Forty Days and Nights: Love Stories. 31. Girlie: A Raft of Brothers

[This is a story in five parts. This is the third part.]
So she was happy with her brother, happy for a time and after a fashion, but as she walked him home she rubbed her head and rubbed her head and felt her hair all short and bristly and wondered mightily how she'd ever want to be pulling five more brothers all home by her hair.

And this was how it went for her, and for three of her brothers more. Happy, yes, happy for a time she'd be, til on a dawning, sad she'd be, sad and sad and not a brother more would she find til down and a-down under the shade of that great tree would come the crone, mumbling and mombling and all wreathed in smiles without the teeth, her raven like a coal hole torn in the daylight, sitting hard and serious on her shoulder. Always went it the same way, for all it changed and twisted, it was the same, the way was the same. The crone calling her a baby muffin, a rum baba, a coconut pattie, and teaching her how she must pull out from herself another hank and twist of hair, of hair, an ell, a bolt, a shackle of her own, her own, own hair, and the raven leaning forward to catch every word. Three times more the crone balming her with words and plans, succoring her with the same words o'er and o'er. Here and here is what you now must do. Do you pull and do you pull on all your hair til once more a shirt you knit and knot, you cobble and couple, you sew, you twist and twine, crimp and acquire, weave and wrap, cut and chop, parcel, pinch, tuck and trim, til a shirt you have tailored and tumbled and sculpted and sweated. When it's whole, then take it up and look you, run you run to the brake, run to the woodheart, run you run to the sweet green pasture all fat with crunchy grass that lies hard by the the King's way as you come down and a-down through field and through town, up bridge and mountain down. Lift, there, what you have molded, and let it free, let it fly, let it soar and come back to you no more. Hold your hairshirt high there to the wind and let it loose and let it fly.

And the girlie did it, every time of it, every bit of it, she did it all, all the crone's telling. She pulled her hair and out it came, glossy and black, brittle and grey, sparkling silver and green, and she cut it off her, cut it off short and tight. Shirts three made she for brothers found in bushes with berries, in woods with wildings, in pasture with rats and micelings. Shirts men fought for and sang for, begged and pled and bled for, though it did them no good for all their strivings, no good, no good at all. Those shirts she held close and dear til she reached the place told her and there the wind tore them every one from her and sent them lofting, questing and dropping down and a-down on the brothers she sought. And up they stood as men, back they came with all their stories trailing and nothing to show but the glorious shirts on their man-backs, and there was she, hair all shorn and arms held out. And after they told her all their woes, their longings and their losses and their leavings, after they had told the way the crone came to them, named them all her berry smoothies, her tiny brownie bites, giving them for only one kiss to her, only one kiss, the impossible wantings of their hearts, each and every father's son of them fell to petting the girlie, to hugging and to holding her and a-telling her all his love.

And this was how it stood for her. Came a day she laboured o'er their five beds and beddings, stood stooped, a-washing sheets from a fish-bed grown plashy and reedy, from a sheep-bed grown oily and woolsey, from a bear's bed grown splayed and stained, from a boar's bed grown rank and torn, from a snake-bed grown cold and scaled. She scrubbed and rubbed, she twisted and wrung, and as she worked she thought on the brothers five she had found, had made into men alive with worked magic from her hair, her hair, her own, own hair. This was how it stood for them. Her fish brother gasped after gold to be thrown him for no work of his. Her sheep brother followed the others, if move he did at all, or gazed he out over field and stream and chaw a stem that from his lip hung down. Her bear brother spoke not but slept his way through night and day and ate and ate and ate and ate. Her boar brother spoke hard and sharp and ripped into talk and song, through friends and foes, all teeth and swears and elbows. Her snake brother slid silent cold and cold away from all and every, stayed low, stayed down, stayed cold, hissed the world away.

Well, I'm not happy, I'm sorrowing and sad again, sad, the girlie said, low and soft inside her head. I've not found them all, not yet by two, but I'm no brighter, no better now with them five than the day I looked about me 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. On that day I looked about, not a brother, not a boy, not a friendly man could I see, could I see. Now I look and the five I see, but what of that seeing? Well and well, it's as the crone said, yes and it is. This is the brother as he was, this is the brother as he is. What now have they? Arms and legs, arms and legs. It's all as she told me, all as she told me. Sad and sorry am I and I will be, so I am and will be forever and forever if I do not now find those brothers which have wandered, which have traveled, which have lost themselves sadly and badly and madly from me. What now, is the thing for my learning? She stopped in her washing, leaned down and a-down into the suds and the soaps and rested from her wresting while she thought. She did not go to the tree that hung out and over the road as you come down and a-down on the King's way, if you take it. This time she thought through things and things for herself.

One hand on each side of her head she laid, thought and thought and then pulled she out and out her hair, her own, her own hair. In the one hand it came away dark and brown and bushy, smelling of bones and of dirt. In the other hand light and friendly sweet, colored like a rainbow and smelling of the sky. These two handsful she held before her eyes and thought and thought. Then straight and sure, down she went, to where the river crosses the King's way and out and on the bridge went she, hair like fur and hair like feathers in her out-held hands. High and careful on the bridge she stood and looked she all and all around. And then she saw.

A bird she saw, bright as the rainbow and high as the sky. Round it flew, up and low, sweet it sang, true and slow. From under the bridge came a child, as answering the bird's song, and with the child came along a dog. Dark brown he was, bushy, yes, and brown. Round the child danced the dog, barking and happy and true, yes, and true. This is the brother as he was, she thought, this is the brother as he is. She watched the bird, the joy of its flight and the spread of its song. She watched the dog, with the child, the love in its face, the strength of its guard. Happy, thought she, happy are you two, happier by far than me. Arms and legs, she thought, arms and legs.

She opened her two hands above the river as under her it ran, all a-sparkle and shine. A river gold and silver, pearl and black, grey and all scales from the face of the sun. The wind reached down for the hair she had pulled and pulled, lifted it, lofted it, laced the air about her with it in a tiny, perfect storm. Threw away did she then hair like feathers and hair like fur. Walked away then, from the washed bedding and likewise the unclean and climbed up to sit in the great tree where it hangs over that place you must pass as you come down and a-down on the King's way. The sun grew hot, the sun grew high, the sun slipped over and bye and she did not see the crone, for the crone did not come. But this was the King's way, and it was the King himself who came, riding easy with a hundred men, his crown set hard and serious on his head.