Faerie Dancing
by Beth Smith
Accompanying the old lady was a beautiful little girl, with flowing blond hair and sparkling blue eyes, who danced down the winding Monkton Road. She always wore a fluffy white dress with a silver sash that made her seem like a white dove flying through the air.
Once upon a time in a little country village called Monkton, an old lady began arriving at Manor Mill. She was chubby and short, and bent over with long scraggly hair and a crooked nose that seemed to appear a few seconds before her body.
The old lady dressed all in black and wore a cape with wide pockets that covered her from her stubby little neck to her pointed black boots. She limped a bit but maybe that was because she always came with a pink pig and a black cat on a lead line, and those little pets seemed to pull her one way and then another.
Accompanying the old lady was a beautiful little girl, with flowing blond hair and sparkling blue eyes, who danced down the winding Monkton Road. She always wore a fluffy white dress with a silver sash that made her seem like a white dove flying through the air. Sometimes she danced in front of the old lady and sometimes she danced behind. The pig and the cat paid little attention to her.
When she started to dance, the old lady just smiled and cried out, “Jessie, stop yer dancin and prancin and walk like a human person.”
Jessie paid no attention and just danced faster.
The first day this strange old lady appeared at the Manor Grist Mill, Jacob, the Mill operator, was somewhat taken back. Ladies seldom came to Manor Mill. They sent their husbands or sons in their rickety wagons to deliver their wheat and corn after harvest; and then sent them back to pick up their flour and cornmeal.
In the mid-1800s, when the ladies of Monkton had some free time, they mostly went to Methodist Church on the hill or had tea in their rose gardens. Sometimes they sat on wicker chairs and gossiped about the fancy ladies who came to the Monkton Hotel at night. But mostly, unless they were lucky gentry like the Merrymans who owned Beautiful Bounty, they didn’t have much free time, and they didn’t visit Manor Mill.
On the first day the old lady arrived at the Mill, she didn’t seem a bit daunted about the lack of lady shoppers.
“I am needin some cornmeal,” she announced. Her voice was loud and hoarse with a slight Scottish lilt that almost shook the rafters in the century-old brick building. “And,” she added, “I don’t have a pence to pay yer. I’ve come to trade, yer know like the Indians did when they was arunnin around the Manor hundreds of years ago.”
“Well, now,” said Jacob, pushing his bifocals back on his head. “I don’t really trade.” He was a bit unnerved by his visitor, along with her friends – the little girl, the pig, and the cat.
“Well, I have something yer gonna want,” said the old lady, and she pulled from under her black cape a small bottle filled with blue lotion.
“When I was standin at your door, peerin in the winda, I saw yer rubbing yer knees and hangin on to yer counter top.” She stopped and eyed the room, including the steep stairs that climbed to the next floor. “Yer have the lumbago, which sends a swift ache from yer back down to yer knees. Climbin these ancient stairs deepens the pain.”
Jacob looked doubtful.
“I will give yer this curin lotion and yer give me cornmeal,” she said pointing at his knees.”
“Well, I don’t know. I don’t know what Doc Evans might say,” he said, sounding a bit more interested.
After some bickering back and forth, the old woman, who told Jacob to call her Gram, went off with the little girl, the pig, the cat, and a bag of cornmeal, and Jacob was left holding the lotion.
“Remember,” she said, as she stomped out the Mill door, “yer rub it on your knees, yer don’t drink it.”
That was the beginning of a business relationship that went on for years. Once a week the old lady, with her trio in tow, arrived at the Mill with a bottle of blue lotion and left with a sack of cornmeal.
The blue lotion did the trick for Jacob’s supposed lumbago. He was pain free and felt ten years younger. Gradually, as months passed by, most of the villagers stopped talking so much about Gram, also called “the old hag” by some. And, they would always turn and watch when the little girl danced down the road. But a few villagers and especially the village lads were still somewhat suspicious. Who was the old hag? Where did she live? She seemed to walk into the woods and disappear.
She never talked to anyone but Jacob, the miller, although the little girl sometimes danced around the town gardens, talking to and hugging everyone she brushed by. The little girl’s touch was so infectious that all the villagers – even the most suspicious - hugged her back.
Everyone agreed, Jessie, as they had learned her name, was a darling. Why was she with such a hag, even if the hag seemed pleasant enough? Gram certainly caused no problems. Even the pig and the cat became like town pets, although one look from Gram, and the Monkton ladies knew never to touch or pat them.
