Across the oceans of time before our own, there lived a man in a meadow perched on the edge of a great cliff. Each dawn the salt-mist fog wrapped the earth in a briny, white coverlet and remained until the sun burned her down midday. Branan, the man of this place, toiled his whole life here, fishing in nearby streams and planting his fields, collecting the bounty nature lay out. He built a small sod hut on the land his father’s father’s father had planted, near the streams they had each fished. He tended to his many sheep and earned his sleep at the end of each day.
But as Branan’s temples grew long and gray against his bronzed skin, he began to consider his end. He would wake well before the salt-mist fog seeped under his door. He would fret that if he did not get a son no one would tend the fields and fish the streams after he took leave. This land so entwined with Branan and his line, it was as if they themselves were spread on and sprouted from this very soil, would surely go desolate. His father had entered glory seven turns of winter now and done so with a smile, pleased that each spring his land would flourish under his son’s strong hand. His father’s smile became Branan’s burden.
Branan set his mind then to finding himself a bride. Weren’t much of a feat, he thought. Have put together the hims and hers of sheeping all my life. Just a matter of finding the right pairing is all. A she that’ll sit still long enough, mostly. And besides, weren’t such a bad thing to have a bit of company, a little nattering with another not a sheep.
But Yonder Town was a three days’ ride from the meadow and not a soul stirred in between. Taking the trip there and back he would have used up the better part of ten odd days. Wolves could get after the sheep in ten odd days. And nothing set his fury hotter than wolves getting after his sheep. He had a mantle full of wolf heads attesting to that.
No, he decided, the time weren’t right. He’d have to hide his worry in a sack and wait ‘til first frost. Sheep’ll be fine by then, wolves more concerned with shelter then. At that time he’d gather up the season’s bounty and head to them markets of Yonder Town. Bound to be a suitable she there of breeding stock and willing to make a journey back to this meadow. Done. Till frost he’d live his days like he had done, tending to his land in the summer sun.
One morning as he trekked out by the merchant road chasing a plum pheasant, he heard a team of horses clopping up the way. He stuck his neck out of a birch copse to find the most magnificent team of white stallions pulling a silver carriage. He didn’t usually acknowledge the rare time Gentles would travel through these parts. His father’s voice echoing in his head that Gentles weren’t much for labor, sitting still for paintings and counting their piles of gold was about as much sweat as they could muster, and, therefore, not worthy of much attention outside the marketplace. So, as was his nature, Branan became the bark and the swamp grass and watched silently as the Gentles passed by.
But those horses. Twice as tall as any man he had ever seen. Bands of iron beneath their hides. Warrior horses. Pulling a shining orb of a carriage close behind. Was like a wishing star skittering across the sky to see it pass. Branan jumped from his cover and stood in the dust as the horse-drawn comet pulled away.
Just then, the carriage door opened and what appeared to be a large sack of hayseed was thrown out the side by two large hands and hit the ground solidly. “The way back be long, woman,” cried the driver over his shoulder as he prodded the warhorses on, “Be ye penitent and ye’ll find your way.”
Branan stared at the glittering orb as it dissolved down the merchant road. The sack lay motionless on the rocky shoulder. When he came upon it, he got down on his haunches and gave it a sniff. Smelled like the little purple flowers he would come by first warm week of spring in the meadow. He untied the leather strap that kept it closed and pulled open the burlap. Out spilled long auburn tresses of sweet smelling hair framing a doll’s face that looked to be made of white glass. It was at once the face of an angel and the face of his mother. Both, stone dead.
As he kicked open the door to the sod hut, the chickens scattered and Branan lay the sack on a bed of newly sheered wool, musty but warm. Turned out this was no angel nor the mother he had only seen by way of his father’s recollections, he knew that now. But the girl inside was just as dead. Hadn’t made the smallest noise the entire trek back from the merchant road. Branan took down the sides and removed the burlap. And there she lay, his beautiful princess in silk damask, cheeks as pale as moonstone.
This would’a made a right fine bride, he thought. He could not ever have dreamt better. He leaned over her still body, studied her face. He wanted to burn it in his mind before covering it with dirt. Pulled in by her beauty he leaned down and kissed her cold cheek. The smell of lilacs engulfed the damp room as a single tear collected in the corner of his eye and dropped onto her forehead.
