The Travelling Girl.

Long ago and far away, there lived a girl of the Travelling Folk.

Her people lived in the woods, and the glens, and had not a name between them. They lived free of care, and when they chose, could travel into a bird or a hare, and live wild, watching the Folk from afar.

The travelling girl loved to watch the Folk. Their ways; their lives; their villages. As a vixen, she would rob their store-rooms and their henhouses, and linger in their doorways, growing ever more curious. As a thrush, she would sing by their doors, bringing them luck and prosperity.

One day, when the blood was hot in her heart, she saw a young man of the Folk riding through the village. He was a fine young nobleman, and travelling into a hawk, she followed him to his castle. Then as a tabby cat, the girl followed into his bedroom, and watched him, purring, as he slept, and very soon, she was in love.

The others of the travelling folk tried to warn her that nothing good could come of this. But the girl was stubborn, and would not hear.

Travelling into a cat, or a dog, she sought the young man’s attention.

Travelling into a songbird, she awoke him at dawn every morning.

And then at last, in despair, she broke the most ancient rule of the travelling folk, and came to him one night as herself. Naked, soft and brown, she came to the young man as he slept, and gave herself to him, heart and soul, and finally was content.

The young man was bewitched and enthralled. For a month, he and the travelling girl were together every night. Every day, she came to him from the woods and the mountains, and told him the tales of her people.

“But what shall I call you?” he would say, for the travelling folk have no names.

“A named thing is a tamed thing,” she would reply, and soar into the sky as a lark, and come down laughing and filled with love.

“Very well, I shall name you,” he said, and whispered a secret name into her ear, so that the girl was tamed and kept to human form by the love of her man.

For a while, the girl did not care. But once the summer had run its course, she found her love growing distant. He started to miss their meetings in the woods and in the glen. And then, one day, she saw him with a girl in the village: a milk-white, blue-eyed, buttercup girl with not an ounce of wildness.

The travelling girl was stricken to the heart. But she could no longer travel now, or try to escape her sorrow.

And so she went to the oldest and wisest of the travelling folk: who lived as an ancient hawthorn tree at the edge of a fairy glen. And she begged for the return of her heart, and wept for the loss of her powers.

The ancient of the hawthorn tree took her time in responding.

Finally, she told the girl: “The only way is to take back your name, and to silence him forever. And then you must dance upon his grave nine times in the moonlight, and then your gifts will be returned, and you will be free.”

And so, the girl made a powerful charm, and bound it with silk and starlight.  With secret runes she sealed it, and carved it into a river-stone, and placed it under the pillow of her faithless lover.

And when he was dead and buried in the village graveyard, she danced on his grave in the moonlight, and travelled into a snowy owl, and flew away, screeching, into the night; and was never seen or named again – not by the Folk, or by anyone.

 

A Pocketful of Crows

I was the madcap Queen of May

Daughter of the wild, wild rose,

I was the hare, the fallow deer

Upon the heath, the flight of crows.

 

I was the child of summer’s day

I was the child of blackthorn spring

I was the child of autumn moon

I was the child of Winter King.

 

And you gave me a pocketful, a pocketful, a pocketful

A pocketful of promises, a crown of summer rose

And you gave me a pocketful, a pocketful, a pocketful

And you gave me a pocketful, a pocketful of crows

 

You were the son of noblemen

Your line, my love, was old and proud

You wore the crest of your father’s kin

You had a name, and you spoke it loud.

 

Mine was the colour of the dawn

Mine was the sound of falling snow

Mine was the dance of circling stars

A name that you could never know.

And you gave me a pocketful, a pocketful, a pocketful

A pocketful of promises, a crown of summer rose

And you gave me a pocketful, a pocketful, a pocketful

And you gave me a pocketful, a pocketful of crows.

 

And so you named and bound me fast

In love, you said, love that would last

As long as you drew breath, you said

A love as strong as Death, you said.

 

Your love it lasted till the rose

Had dropped its petals, one-by-one.

It lasted with the cuckoo’s song

It lasted almost summerlong.

 

And you gave me a pocketful, a pocketful, a pocketful

A pocketful of promises, a crown of summer rose

And you gave me a pocketful, a pocketful, a pocketful

And you gave me a pocketful, a pocketful of crows.

 

And then you found another girl

With hair like silk and skin like pearl

You gave her peaches, ripe and sweet

You laid your fortune at her feet.

 

And so I said: “Take back my name

Let me be wild and free once more.”

But I could not give back my name

Until the world was free of yours.

 

And so I took a pocketful, a pocketful, a pocketful

A pocketful of vengeance, a crown of thorn and rose

And I gave you a pocketful, a pocketful, a pocketful

And I gave you a pocketful, a pocketful of crows.

 

And then I danced upon the green

Around the winter hawthorn tree

And I became the Carrion Queen

Alive, and merciless, and free

 

And then I went into the sky

And in a snowy owl, I flew

And ate the hearts of faithless men

Of faithless men, my love, like you.

 

And I gave you a pocketful, a pocketful, a pocketful

And I gave you a pocketful, a pocketful of crows

And I gave you a pocketful, a pocketful, a pocketful

And I gave you a pocketful, a pocketful of crows.