Myrna, The Glowing Child, and The Sleeping Fairies

In the Village of Rheadon, ruled over by a benevolent king and queen, lived a woman called Myrna. She bore a very unusual child. This child was so unusual that Myrna's belly glowed with the light of him or her. This was to the wonder of the whole village and even the king and queen, who, upon hearing of it came to visit her in her humble apartment at the very top of a creaky, rundown, old house. 

The village and the king and queen knew of the wonder of this woman's child, but they did not know of her own deprivation. Myrna was very sick and even worried that she might die of whatever the illness was: one that she had borne ever since her child had begun to grow in her womb. She persevered, however, bearing the illness although it was, objectively, quite unbearable. In addition to this, she struggled with her own anger for she had not intended the child and now it felt that she had no choice in the matter. Since she had to bear such pains and tribulations, shouldn't it at least be for the sake of a child she had intended? How could she even be called brave for what she did? These thoughts tormented her and she had trouble finding anyone to clear the cobwebs of them away. 

Though Myrna tried to withstand it all with impressive strength and resilience, she felt over time that the sickness really was too much to bear, and without any hope of further support from anyone, for there was no one in the village who could heal her sickness nor did she have money to pay for good treatments, she became desperate for a way out of her dire circumstances.

First, she resolved she would beg the good king and queen for support, for they had agreed to help her if she came to their gates wishing to be helped (her pride had stopped her from doing this at the outset of her struggles). She traveled across forests and rivers, helped along the way by some kindly fairies she knew (she was, in fact, a special friend of the fairies for humans often do not take interest in them and this magnifies their magnanimity with those, like Myrna, who do) who lived in those parts between the castle and the village, but when she reached the castle doors she was denied entrance. The Castle's manager felt she was unworthy to enter because of her "scandalous past", as he called it. 

Destitute and weak beyond measure, she wandered aimlessly, not knowing which direction she was taking and to what strange places she could be headed. As she wandered her heart became aimless too, and without anyone to support her she lost her once strong resolve.

Soon enough, however, she came across a kindly traveler, who, seeing how wretched and sad she looked, sat her down on the edge of the road. He gave her some refreshment from his meager rations and questioned her about how she had come to be in such a terrible state. Seeing how desperate her appearance was, he did not even notice the most unique aspect of the whole circumstance: the beautiful glow of her belly. Once they had sat down, Myrna found herself revealing a great deal, and the traveler, upon hearing of her need, told her he had passed a place that was known for helping women in her kind of situation no matter their background and despite any factor at all, and that he would gladly guide her back that way. Myrna smiled and resolved, with her last bit of strength, to travel to this place. 

They didn't walk long before they came upon it: a curiously large cottage without any doors but merely an archway as its means of entrance. When they reached the archway, the traveler left Myrna there to be be taken care of by those who ran the cottage because he was hurrying home to feed his four children; they had gone without food for at least two days already. Myrna thanked him with grateful tears and bid him well. 

As she walked timidly through the archway, she was greeted by a woman who looked at her seriously. This woman did not notice the glow of Myrna's belly either, for she too found herself preoccupied with Myrna’s desperate eyes and appearance. She gave her some water and soup, sat her down on a plain, cushioned bench, and ran to fetch her associate, her sister. The two women determined that Myrna might die soon if something was not done quickly. She begged them to do anything they could to rid her of her illness, but soon enough it became clear to all three that perhaps the only way to take it away was to rid her of its source, her pregnancy. Desperate, with her mind and heart muddled by sickness and distress, she agreed that this was perhaps the only way.

Finally, for it was quite overdue, Myrna fell into a deep sleep. Realizing this was the perfect time to execute the procedure, the two women performed their skillful work until her belly had lost that which glowed inside it.

Myrna woke to feel a good deal better, but, to the sisters’ surprise, she began to be sick again. The sickness this time was different: it was much darker, and though she seemed more capable of going about her daily chores or writing and reading, her rosy face and lovely eyes were growing dim. She would sometimes sit on the bench in the drawing room for hours without moving, staring at the wall with a blank expression. Though her face no longer grimaced with aches and stinging pains, she found she did not want to smile at the birds who sang by the window or talk to the fairies who sometimes paid her a visit when she took her walks outside. The fairies asked if she might travel to the fairy grove. This was a place where the baby-fairies lay in waiting, wrapped in beautiful cocoons and nurtured by the oak trees. The fairies trusted Myrna to look after the little ones at this time when hunters might come to the forest looking for game. Myrna told them to ask someone else, and they smiled at her, gave her some enchanted flowers for healing heart-aches, and reluctantly flew away on the warm breeze.