Branan had never known the comfort of any woman, never really knew a woman’s form. Now despite that she lay lifeless before him, he yearned still and strongly to touch her flesh. Caress her. Love her. He gently brushed her cheek with the back of his hand and then let it slip to her bosom. Soft as feathers, as yearling wool. And there his hand stayed and stayed…until she gasped and awoke.
*****Branan guessed that Jesu, the man hung in the sparse tree, had sent a great gift when the princess opened her eyes. She was his hope. He could now see his line stretched out past the seasons his strong and handsome son’s son’s sons would work this land. He smiled as his father still do in the dirt. His fretting days had met their end.
But the princess shrieked as ugly and as long as a Bobwhite owl when she set upon his face. Her eyes became great round moons then narrowed to dark slits. She backed herself into the dampest corner of the dank hut and hissed like a tiger-tom. Then, she remained silent and pinched for a long spell to follow.
Weeks passed and the princess grew strong enough to sit by the stream during the day, by the fire at night. Branan roasted rabbits for her and tried to soothe her with nettle tea. The color of fall apples came to her cheeks. She blossomed as the early autumn waxed. She was radiant. And deeply, deeply loved. Though she never gave love, not a glance of appreciation, in return. Even when she could walk without her stick, she would sit silently by the stream in the morning and by the fire at night, never sharing a word with her caretaker.
Months passed and the princess abandoned her silence. She cried from the seeping of the salt-mist fog until the rising of the moon high in the night sky. For two, Branan had fished more, hunted more, put up more food for the coming winter. He put off going to Yonder Town this end of season. The princess could not be left alone. She’d starve. And she could not go with him for surely she would abandon him. No, he’d stay and he felt with patience and goodness that one day, by Jesu, she’d come to know his mind.
A year passed and the princess’ crying ceased in the heat of summer. She now sat by the stream in the morning, by the fire at night, and just scowled at Branan. Still he roasted rabbits for her and squeezed blackberries with honey for her morning juice and drew her baths affording her fullest modesty. And the only words she’d utter were brute, troll, monster as he passed. Still he knew with consideration and faithfulness that one day, by Jesu, she’d come to know his mind.
That morning came.
As Branan spent the early hours hunting quail, Princess, contrary to her nature, rose with the sun. She took up Branan’s long thin rod and made her way to the grazing sheep. Seemed she had done more than just gaze into the distance those many days beside the stream. She had learned that if she could control the head sheep she could lead the flock wherever she wanted.
Branan returned late that morning with a dozen quail slung over his shoulder. The meadow lay eerily still. Ordinarily he couldn’t hear the rustle of pines over the bleating of his flock. This day he could.
Just then, he saw the Princess cresting the hill that lead from the cliff, the
mid-morning sun a fiery halo about her head. In her torn and faded silk damask
robes, she seemed to float above the salt-mist fog. She glided past him without
stopping and hissed more words than he had ever heard her utter at a stretch.
“Your sheep smell as bad as you, troll. I can only hope that someday soon the tide will accept you as readily. Wash you clean, break your back and free me from this place.”
Branan ran to the top of the hill to find his staff jutting from the earth at the edge of the cliff. He looked out to the crashing waves far below. Some of his dear flock lay broken on the rocks; others bobbed like corks in the rough sea.
*****When Branan hunted wolf it was with unbridled joy. Not merely the thrill of being predator and prey at once. More a sense that he was making the world, his world, safer. His joy further fueled by the singular hatred for the beast. He would never harm this Princess. He couldn’t. Her beauty wouldn’t allow it. She was a Gentle and a Gentle she would always be. Perhaps too caught in the ways of privilege. Sacrifice too foreign a notion. He knew that her beauty would always save her. From all, most likely, certainly from him.
So it was only when Branan strapped the wolf hide across the princess’ back and
released her into the forest, it was only when he lashed on his quiver and
strong bow to his own, it was only then, by Jesu, the man hung in the sparse
tree, that he felt confident that the Princess began to know his mind.