The pastor at the Methodist Church tried to make contact with the unusual family, but Gram just pushed by, but in a polite way. One summer evening during the first year of Gram’s residence, three village lads decided to follow Gram and the trio into the woods. But they only went so far when a giant spider-web-like net encircled them, and they couldn’t go another step. They had to retreat, which they did in a big hurry!
Tom, the postmaster’s son, known for his rogue ways and Saturday night snorts, decided one spring night on his way home from the Manor Tavern to investigate the mystery of Gram and her trio. When he came to the path in the woods that Gram usually took near the Gunpowder River, he quietly turned and began creeping along the stream edge.
That night was particularly beautiful. The air was warm and sweet. The owls were staging a hootenanny while the whip-poor-wills and mockingbirds added tweets and calls of their own. Stars seemed to be bursting out of the heavens and a slight breeze ruffled the leaves on the budding dogwood trees. Time seemed to vanish, and the world became a place of the moment – no more no less.
Peeking through the tangled vines, he saw a huge tree, a tree like he had never seen anywhere on the Manor. In the middle of the gigantic tree trunk was a red door.
As he rounded a sharp bend in the path, Tom stopped and stared straight ahead at a scene he knew he would never forget. Peeking through the tangled vines, he saw a huge tree, a tree like he had never seen anywhere on the Manor. In the middle of the gigantic tree trunk was a red door. To the right of the door was a gold-like rocking chair, and Gram was sitting in it surrounded by a small garden full of plants and flowers in all colors and sizes. Tom blinked. To the left, the pig and the cat were talking, having a chat just like regular folks, although the words were sometimes garbled with grunts and purrs.
Then, the most miraculous thing of all happened. The red door in the tree opened, and Jessie came dancing out. She was dressed head to toe in a diamond-like fabric that glowed and sparkled. Attached to her back were two incandescent wings. In her one hand, she held a long golden stem, like a wand, with a star at the end.
Suddenly Jessie spread out her wings and fluttered here and there, touching all the plants and flowers with her wand, and they obeyed by growing bigger and brighter. Gram, the pig, and the cat all clapped. Then she flew up into the starry night and then down, landing right in front of Tom. He gasped. She touched him with her wand, and he started running, right back to Monkton and right to the sheriff’s office.
Tom banged and banged on the door. Finally, Sheriff Finley, in his sleeping shirt, answered.
“Tom, what in the dickens do you want?” bellowed the sheriff, giving Tom a good once over. “Are you drunk?”
“Sheriff, I just saw something mighty strange in them woods,” Tom gulped. “I saw a dang giant tree, with a door, standing in the middle of the woodland near the Mill…the pig and the cat were conversing like they was first cousins,” he stammered, took a breath, and gulped again... “and then little Jessie, the old hag’s traveling companion, well, she just turned into a faerie doll all sparkly…and she flew like a bird, she was like a faerie frigin flying doll,” he whispered, as if Jessie might hear him and touch him again with her faerie wand.
“Tom, you are a nice lad when you are sober, but you are as crazy as a loon when you’ve had too much whiskey,” said the sheriff, taking Tom by the hand and leading him into the jail cell. “You just sleep here until morn.”
Tom lay down on the jail cot. He was feeling a bit tipsy. “Well, I am a tellin you one thing, Mr. Sheriff,” he cried out as Sheriff Finley turned out the light, “I will never forget what I saw tonight.” But he did, and the next morning he crawled home with a just vague recollection of a talking cat, but he never remembered Gram sitting under the giant tree or Jessie flittering about the flowers like a glittering faerie.
The years went by quickly and Gram, Jessie, the pig, and the cat became part of the scene in Monkton. When Gram limped by, the men would tip their hats and the women would call out “good morning, Miss Gram.” Most people didn’t call her the old hag anymore. Sometimes villagers would give the pig some carrots to eat or put out a bowl of milk for the cat.
In a year or two, Gram began bringing her lotions to other people in the village. When the miller’s wife complained of thinning hair, Gram gave her pink lotion to dump on her head one morning each week. Mrs. Jacob’s hair suddenly grew so thick and shiny that even the miller noticed and smiled. Then Gram gave the man who ran the Monkton Hotel a bottle of red lotion to rub over the splotches on his arm and the splotches vanished. When Jonny Finley, son of the sheriff, had a terrible ache in his stomach, she gave him a bottle of purple lotion and told him to rub his stomach with it and the ache disappeared.
