own, but belonged to this other girl standing before her. She wanted to see what the stranger would say. Would she throw out a challenge or call her ‘Thief!’? – though Ravenhair did not steal the dress but only find it true, lying where Aylsa had left it under the shadow of the bridge.
But instead Aylsa said nothing of this. Her eyes opened wide with wonder.
“Oh my sister!” she cried. “You have come back to me after ten long years. Where have you been? Did you not hear me singing every afternoon? –
Spin me a song,
Oh sister dear –
Spin me a sister’s song.
The willows hang dark
And the willows hang low
Down by the bank
Where the tall rushes grow –
Oh spin me a sister’s song.”
Ravenhair shook her head.
“I am not your sister, but a traveller down from the hills. My smock, that you wear now, was ragged, bedraggled and torn. Under the shadow of the bridge, I took up this dress all moss green and silver – though I meant to do no harm. But I am Ravenhair, come from Brunt Boggart – I can never be your sister who is gone.”
The girlen stared at each other. Aylsa embraced Ravenhair and wept – then they exchanged their garments again before Ravenhair journeyed on.
Brunt Boggart Page 22