THE HARVEST HEN
oh, my dearie, have a care
be not captured by her stare
feathered leggings does she wear
beyond the mist, you’ll find her there
These words were sung in a creaky voice by the ancient beggar seated on a great boulder near the road. They made no sense at all to Mabel, the potter’s daughter, who was headed to the castle market hauling a cart filled with her father’s newly fired and gaudily painted clay gourds. She ignored the song, but not the singer. For you see, her heart ached for the elderly confused woman in rags. Mabel’s own grandmother had not fared well in her final years. So Mabel stopped and gave water to the old one. She said, ‘I’ll return when my father’s wares are sold and carry you in the cart to our home by the banks of clay.’ The old woman lowered her head, trembling with gratitude, speechless, and she smiled a crooked smile.
Mabel went on her way, sold all of her father’s gaudy clay gourds, bought a bolt of bright blue cloth, and set off toward home. When she drew within sight of the great boulder by the path, Mabel discovered that the old beggar woman was nowhere to be seen. The potter’s daughter hurried to the boulder and walked a careful circle around it. Then she stood for a moment in the road. She heard a gentle hissing, and mist wafted up in lazy twining spires from the ground all around as far as she could see. Soon she could not see the boulder. Soon she could not see her cart. Soon she could see only white, dense and silent. The words of the old woman’s song sounded in her head, but not in a creaky voice this time, but rather wafted in the softest of chimes.
oh, my dearie, have a care
be not captured by her stare
feathered leggings does she wear
beyond the mist, you’ll find her there
Mabel walked forward, her hands thrust out in front of her. And after the passage of time and a half, the mist thinned, and then raced in swift swirls completely away. Mabel found herself in the middle of a field of stubble. A lone white hen with feathered leggings stared at her. Mabel, taking no chances, avoided the hen’s gaze.
‘I am the Harvest Hen. You are a young maiden. You do not look at me. You have been given the gift.’
The mist returned. The mist retreated. Mabel stood in the road next to her cart. In the cart were a bolt of blue cloth and a red velvet pouch filled with emeralds.
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