Some villagers believed her to be a witch. Some didn’t. Some liked her; some tolerated her. Gram didn’t care one way or the other. She continued about her ways.
But Jessie, Jessie changed. Jessie grew up and grew up to be a beautiful young woman who was kind, and generous, and caring. When she danced down the road in Monkton, everyone marveled at her beauty and praised her for her humility and goodness in helping anyone who needed help. She would hang Widow Taylor’s wash to dry; rock the baby for Annie, the new mother; she would even help Jacob at the Mill on very busy days. Whatever she did, she did with grace and with a smile.
The boys in the village were all topsy turvy over her. They wanted to hold her hand, sneak a kiss, walk with her through the lanes of Monkton, serenade her with tunes, write her a poem. Jessie hardly noticed, but Gram did. Gram knew the time had come to talk to Jessie.
So one evening when Gram was sitting in her gold rocker and Jessie was flitting around with her wand, Gram motioned for her to come sit at her feet and listen.
“Jessie,” she said, “many years ago on a far-a-way isle called Taransay, near a land called Scotia, a great Faerie Queen found yer nestled among the rocks on the rugged seacoast. Yer were a foundling, but the great queen scooped yer up and brought yer to me. I was a witch, a good witch, and I were her favorite nursemaid. She said she was sending us to a new country, where we were to live in the woods and have a happy life.”
Jessie smiled. She had heard this part of the story before.
“Before she scurried us off for our great adventure, she touched yer with her great wand and made yer a fairy, and she touched me and the pig and the cat too and made us magic creatures with special magic tools. Jessie, we are not human folk like the village boys who flirt with yer and tease yer. We are faerie people. We are magic.”
Jessie smiled again. This was a new part of the story, but Jessie always thought that her family was magical. Now she knew it.
“Tis something yer must understand,” said Gram. “Yer older and very beautiful. Yer might want to live life as a human not a faerie. We will understand if yer do. I will tell the Faerie Queen. She will be sad, but not angry. I will be sad but not angry. But, remember if yer leave the faerie world of magic and beauty, yer can never come back. Once yer are a human, yer will always be a human. Yer will have no magic nor memory of me, or the pig or the cat or the faerie world.”
Jessie cried. “I will never leave you and pig and cat. I will always be true to the Faerie Queen.”
Gram looked at Jessie’s beautiful face. “We will see,” she whispered.
A few months later, Monkton was buzzing with news. Jack Merryman, the heir to Beautiful Bounty, had come home after six years from his studies in England. Jack was the favorite among the townspeople. When he left the village, he was sixteen – handsome, smart, loyal, brave. Now at twenty-two, he was older and wiser, but still handsome, smart, loyal, and brave. All the young girls in Monkton were rapturous over Jack. Every single one wanted to win him over and be his bride.
A few days after Jack returned to Monkton, Gram, Jessie, the pig, and the cat were delivering Jacob’s weekly bottle of lotion at the Mill, when they heard much noise and commotion outside. Looking out the window, they saw the villagers running toward Monkton Road. Gram said “no bother,” but the miller and Jessie were curious and wanted to see the excitement. The pig pushed open the door with his snout and lumbered outside. The cat jumped on the window ledge and peeked out.
Just as Jacob and Jessie reached the roadway, Jack Merryman came thundering down Monkton Road sitting astride a handsome grey stallion. He pulled up when he reached Manor Mill. For a few minutes he just sat there mesmerized, looking straight at Jessie. Dismounting, he walked toward her. Jessie felt her heart flutter – even faeries have hearts she thought, as did Gram watching from the window.
“You are Jessie, the little blond girl who danced behind the old hag,” he said, looking straight into Jessie’s eyes. “I think I am in love with you. I am in love with you.”
It happened so quickly that Gram wondered if Jessie had secretly cast a love spell over him.
Jessie blushed. Yes, faeries can also blush.
“Come with me to Beautiful Bounty and be my wife,” said Jack, carefully taking Jessie’s hand and kissing it tenderly.
Jessie trembled when he touched her. Her brain grew still. Her heart thundered.
She looked back at Gram standing at the door. She waved, as a tear streamed down her face. Gram waved back, and did something very strange for a witch, even a good witch, she threw Jessie a kiss.