The enchanted flowers eased some pain for a little, perhaps only because they were a gift of genuine care, but they died too quickly in that house. It was as though they could feel death itself.

At that very same time, the queen had somehow come to hear that the 'woman with the unusual belly-glow' had been denied entrance at the castle. Angry and determined, she told off the manager, inquired at the village, around the kingdom, and anywhere she thought well-advised as to where Myrna might be. Soon enough she came across that very same traveler--who had helped Myrna to the cottage a few weeks before--sitting with his children in his cabin at the edge of the forest. He respectfully obliged the queen's behest but warned her that "it was quite a different sort of place", as he put it.

Guided by the traveler's directions, the queen found her way to the cottage and requested she might come in. The two women obliged her, with a little hesitation, for they worried about what she might think of them. The queen found Myrna doing her daily chores with a blank, eerie expression. Immediately she noticed the glow of her belly was gone, and, being a very perceptive, intuitive queen, that her eyes had lost their light and her skin grown pale. The queen questioned her and discovered what had happened.

The two women told the queen they did not know how to heal Myrna of her current sickness, or why it had come about. The queen told them this was because her sickness was a good deal more serious than before, and though its healing would be a simple matter it would not be an easy one. With a pang of deep sadness, the queen told the women she would take Myrna back to the castle with her and see if something could be done. 

As they traveled back Myrna did not say a word, though the queen tried to speak to her. The king, upon hearing that the queen was returning, ran out to meet the two women. His face was filled with pity upon seeing Myrna looking so unlike herself, for he too was sharp. Myrna looked into his eyes at that very moment and saw a light in his eyes fade for a moment.

The king walked straight by her in the direction of the forest. He was gone for a good long time but finally returned at twilight, while Myrna and the Queen ate supper.

When the king walked into the room, Myrna was in the middle of asking the queen why their supper had no taste. The king, with a somber expression, told them that the food had a taste but that Myrna could not taste it because such was the nature of her illness. He slowly pulled out a chair next to Myrna, sitting quite close to her.

The king had gone to visit the west part of the forest. Myrna was surprised at this because the west side was known for harboring a dangerous wolf-pack and no one ventured there except in urgency or desperation. He had gone there for reasons he did not reveal to her.

Perhaps part of it had to do with his son. You see, the King had unique powers, granted him by the fairies. He was able to see the future, not a fixed future but a future that could be, and because of this, he had seen a vision of his son's death as taking place in that West part of the forest. He had also seen visions of Myrna's boy, grown-up, playing with his own child by the castle each afternoon of a summer that was to come. When Myrna came, the vision of the glowing boy playing began to fade out like a shadow in the light. 

"Your son loved my son, and they  played with the fairies."

At this her tongue was caught, so he continued.  

"Your son had golden hair. He hated the rain and loved the sunlight," the king got up from the table and strode through the door.

Myrna was quite lost at this point. She did not understand then why the king spoke so.

The queen followed the king, leaving Myrna to herself. "I am troubled," he said, as they both ventured into one of the many rooms of the vast castle-interior, "for Myrna will not heal for a long while. The more she speaks to those she knows and is allowed to weep, she will begin to heal. But I fear the village folk will not be conducive to this."

You see, the village people prided themselves in not being a judgemental society, so much so that they had no opinion on the choices of others or at least, they kept it to themselves. 

After that time, when Myrna returned to the village, she felt relieved: the first thing everyone did was assure her they were the last people who would judge her for the rumors that had circulated about the community. These were kind words, at least, externally, but they were only words. It was not love by which the people said these things to her because they did not understand their own meaning or why they said them. This was the worst thing that could have happened, for Myrna, finding she could not really speak about what had happened because no one attempted to show they understood the gravity of it, was not getting cured of her sickness.  

Soon, however, an event occurred that would change the course of the history of that small kingdom, and causing this story to take a very different turn. 

In the middle of the forest, the sacred part of it, live the fairies, who have been mentioned once before in this story. The fairies are a different kind of folk, for, despite the fact that they are small and have glowing wings, they also have a strange way of maturing into adulthood. For most of their life, they lie asleep in trees, curled up into a ball, sipping sap from the trees while they are in their long, deep slumber. Then, they wake up all a sudden, screaming and flittering about until they grow used to the world. They spend their last thirty years being the sort of fairies one thinks of. However, because they perceive time differently, their thirty years feels like a whole lifetime. The fairies are not very important to humans as has been said, but they do for them plenty of good deeds behind their backs. It is only the human mothers who know about the fairies graces and who watch over the cocoons, besides the king who knows them well and helps the woman who visit the grove to stop the hunters.

