Forty Days and Nights: Love Stories. 29. Girlie: The First Brother

[This is a story in five parts.This is the first part.]
She had seven brothers and she lost all of them. Some here, some there and some she could not have said where but on the day she thought to look, to wonder, to seek and to yearn, not a brother was to be found.

She set out to find.

But find she did not, and by the setting of the sun she was sad, lonely and lacking fraternity. She sat her up high and high in the crook and shade of a great tree which overgrew, there, the roadside, to ponder, to wish and to wonder. As she sat alone and brotherless, down that way came a crone with a raven set hard and serious upon her shoulder. Why now, why how, my pretty morsel, my sweet nubbin, the crone crooned, why set ye here, why ponder ye in such a brown study that I could see the cloud and shadow of it from over the hill and far away as I came, as I came, as I came on a-down by here?

Ah, me, sighed the girlie in the tree, ah, me, Mistress Crone and also your Good Raven, I am a-sad and a-sorrowing, for brothers seven had I, had I, but when today I looked about me for them, for their love to me and for their help and their care and their warm keeping of my heart and hands, my life and my lands, not a brother, not a boy, not a friendly man could I see, could I see.

Ah, you, ah, you indeed, the crone gave back to her again, ah, you indeed. Sad and sorry are you and will be, so you are and will be forever and forever if you do not now find those brothers which have wandered, which have traveled, which have lost themselves sadly and badly and madly from you, my tender lambie pie, my little candy girl.

But how shall I go and how shall I fare and what shall be my seeking and my want and my ware? the girl asked and pled. I know not how, I know not where, I know not when they left me, turned from me, looked beyond and from me fled.

Here, my cookie, my sugar cake, the crone told her, and the raven leaned forward to catch every word. Here and here is what you now must do. Do you pull and do you pull on all your golden, golden hair, pull it long and pull it straight and from it a shirt strong and light shall you make. Twist it, spin it, knit it, tuck and tie it. When it is knitted through and through, do you drop in and straight down that well which lies hard by the King's way as you come down and a-down through the copse and through the coomb.

And the girlie did it, she did as the crone had said to her. She pulled her hair and out it came, long and longer, gold and golden. Strong and light and straight it came, and she cut it off her, cut it off short and tight. Then she twisted and spun, knitted and tied until a shirt of wondrous shimmer and shine she held in her hands. Up she held it, high she lifted, and hot the sun caught it as it twisted and spun in her hands. Then and then did all the people come, with a yelling and a run. Such a shirt! One would have it for his wife and one would have it for his own. One would have it for a burying and one for a wedding in the morn. All reached, all longed, all begged. Take my farm, take my land, take my gold, take my lambs. But she would none. To her the shirt she clasped and ran she to that well and there, at last, she held out the shirt, one more glister, one spin and down it fell. Away it went. Into the cold and deep and slimy of that well it flashed, and was not.

All the people stopped, stony, stared her down as she had been an enemy, and from her they melted and faded as they had never been. And when they were all away, when all had fled, then from the waters slick and cold there rose a fish. Long and long he was, golden and slim, and up he came, from the murk and dim, to the light and to the day. He turned his flat black eyes up to the sky and up and up and up he came. And on him, a shirt he wore.

Long and silky straight the shirt he wore, all a-golden glister and slippery glamour. It clung to him, it twisted and it spun. In one arm of that shirt came then one arm on that fish. Not a fish's arm in that shirt, but an arm that was the arm of a man. Two arms, golden hair on a man's head, legs straight and strong, fingers and toes and eyes like sweet brown almonds, not like cold black moons. A brother come back to her was he, and she fell on his neck and kissed it. He held her and told her all his telling and all his tale.

Sat I on the edge of the well, he told, long and longing, thinking and pondering on the gold the folk threw down and a-down into the murk and into the dim of that water, he said, for I longed after it, hankered and yearned for gold and for gold. And on a day came down that way a crone, gnarled and bent and on her shoulder a raven like a sliver of night, hard and serious. Up and asked me what I longed after, called me her honey nut, her tiny barley cake, and I told her, I told her. Of the gold, of my heart's desire after all the foolishly wasted and lost gold. Gold is it you're after and a-longing for? asked she and her raven leaned in close, so as not to lose a word, deep water gold? I'll give it and you'll get it if one wee kiss you'll give to me. And I gave it, sister, and I got that gold, so deep that I forgot my own self, forgot my way and my name, nosed about in the deep and dimmy, ate of buggies and cold water plantlings, slept while I swam and swam while I ate, til of a sudden a shirt came down and a-down upon me, and just as sudden I could not swim no more, nor breathe, nor bear to eat of buggies. So up I came, and there was you, hair all shorn and arms held out. And he fell to petting her, to hugging and to holding her and a-telling her all his love. So she was happy with her brother, happy for a time and after a fashion.