This is one of my favorite kinds of stories—enchanted bride/groom without the bride/groom. The transforming power of non-romantic love is just so fantastic.
The Laidly Worm is an English fairy tale, collected by Joseph Jacobs. We open with a widowed king who has two children. These children are named Childe Wynd and Margaret. I’m gonna assume that each parent named one child here, because this looks like wildly different taste in names.
Childe Wynd, the oldest child, and the son, sets off to seek his fortune. Which, like, what fortune? Isn’t he the heir to the throne? That’s a built-in fortune; why is he seeking one elsewhere?
Of course, the real reason he’s off seeking his fortune is so that he’ll be safely out of the way for what happens next. Which is that his father remarries, and his new wife is, as is so often the case, a witch.
It’s all going well enough until someone comments on Margaret’s beauty, which, of course, her stepmother is deeply offended by.
She turns Margaret into a laidly worm, who can only be turned back by three kisses from her absent brother.
Which seems like a great way to guarantee your spell will be broken—I mean “get your brother to come kiss you” is a lot easier than “get someone to fall in love with you in your monstrous form” or “get someone to share a bed with you for a year without ever seeing your face” or any of the other, more traditional ways to break this kind of spell.
Margaret wakes up the next morning, in her bed, as a laidly worm. (Laidly, by the way, just means ugly. And we’re taking, like, serpent, not earthworm.)
Margaret’s maids all run away, and she slithers out of the palace, settling in at Spindleston Heugh.
At this point, Margaret begins terrorizing the countryside, devouring everything she comes across, and so the locals consult with a warlock. He figures out that the worm is really the princess—apparently this is news despite the worm being found in the princess’s bed—maybe they assumed it ate her? But how did they think it got into the palace in the first place without being seen?
Anyway, he tells them the enchanted princess is just hungry, and if they give her the milk of seven cows, she’ll be a good snake. Also, her brother can break the spell.
So. Margaret drinks a lot of milk, and just sort of hangs out, being a snake. I’m really impressed with the problem-solving here. Instead of rushing right to “kill the monster,” we took the time to figure out what was actually going on, and work out a peaceful solution. Margaret didn’t mean to hurt anyone; she was frightened and hungry and confused. And instead of fighting back, we’re feeding her.
Childe Wynd comes home. The stepmom sends some storms to sink his ships, but they can’t be sunk because they’re made of rowan wood. She sends Margaret to attack the ships when they reach shore, which is the first indication we’ve seen that she can control Margaret as Worm. Childe Wynd sails away again, and approaches from the other side. As soon as they’ve successfully landed, the stepmom loses all power over Margaret.
And this is where things get really weird. Because Child Wynd runs and Margaret, sword drawn.
Like, dude. You’re here to rescue her? It’s common knowledge in the community now that the worm is Margaret, and I get that you’ve been away a long time, but weren’t you briefed on the situation? I find it very unlikely that someone came to get you so you could save your sister, and failed to mention that she had been turned into a worm. Decapitation is not a standard rescue method.
Margaret is like, “wait, no, kiss me.”
Wynd hesitates.
Margaret says, ‘seriously, you gotta kiss me three times.” (But, like, in rhyme.)
He doesn’t actually question this, despite not seeming to know who she is. He kisses her three times. She turns back into his sister. They go to the castle, find the stepmom, and touch her with a rowan branch. This turns her into a toad. She hops away, Wynd becomes king—no word on what happened to his dad—and he and Margaret live happily ever after.
Allegedly, the toad is still hopping around in the neighborhood. So, like, be careful if you’re inclined to frog kissing. Don’t wanna unleash a witch.
No comments:
Post a Comment