TYNETTE
Once long ago an innkeeper’s wife took a jug of cream to the old widow woman who lived all alone in a thatched hut near the bog. It was said that the old woman was well acquainted with the fairy folk beneath the bog. It was for this reason wrapped around another reason that the innkeeper’s wife carried the jug of cream.
‘I’ve brought a jug of cream,’ said the innkeeper’s wife with fluttering heart to the bent woman peering at her from the door of the hut.
‘Ah,’ said the old woman. ‘Bring it close, dear. I have the answer to your unasked question. The blackberries in the thicket over there are ripe.’
‘Yes. We, too, are blessed to have some growing along our wall at the inn,’ said the innkeeper’s wife, trembling and handing the jug of cream to the old woman. ‘Please, what is the answer to my unasked question?’
‘The blackberries in the thicket over there are ripe,’ repeated the old woman, and she disappeared into the thatched hut, shutting its door behind her.
The innkeeper’s wife stood for a moment, uncertain, and then walked as if in a trance to the blackberry thicket. She looked at the blackberries. She looked back at the hut. Should I wish again here and now? she thought.
‘Hello, Mother,’ a tiny voice called from the middle of the thicket.
The innkeeper’s wife sat down, her legs suddenly unable to continue supporting her. From the thicket climbed a tiny girl no taller than the jug full of cream delivered to the old woman. Clad in a green tunic and slightly greener pants tucked into rust colored boots, the tiny girl, her skin a paler green than her tunic and her hair a paler green than that, jumped to the ground beside the innkeeper’s wife and stood smiling, hands on hips.
‘I am Tynette, and I can sing, and I am to be your daughter,’ she said.
And so home they went, and from that day forward, Tynette’s singing kept joy constantly dancing in the hearts of the innkeeper and the innkeeper’s wife, and truth, in the hearts of each and all everyone ever to have the good fortune to visit the inn.
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