Gather round for a tale about the seamstress and the serpent...
Once upon an old moon, a woman gave into temptation and peeked beneath the silver lid. She expected to see a decadent cake, a glass of brandy, or some other type of forbidden dessert, but instead, a white serpent lay dead, coiled atop the gleaming tray.
The woman was surprised, but more so, she was intrigued. Everyone who worked in the castle knew the king had strange tastes, and his nightly dessert, his secret nightly dessert, had been fueling the local gossip mills for years. And on that dark moon, after the woman finished repairing the queen’s curtains and adding more lace to her silken gowns, her curiosity carried her into the kitchen, where she snuck a bite of the forbidden delicacy.
The woman was no fool; she was a seamstress! A master of the needle, she could sew, she could weave, so moments later, when the whisperings began, she knew it wasn’t ghosts or haunts she heard, but the conversations of animals. The royal hounds’ suspicions bounced across the stone corridors, and chattering drifted in from the windowsills, where the rats and cats planned their nocturnal hijinks. Fascinated by her new talent, the woman replaced the silver lid and scampered off to bed.
But the following day, the woman awoke to a frantic king pounding on her door. The queen’s gold ring was missing, and unfortunately, the seamstress was the last person in her room. The woman professed her innocence, but the king would not hear it. He told her to produce the ring by the end of the day; otherwise, she’d be placed in shackles.
Horrified, the woman scoured each room, den, and hideaway. She searched the castle gardens and orchards and eventually ended up at the pond. Upon seeing her sadness, a duck approached to wallow in their shared sorrow. While she lamented over her poor luck, the duck cried about his terrible stomachache and remorse for having caused it himself.
“Yesterday, I saw a plate of shiny baubles on the queen’s windowsill and decided to borrow just one piece,” explained the duck, patting his swollen stomach. “But then I heard footsteps, panicked, and accidentally swallowed my favorite gold ring! Well, I suppose it was the queen’s gold ring, but either way, now, my stomach is in knots!”
The bird quacked in protest when the seamstress scooped him up. He tried to run away when outed as the jewelry thief and placed in front of the king. But when the royal chef appeared with a tray of salad and oats, the duck instantly coughed up the ring.
To right his wrong, the king apologized and offered the seamstress a gift – anything she’d like. Did she want to be a lady of the court? A princess? Would she like to spend the rest of her days lounging in the garden, living a life of leisure?
“I desire freedom,” the seamstress replied. “Along with a fast horse, a map, and a purse filled with gold coins.”
And so it was.
The woman had no destination. After the first few days, she discarded her map and began following the stars. She crossed mountains and valleys, and although humans were scarce, she still met many friends. The first was a family of fish who’d become trapped. Due to a tangle of tree branches and litter, they were barred from traveling downstream. Upon hearing their calls for help, the woman hopped off her horse and removed the rubbish. The fish cheered their heroine and gave her a promise:
“Because you saved us, we will remember you!”
The woman waved farewell and then steered her horse onto a well-worn path. Soon, complaints sprang from beneath down below – it was the bellowing of an ant king! Beneath the trail, his kingdom was being shaken to pieces by the horse’s mighty hooves. The seamstress guided the stallion onto a side path to ease the underground tremors, and the ant king promised:
“Because you saved us, we will remember you!”
Trotting along that smaller, overgrown trail, the woman came upon three crying ravens. They’d been kicked out of their parent’s nest and were too hungry and frightened to fly. The seamstress gave the birds a handful of seeds and offered them her dagger. She showed them how to dig to find worms and fend off enemies when in danger.
“Because you saved us, we will remember you!” the ravens promised.
The woman wandered further and further, making all sorts of furry and feathered friends along the way, but eventually, she desired roots. Around this time, she came upon a lovely village surrounded by tall, sturdy trees. There were plenty of people – blacksmiths, farmers, children, and as she listened to the happy murmurings of the animals, she decided this place would be her home. However, in a village as idyllic as this, properties were scarce and could only be acquired through a grueling competition.
And so it was.
First, the woman had to retrieve a silver ring from the bottom of the ocean. She battled the waves and searched the sea floor for nearly an hour with a dozen other contestants. Eventually, everyone except the seamstress gave up. As she stood on the shore, catching her breath and wondering how anyone could find something so small amidst the swirling tides, a fish arrived at her feet. It nudged a shell in her direction, and when she opened it, a silver ring sparkled in the light.
During the second part of the competition, a farmer showed the woman an available plot of land. There were fruit trees and fertile fields, one of which, a farmer scattered two sacks of millet seed. He told the woman to pick up every seed and refill the sacks by sunrise. But, try as she did, the earth was still littered with millet when day turned to night. Fortunately, the ant king had not forgotten his promise. Upon hearing her distress, he and his crew came running. They swiftly collected all the seeds and packed them away.
The royal family arrived to meet the traveler for the final stage of the competition. It had been a long time since someone had captured the silver ring, let alone secured all the seeds, so the final test would be more challenging.
The prince decided that if the woman longed to live in their village, she would need to find the Tree of Life and pluck fruit from its branches.
By this time, the woman had learned to trust in the unexpected, but as she searched the neighboring woods, knocking on oak trunks and whispering to the juniper saplings, she found no enchanted fruit. Eventually, she grew tired, and a giant, nameless tree offered a cozy nook to rest. She dozed until the stars came out, and three birds roused her with a song:
“Many moons ago, you delivered us from starving. Older and stronger, we remember you. And because we know what you seek, we voyaged across the sea and to the end of the earth, where the Tree of Life drops its fruit. There, we fetched all the apples we could carry.”
The woman opened her eyes and saw a trail of golden apples leading from the tree to her idyllic village! She hurried back to claim her home and the prince, the farmers, and all the villagers celebrated the traveler’s return. The curious woman, the seamstress, the heroine who knew the language of animals divided the apple of life into tiny slivers. She handed one piece to each neighbor. They promised, one day, to return the favor.
This fairy tale of the Seamstress and the Serpent was reimagined from the Brothers Grimm tale, The White Snake.
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