There Was A Little Girl Who Lived In A Village

Once there was wee maiden, just tall enough to see over the table top. She only knew she lived in a village, so we shall not know where it was either! She only knew her Mother and Father, the Grandmother and the baby boy.

One day, seeing her mother spinning and spinning a fine thread on the wooden spindle, she was filled with the desire to spin also.  For the thread was very beautiful indeed, fine and shining like gold. Her hands ached to try it.

Oh Mother help me, she cried, for I must spin also!  Oh Daughter, said the Mother, I am too busy to stop and help you!  Go and see the Grandmother in her little room around the corner!

The anxious little maiden ran around the corner and down the hall to Grandmother's little room.  She found Grandmother dreaming by an open window.  She asked quietly, for she was a kind little being, Grandmother I must learn to spin and Mother is far too busy to take time from her work, and the baby also.

The Grandmother whispered to the wee maiden.  Child I cannot see to help you, for my eyes are dim with time and care and work.  You must find help where you may. God bless you my child.

May, for that was her name, went out to the meadow near home seeking help.  She wept a bit, then dried her chin, for she was actually a stalwart little thing. When she set her mind, her mind was set! 

Oh who will teach me, she cried to the sky.  Now, a wise old Raven was sitting in the branchs of a nearby tree, among the green leaves.  She cocked her head and looked at the child with a glittering eye.

Listen to me, croaked the bird kindly.  I will help you but if you tell anyone who taught you, they will laugh at you.  

First you must find a sweet old ewe in the field and walk with her for a while. For she will enjoy a chat.  Ask her if you may pluck some tufts of loose wool from her sides. If she agrees, then gather up a good armful of the cleanest, whitest wool from her that you can find.

Put it in a safe place and then find a straight little stick as long as your forearm.  It must be smooth and as straight as possible.  When you have that, go to the marsh in the meadow and look on the banks of the little stream and gather up a good handful of wet clay.

The Raven paused for her voice was a bit tired.  May, stood listening, as the sweet breezes blew over the field, lifting her brown hair.  She memorized her lesson so far.  When Raven had rested her voice a little she said, next you must make a nice round ball with your clay.  Then put the end of the little stick all the way through it, so that a little thumb of it sticks out of the bottom.  Then lay it aside to dry for a few days.  In the meantime, she continued, get your wool and fluff it up as loose as you can and pull out any weed seeds or bits of grass.  Put it in a bag until the clay ball is dry, child.

Now I must fly away for seven days, said the Raven.  I will return and talk with you then.  So May went home and the Raven flew to wherever Ravens go, and May contented herself in the house with her Mother, Father, Grandmother and the infant boy.  She helped as much as she could and kept her own counsel.

When the week was over, May returned to the field and the tree and there Raven was, waiting, picking through her feathers and sighing. Now, says she, go get your spindle, for such it is now!  Get your bag of wool and let's begin!  May ran back to the house and got her wool and her spindle and was back in a moment.

It's hard for a writer of fairytales to describe to you how Raven went about teaching May.  Suffice it to say that it happened.  Spinning, after all, is a normal human endeavor!  Raven taught her to pull out a few strands and put a little twist in them and to attach them to the spindle.  I forgot to say that she was instructed to cut a small notch in the top of the stick to tie her strands to.  Raven set her to drawing out fibers and at the same time giving a twist to the weighted stick....on and on and on and May became very skilled, as she had wished to. All the thread she spun would fill a whole house, it seemed.

Years went by.  May grew tall. She spun many a mile of very fine thread on a new, much better spindle that her Father had made. A fine smooth spindle it was with a clever little knob at the top and a smooth stone weight on it. 

May met Jack and married him too.  There were children.  Five!  The children grew and married and life went on in its sweet old cycle.

May became an old lady.  Her sight was poor now.  But she sat by an open window where she could feel the sun on her face and smell the breezes.  She listened to the Ravens as she always had. For Ravens know a lot and are fine observers of mankind.

One day as she was dreaming by her window in the little room at the back of her daughter's house a small girl came to her.  She said, Grandmother I want to learn to spin and my Mother is too busy to help me!  Will you help me?

May said, come here child, sit by my side here on this little stool and let me tell you what a Raven told me long ago. Then little Jane learned the lessons that the Raven had taught May and that's the way the world works at the best of times, is it not so?

And so says Raven also.