The Handless Maiden

And The Delight of Truly Seeing Another

When you tell an old story, it’s never entirely, or even a little bit your own. My telling of this story has been heavily influenced by

Martin Shaw

‘s telling and by Clarissa Pinkola Estes book Women Who Run with the Wolves. I was inspired to wrestle with this story by the Magical Retelling exercises in

WITD: The School

with

Jeannine Ouellette

. And now on with the show…

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Beyond seven lands and seven seas, there lived a young maiden with silver hands. Her husband had commissioned them from the finest silversmith in the kingdom, so distraught was he when she plucked a ripe pear from the tree with the stumps at the ends of her arms. His distress merged with discomfort because he was unsure if she was unable, or simply unwilling to wipe the juice as it dripped from her chin. 

Her wildness, which had been utterly captivating when he first saw her relishing a pear in the orchard, had lost its luster as they settled into shared domesticity. Her wildness was downright unseemly as they entered discussions to produce an heir for his kingdom. The crows nesting in her hair, once delightful in their chatter and their gifts of shiny trinkets, now bore the king’s resentment as the new queen refused to cut her hair and clear out their nest so her crown could rest easily. 

Hardening into manhood within the castle walls, he couldn’t understand how her seven years in the forest had shaped her soul like water over a stone. He would never understand the forces that pushed her from her home and into the dark forest in the first place. That first night they met, under the full moon, casting deep, crooked shadows through the orchard, he saw a darkness in her eyes, a darkness that had become distant, but remained ever present. 

Had he possessed the words to ask, she would have told him of the hard times, the times that had pulled her father’s eyes away from the river that powered his mill, away from his daughter with her books. His eyes were cast toward the ground, only on the scraps of wood he gathered from the forest floor. When Old Scratch approached from behind his left shoulder and offered the miller everything he had ever wanted, he hadn’t truly seen his daughter in months, so when the Devil offered him limitless riches in exchange for what was under his apple tree, it seemed like a steal. 

When he returned home to a much larger, brighter, cleaner house than the one he left, to his wife in an emerald satin gown, he gazed out through the new, unnaturally smooth windows, into the backyard. They gazed upon the apple tree, and his darling only daughter under that tree. It was then he realized, in horror, the deal he had made. Two weeks later, the Devil came to claim his prize. Before his arrival, she bathed, put on a white gown, and stood inside a circle of white chalk she had drawn herself. Try as he might, Lucifer could not grab the girl. Each time he tried, he was thrown back. 

As he stormed off, he forbade the girl to bathe. When he returned two weeks later, her hair was matted, her cheeks smeared with dirt, the sickles of her fingernails had turned black. As the Devil crossed the threshold, her tears flowed and she couldn’t harness them. They flowed through her fingers and down her arms, cleaning her anew. Again, unable to take the maiden, and beside himself with rage, the Devil commanded the miller to chop off his daughter’s hands. The miller fully intended to defy him until the Devil intimated that if he did not fulfill their bargain that the Devil would lay waste to the entire village. His daughter sat down at the kitchen table, handed him his small silver axe, stretched out her arms, and said, “Do what you must.” 

Tsching. Tsching. It was done. 

When the Devil returned, he found a girl deep in grief, but not trapped in despair. Her tears had cleaned her stumps, and yet again, he was unable to grab her. At this point, the Devil looked at his sunk costs and vanished into the night. 

The maiden tried to stay. Truly, she did. And her parents tried to make amends, showering her in worldly goods with their newfound wealth, hosting banquets to distract and delight her, hiring a servant to act as a set of hands of her very own. But the betrayal ran too deep, it lingered, raw, even as her stumps fully healed. And finally, it was too much, and she set off on her own into the forest. She had no idea it would take her seven years to make her way back out again. She followed the dark paths through the forest over and over, with only the two crows, whom she fed tiny scraps of meat, as her companions. Then much to her surprise, for the first time in seven years, she saw the moon dappling through the leaves. She followed that brightness to the forest’s edge, when she saw them, dozens of pear trees, heavy in their ripeness. 

But he didn’t ask that night, nor any other. And though neither of them could resist the sweetness of pear juice and the moon’s pull toward love, it was a love of partial understanding, a love that basked in her beauty and her radiance, but could not hold her wildness and her wounds. As someone who had been gutted by the weakness of love in the past, for a long time this devoted, but partial love was enough. Soon, she found she was carrying a spark of life within her, lighting a path from the otherworld to this one for that tiny being to follow. 