“Yes,” said Jessie. “I will marry you.”
With that, Jack climbed on the stallion and hoisted Jessie up in front of him.
Jacob, the miller, was astonished.
Gram grabbed her sack of cornmeal, and the leash for the pig and the cat, said goodbye to Jacob, and disappeared down the path near the stream.
That afternoon Jessie and Jack were married by the pastor at the Methodist Church on the hill. The Merrymans were delighted when Jack arrived home with Jessie as his bride. They knew she was the beautiful and kind dancing girl from Monkton. They never asked where she came from or who her parents were, the questions rich families usually ask when their son announces he is married. And, they didn’t care. They loved Jessie immediately.
The next day, the miller threw Jessie and Jack a huge feast at Manor Mill for all the people of Monkton. Everyone came, even the young girls who wanted Jack for themselves. They were happy for Jessie. No one could be mad at Jessie.
Gram didn’t come to the feast. Gram was gone. The pig was gone. The cat was gone. The giant tree with the red door was gone. All that was left in a secret place in the woods was a messy garden of dying plants and flowers.
No one in Monkton asked why Gram, and the pig, and the cat were missing because no one in Monkton remembered them. Jacob, the miller, was astounded when every week a bottle of blue lotion appeared on his counter. He wondered why and how, but he felt the need to rub the lotion on his painful knees, and he did, and the pain disappeared.
Jessie didn’t remember being a faerie, but she often wondered about a gold wand topped with a star that she found one morning in the Bounty rose garden. A note was tied to the wand that read, “This wand has no magic. You make your own magic.” Jessie kept the wand always, tucked under a lacy blanket in her chifforobe. She didn’t tell Jack.
Years and years went by. Jessie and Jack had five handsome children and smiled at each other during breakfast and held hands in the moonlight. Jessie’s two little girls loved to dress up and play faeries on warm summer nights. Jessie often took the pony cart and her boys to visit Manor Mill. Jacob always gave her a sack of his finest cornmeal.
Jessie became the most beloved lady on the Manor for her good works and sweet nature. She found a stray black kitten, named it Cat, and Cat became her dearest pet, sitting on her lap at night and purring a cat song. Jessie felt so sad for all the lost and homeless kittens and cats on the Manor that she turned one of Bounty’s stables into a cat kennel. She had dozens of cats who earned their keep by clearing all the nasty rats out of Bounty’s barns.
Her strangest pet, at least to Jack and the Merryman family, was a pig that she named Herb. Herb was one of ten piglets born to Bounty’s prize sow. Sadly, Herb was the smallest of the litter and unable to suckle. Ben, the estate manager, was going to put her down when Jessie cried no.
She picked up the tiny piglet and took her to the estate house kitchen where she personally fed the piglet warm milk for weeks. As the piglet grew, she became more like a dog than a pig. Jessie named her Herb because she liked to root in the herb garden near the kitchen door. Herb was not popular with the Bounty cook.
The thing Jessie liked to do most, even when she became an old but beautiful lady, was to dance. Sometimes she would take her grandchildren’s hands - she had many grandchildren - and dance down Monkton Road. In the spring and summer, Jessie and Jack would often dance under the stars on the great lawn at Bounty. In the winter, they would waltz in Bounty’s great hall. In the fall, they would dance at the festivals. Jessie liked to dance the reel with her neighbors, especially Jacob and Sheriff Finley at the Monkton Fest.
All the Monkton villagers said Jessie was a lucky woman to have such a wonderful life. Everything seemed beautiful, almost magical. But we know Jessie lost her magic when she chose to be a human and love Jack forever. But did she really lose her magic?
Thousands of miles away, on the isle of Taransay, off the coast of Scotia, the Faerie Queen, Gram, the pig, and the cat gathered together often to reminisce about Jessie.
At the end of each meeting, the Faerie Queen would say she was glad she had left Jessie just a little bit of magic, which, she was sure, the villagers in Monkton called luck. The trio would all say, “Aye.’
Then the Faerie Queen, twirling her great golden wand in her hands, would smile and say, “Well, we know how to end this tale.” She would reach her magic wand into the blue sky and write: “Jessie and Jack lived happily ever after.”
“Faerie tales can come true, they can happen to you
If you’re young at heart”- Carolyn Leigh