WHY FAERIES ARE UNABLE TO LEAVE MORTAL MEN BE
A Flemish Folktale
Translated and retold by Sandra Dermark
21st of July, MMXVIII
In a village not far from a vast heathland, once upon a time, a girl-child was born. Her parents christened her Mieke. Everyone who crossed her path was left staring at her. And little Mieke never wasted a chance to contemplate herself. She never smiled at her mother, but only at her own reflection, just as it was mirrored in her mother's eyes. There was no mirror, pond, or windowpane where she passed by without becoming self-absorbed and losing track of time.
And everyone told her:
"Beware, Mieke, you will spend your beauty with so much staring at yourself!"
It was not until Mieke became a woman, and the village schoolteacher, that her ego finally went to her head for sure. When her mother asked her to sweep the chicken coop, she pointed at her clean dress and winced in disgust. When her grandmother asked her to fetch water from the village pump, she pretended, with most convincing performance, that she had sprained her foot. She always found some young man ready to carry out the chores that were actually her own responsibility. And, as soon as the lad du jour was finished with her work, Mieke sent him away.
She insulted every man who dared to whistle at her:
"Go whistle at your goat!"
She mocked every man who invited her to attend the local fête with him.
"Kisses in exchange for sweets? But who do you think I am?"
She criticized, from crown to toe, every one who insisted on taking her to the fête.
However, the lads in that heathland village were more stubborn than the most persistent weeds, thornier than any blackberry bush, and stickier than the sundew plants. They were not the kind to give up that easily. However, as soon as they heard Mieke's critiques, they all felt as worthless as worms.
Mieke was more fastidious than a butterfly who tastes a thousand flowers before beginning to drink the nectar in earnest. She spurned, one by one, all of her suitors.
"Given how lovely you are, such a rarity, and that there is no way at all that you should get married," her parents sighed. "Beware, my daughter; life gallops far faster than any racehorse. What keeps us warm are kisses of flesh and blood."
But Mieke stuck out her tongue and did exactly as she pleased.
Mieke's female friends were all delighted: they let themselves be hugged and kissed, tried their hand at two or three suitors, picked the one they found most convenient, and married him. Mieke, however, was unable to decide.
The baker's boy was the one who insisted the most, in spite of Mieke's jeers at him:
"Crookteeth, squinteyes, bonehead...!"
One day, a terrible epidemic broke out. No one was safe. Not even the young people.
While Mieke kept rest in her bed, the baker's boy kept on bringing heather blossoms to her. And when the maiden breathed her last, the lad had grown weary of mourning her, his squinting eyes and the face on his bony head all swimming in tears.
"Oh, Death, what have you done?!" Mieke's grandmother sobbed. "Why have you not come to take me instead? I have lived throuugh everything: kisses, caresses, pregnancies, childbirths, nursing, menopause... Why have you taken away a young maiden whose life was in full bloom? A girl who had never tasted love?"
Mieke's mother and grandmother opened the wardrobe and took out the clothes both of them had worn at their respective weddings: a gown, a veil, a petticoat, a corset, stockings, and low shoes, all of them snowy white. They washed the lovely form clean and dressed her.
"You shall be buried as a young bride."
They both repeated what they had been told on the wedding day:
"The wedding night has to be discovered, layer by layer."
Everyone who came to take their leave of Mieke was left speechless. There she was, the most beautiful bride of them all. The sobs and sighs kept on echoing for hours:
"Poor girl! What a pity!"
The baker's boy kissed Mieke's cold lips, and crowned her hair with a wreath of heather blossoms.
When night fell, and the women at the wake in the church had all fallen fast asleep, Mieke received a visit from some female strangers.
There entered, fluttering, twelve white damosels.
"Come with us, pretty sweetling! Take off your wedding gown, but keep your petticoats on. That is all that a cajoling faery needs..."
Out of the lifeless form's mouth came, with a flutter, a tiny white damosel in petticoats. In the company of the other twelve white damosels, she left the chapel, where the candles burned bright, and flew over the village, out towards the heath. They all landed in some clumps of furze on the shores of a little lake.
"At the crack of dawn, we go to bed," the white damosels explained, "but, in the nighttime, we take to the skies. We will teach you how to flutter by and cajole with mortal men, until they are driven to madness!"
The very next night, the novice cajoling faery accompanied her seniors. As soon as Mieke had learned all the somersaults, songs, and dance steps, they all flocked heading towards the pathway that crossed the heath. Not long thereafter, they heard voices, deep male voices and laughter.
No sooner had she recognised the voice of the baker's boy that Mieke flew towards him. The stripling had five or six beers under his belt. He was as drunk as a newt, yet to that detail Mieke paid no heed, and neither did she care about his crooked teeth, his squinting eyes, or his bony head.
The baker's boy could not believe his eyes.
"How luvly... But she ish the shpidding image of...!"
Mieke descended, twirling pirouettes, and remained fluttering around the lad, who was dying of eagerness.
"Lemme touchya... Gotya!"
However, his fingers could not grasp anything but thin air.
Mieke headed towards the lake. The baker's boy followed her, running as fast as he could. He waded into the waters, drenched up to his thighs. When Mieke pulled his hair, he turned to stone. When she pulled his ears, stradding his shoulders, he let himself be carried away. "Ride a horse to Banbury Cross...!"
After much cajoling, Mieke led him back onto the pathway.
"Promise me that tomorrow we will see each other again..." the stripling pleaded.
The other cajoling fairies, however, tore Mieke along with them.
"The sun is rising. We must leave. Tomorrow I shall return..."
When the baker's boy reached the village, he was exhausted.
"How pale you are! What's wrong with you? It looks as if you've seen a ghost...! To bed, and say what's going on..." the baker reacted with concern.
"A ghost you say? A ghost maybe... She looked just like a ghost to me... One moment there, then she was gone...!" sighed his son. "I have seen a damosel in a white petticoat... How gracefully she fluttered! What a rarity she was!"
The baker sighed. "Couldn't you hear any music?"
The lad nodded, and instantly he fell asleep.
The baker swaddled his son in the covers. He had himself, as a young man, let himself be carried away more than once by those cajoling faeries.
Who could chide them in their face for coming to seek, time after time, what they had been missing throughout their human lives?
"Life gallops far faster than any racehorse," said the baker, huddling up close against his wife in their marital bed. "What keeps us warm are kisses of flesh and blood."