The king and his mother doted on her. He rubbed healing oils and salves on her low back and feet. She brewed teas of nettle and red raspberry leaf for her newfound daughter. The queen mother listened to the story in her eyes, in her shoulders, in her footsteps. She understood the wild within the young woman in the way that only elder women can, with a depth beyond what the young woman understood of herself. 

Alas, as the young woman became heavy in her ripeness, the fullness of her belly starting to descend, there was an incursion at the edge of the kingdom. The king was forced to ride off with his warriors. Nearly a fortnight later, the young queen was surrounded by the wisest doulas and midwives. The queen mother stroked her hair back from her face. 

A messenger set off on the king’s fastest horse to bear the good news that his son was born. Along the path, a dark mist whispered in the messenger’s ear. When the messenger came upon the king, he said, “The queen bade me tell you of the birth of your son, Rufus, the dog-headed boy.” The king let out a barking laugh of surprise and delight. He told the messenger, “I must admit, the dog head has caught me off guard, but I am delighted! I will bring him the biggest bone I can find when I return.” 

After sharing a quick meal, the messenger galloped back toward the castle. Unfortunately, deep in the woods, the dark mist settled upon the messenger again. When he returned to the castle, he told of the king’s rage and his request that his wife’s heart be on a silver platter upon his return. His mother, appalled by his cruelty, bundled mother and babe in blankets and cloaks. She packed them a bag. She told the young queen, “I can’t guarantee your safety if you stay. Shelter in the forest. I’ll send for you once I know it is safe.” The queen mother called a huntsman to bring her a deer’s heart and clenched her jaw, steeling herself for her son’s return. 

Several weeks later, he rode in, leading his warriors. The queen mother met him at the gates, “Why does my wife not greet me? Where is she?” 

A servant brought forth the silver platter. He wailed, “Oh God, no! Why would you ever do this?” His mother explained the message she received and that she would not allow the queen and the child to live under such a threat. She was moved by the sincerity of his love for his wife. His delight in his son was so great that it did not substantially increase upon finding that, indeed, he was a human boy with a human head. 

She urged her son to search for them in the forest. However, you should know that traveling through the forest the second time is not the same as the first time. After only one night and one day, the young queen and her son came upon a longhouse filled with candlelight. An old woman with eyes the color of a muddy river and hair the color of birch bark opened the door as she lifted her silver hand to knock. The old woman smiled broadly and said, “We’ve been expecting you.” They embraced as if they were well known to each other. Her husband set off after them, but did not come upon a longhouse, or a cave, or any shelter. He wandered searching for them. 

The longhouse was filled with women of all sizes, shapes, ages, and colors. It didn’t take them long to see the young queen’s gift for tending growing things. Her young son’s feet did not touch the earth until he was nearly two, as he was ever passed from soft bosom to soft bosom. As he began to roam, he was never far from the garden, where his mother nudged seeds into soil, plucked dandelion and lamb’s quarters greens, dug up beets, and watered marigolds. 

A remarkable thing began to happen with her stumps in the dirt, day after day, month after month, year after year. Her hands, ever so slowly, grew back. As the years went by, they settled into joyous community with the women and a longhouse of men, located 8 furlongs to the east. They gathered for feast and conviviality, storytelling and nights of radiant contentment. 

Then one autumn night, under a moon so close you could grab it, the men of the longhouse invited the womenfolk to a feast. The women braided ribbons into the young queen’s hair. They dressed her in linen the color of fox fur. When they arrived, a fire jumped and played in the hearth, the smell of roasted meat twirled in the air, dancers and drummers gathered them in. 

As the women arrived, they laid pies and breads on the long table. Then the women nudged the young queen toward a deep green piece of silk, the color of shadowed oak leaves. They heard a slight commotion on the other side as the men shuffled around. The oldest man and the oldest woman held up the fine cloth and made brief speeches about the delight of truly seeing another. Then they lowered the cloth.

Though his beard was new and bore three strands of silver, she recognized him immediately. She saw that his soul too had been shaped like a stone under rough waters. She saw in him a new wildness that she fully understood. When their eyes met, they beheld each other in a dance of joy, understanding and belonging. When their hands met, they gathered their son, now a youth of 7 summers, into the embrace. They lived on in the longhouses together, joyfully, the man who lived seven years in the forest and the woman who had grown her hands back.

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In the tradition of oral storytelling, we often “feed” the story. We do this by reflecting upon where we find ourselves in the story or moments that particularly grab at us. I’d love to know where you are in the story these days.