9 April 2001
For no particular reason, I was thinking this morning about the fairy tale I read as a child in which a man falls in love with the Devil's youngest daughter.
For those of you unfamiliar with the story (and please remember that I'm probably leaving out several things because I'm trying to remember this from the last time I read it something like fifteen years ago) the girl tells the man he must ask the Devil for her hand, and that he will recognize her when he next sees her by the iron ring on her finger. And then she disappears.
So the man goes to the Devil and demands to marry his daughter. The Devil says that if the man truly loves her, he'd be able to recognize any small part of her, and shows him three fingers poking through a hole in the wall - one wearing a gold ring, one silver, and one iron. The man picks the iron-ringed finger, and the Devil has conniptions for a while.
Then he tells the man that he can have the girl if he can get out of Hell with her. The girl tells him to hold fast to her, no matter what. The man obeys, even though the girl is turned into all manner of strange and terrifying and slippery beasts. Eventually, he gets out of Hell, and the girl is free to marry him.
At least, that's how the version I read went. I'm sure there are other versions. I've seen variations in which the man doesn't just hold on to the girl, but changes into other beasts to catch her. And variations where he lets go, at the last, and thus dooms his soul to Hell.
Now, when I was younger, what impressed me was the finger test. Granted, he'd had help, and I always wondered how he'd have chosen if she hadn't given him that vital hint. But the idea of the test stayed with me. If I was shown just a single body part, would I be able to pick out the man I loved from the others? It affected me so strongly that from time to time, I still find myself memorizing small features like moles and freckles. Just in case, you know.
Once upon a time, fairy tales weren't for children. They were the medieval equivalent of the R-rated movie - often bloody, often sexually charged, and frequently ending with something less joyful than "happily-ever-after." Sometimes, if you read carefully, you can tell where pieces have been cut out, like looking at old and faded scar tissue.
What does "The Devil's Daughter" say to me now? It's a cautionary and advisory tale. To get the woman you want, you've got to be willing to sacrifice something else. To keep her, you've got to be willing to put up with her changeable moods. Both themes, by the way, are echoed again and again in fairy tales.
You might get a different theme from it. But that's all right. Like all good art forms, fairy tales can bear to be examined from many different directions, and can support many different ideas.
And that - for no apparent reason - is what was going through my mind this morning.
Matt, poor thing, had to work this weekend. He worked over ten hours on Saturday, and another couple of hours on Sunday. Saturday evening, I arranged to meet K.T. and Kevin for dinner, after which I planned to meet up with Kris for the ice cream I owe her.
I was to meet K.T. and Kevin (and Joel) at Don Pablo's after they'd gone to the movies to see Spy Kids, which I am vastly uninterested in seeing. I decided to go early, so I could spend some time poking around in the Barnes and Noble across the parking lot, and then get our party on the waiting list before everyone showed up.
Which I did. I bought a few books, stopped at my car to drop off one that was a little unweildy, and then went to the restaurant, only to find out that there wasn't a waiting list. So I sat outside for a while. I called Kris on my cell phone and chatted with her for fifteen minutes or so. Eventually, it got too chilly to sit outside, and I went in to read and wait. Eventually, K.T. and Kevin and Joel arrived, and we had a very nice dinner, with one of the best waitresses I've ever had there.
As we got up to go, I patted my pockets. No keys. I looked under my chair. No keys. I looked in my purse. No keys. I looked in my purse again. No keys. I asked the hostess if anyone had turned any keys in. No keys. I checked under the bench where I'd sat to read. No keys. I looked under the bench outside. No keys. I walked out to the parking lot, looking carefully at the ground. No keys. I looked into my car... Keys. Right there under the parking brake, where I suppose I'd put them down while I re-tied my shoes.
Well. Right up to that point, I'd been verging on panic. I hate losing my keys. But now that I knew where they were, I felt much better, if still a bit sheepish at having locked them in my car. I knew where they were. Matt has a spare key to my car - at the very worst, I'd have to wait until he got out of work and could come let me into the car.
But K.T. and Kevin offered to drive me up to Matt's office so I could get the spare key from him, and so I didn't have to wait that long. (Which is good, since it turned out that Matt was at work until 1:30 in the morning.) Let's have a rousing cheer for K.T. and Kevin! Hurrah for friends! ("No problem," they said when I thanked them. "That's what friends are for!" "Yes," I answered, "but that doesn't mean I shouldn't be grateful.")
The weather was so gorgeous and warm this weekend that I went ahead and planted my garden. Two squash vines (the least healthy of which will be removed in a month or so), three cucumber vines (one or two of which will be kept), and three tomato plants (all of which I hope to keep). And a bunch of carrot seeds around the edges of the bed.
I don't have a lot of hope for the carrots; our ground is very hard-packed, once you get down beyond a few inches, and even the softer top layers are fairly rocky. But the best way to eventually soften the ground is to wear it down over several years. So even if we don't get a good crop of carrots this year, it'll help to turn the plants under in the fall.
Of course, now that I've planted, the weather's about to turn cold. Not that I'm overly concerned about that, either. If everything dies, I'll just have to wait until about mid-May, and then I'll go to a nursery and buy some bigger, sturdier seedlings. No sweat.
I will have my tomatoes. Oh, yes.
Word of the Day:
temporize - to act to suit the time or occasion, compromise; to draw out discussion or negotiation to gain time
Currently Reading:
- Soldiers Live by Glen Cook
Current Projects:
- Kris' afghan
- garden