He Comes Out to Play

The Tree Son falls in love with the Starmaiden.

But the Father of Trees was angry, and cursed the Tree Son to become a tree.

The Father of Trees repented of what he had done, but when he undid the curse, the Tree Son was still mostly in the form of a tree.

To finish breaking the curse, he retrieves a key from an ogre’s den, a lock from dwarfs, and a door from his own father.  He becomes a man.

The Starmaiden leaves the changeless heavens behind and falls to earth.  Tree Son, Starmaiden, and all the creatures of the forest sing together.

The voices in the forest disturbed the ogre, and he awoke. His name was Ogredak, he as as big as a giant, and he hated the song he heard.

He climbed up out of his pit and roared like this:

Tree Son and Starmaiden I will slay

as sure as night is night and never day

Let them call and let them pray

God will not come out play

Tree Son and Starwife (as we must now call her) heard the roaring. Little creatures of the winter forest soon told them what was afoot. They fled.

The starwoman had fell in the morning. All that day they fled. They fled through the forest. They fled through the icy waste. They fled to the far barren mountains of stone and snow.

On came Ogredak booming and roaring, but though he was as big as a giant the Starwife was living glass with flesh of the fluid of light, and the Tree Son was a man of ice and fire and gratitude. So the more he chased them, the more they ran, and all that day he did not catch them.

When they came to the barren mountains in the afternoon, the Starwife asked, “what shall we do?” The Tree Son said, “drink the blood of the mountains, and bathe in it.”

On they ran until just as the sun was setting, they came to the top of the highest mountain. There was a pool full of the burning blood of the mountain. They drank, and they bathed.

When they came out they were giants. In no wise smaller or less strong or fierce than the Ogredak.

But they didn’t have the use of their strength. Even when they tried to walk they flopped, or stumbled, or leaped unexpectedly high into the air and fell down on the stone.

The Ogredak boomed, O ho ho.

Tree Son and Starmaiden I will slay

as sure as night is night and never day

Let them call and let them pray

God will not come out play

The sun was setting.

When the sun set, a miracle happened. It did not become dark. The blazing shell of the starwoman hung in the sky, as bright as day.

When she saw this, the Starwife took heart and sang,

Surely Ogredak will have to flee

Tree Son and Starwife will be free

Heed my call and hear me pray

God, please come out to play

When she did, the second miracle happened. God the Godchild came out to play. Neither the Starwife, with all her knowledge of the heavens; nor the Tree Son, who knew life and stone; nor the Ogredak with his cunning beyond cunning from time out of mind, knew or suspected that such a thing was possible.

But it was. The Godchild saw the new giants flopping by the pool and the starshell blazing in the sky and laughed and came out to play. The Ogredak, he fled away.

But when the Godchild came, many things changed.

Thanks for reading.  My goal is to update these every day through Christmas until Twelfth Night.  I will try to include  links so you can follow, but if not please  use the Christmas Fairytale tag at the end of this post.  You can also use the Merry Christmas page on the header bar above to find other writing that celebrates Christmas