There were more fairies in a sleeping state so Myra decided one day to go to the fairy grove that was near the village. When Myrna reached the sacred inner-forest, she heard the excited voices of a group of hunters. She saw one through the trees, and she recognized him as one who used to protect the whole forest from wolves but had retired out of the blue. It was rumored his leg has become diseased and he feared his own incompetence. Suddenly she felt a zing by her ear for an arrow had flown right by her head, landing in a tree. Myrna shouted for the hunters to stop shooting but more arrows came like a rain-shower through the sacred grove. They spoke loudly to each other, infatuated with their own skills, and the sound of their voices drowned at Myrna’s. She cowered on the ground until the onslaught of arrows had finally stopped, but rose to a terrible sight. The arrows had pierced the beautiful fairies who slept in the trees, and as she walked she saw them below her strewn about the grassy forest floor. As Myrna went to pick one up in her hand, she bent down and wept and wept. 

However, as she wept she thought she heard a very small voice. She stopped weeping and realized it was coming from the little fairy in her hand, who was, to her surprise, quite alive. He was the only one who had been left alive out of all the fairies in the grove. As she bent her head nearer to his she could hear him say very softly, "Why are you crying when they are going to a much better place?" She turned to look into the fairy's little face and knew it immediately. It was hard to say how she knew it, perhaps because she was a mother, for it was the face of her little glowing child. "Do not weep, I am in a much better place too," he spoke again, looking in her eyes. 

Myrna and her son talked together, and then, when the sun was going down, buried the little sleeping ones beneath the flowers of a grove nearby. When the day turned to night, the glowing fairy, as he shall be called from now on, flew out of the grove and told his mother to follow him. As they traveled through the dark, cold forest, Myrna thought she saw a pair of glowing, red eyes moving in the darkness far to her left. They were almost out of the forest when Myrna heard a boy scream. "It is the king's son," said the glowing fairy. Myrna found what little strength was left and ran faster until she could barely see a boy somewhere beyond and hear the snarling and barks of at least two ferocious creatures. Myrna suddenly found herself outside the coverage of trees and could clearly see six wolves in a perfect circle around a barefoot prince. 

One of the hunters emerged from behind a great tree on a white, shooting arrow after arrow in the direction of the wolves.

Myrna screamed at him and her voice seemed to grow to an unnatural booming volume,

“Stop, my son is there do not hurt him! And the king’s own son stands amidst the wolves!”

“What do you mean, strange woman? I see no one!”

“Stand by me.”

The man looked frightened of the power of her voice and did what she said. He descended from the horse and limped over to her side, for indeed this was the man whose leg had been diseased. Some of the wolves turned towards Myrna and the man and came at them, but the hunter shot them dead with this dexterous hands. 

The other wolves had been distracted by Myrna's voice and now the death of the other wolves. They split themselves into two offenses, some running at Myrna and others at the prince. It was at this very moment that all parties were struck almost blind from an eruption of light. Myrna could hear the wolves whimpering, and when the light began to dim, she saw them slinking back into the trees in fear. Myrna was not afraid for the light was familiar to her, and soon enough she saw, as it dimmed to normal size, that at its center was the glowing fairy who was floating by the ear of the king's son. 

All four returned to the castle to the awe and joy of the king and queen, who were as happy to see the glowing fairy as they were to see their own child safe and sound and to discover that the future was not as simple as it had once seemed. The king’s son had gone looking for his father who he thought had not returned from the forest the night before.

Myrna spoke to the king and queen of the hunters’ ravages of the forest. The man with the diseased leg was willing to answer for himself, for it was outlawed to hunt in that part of the forest though he had not known why. The queen relinquished him on condition that he and the other men become guardians against the wolves and not hunters of the innocent. The man kneeled at Myrna’s feet and begged she might one day forgive him. Myrna did begin to forgive him for she understood his deep remorse. They parted with an embrace.

As one can imagine, Myrna's sickness began to disappear almost completely, and she and her son traveled to a far off land where there was a renowned fairy-grove, at the center of a beautiful forest that did not have wolves in it, and was visited often by humans.