The Milky Way

After many vicissitudes, the Tree Son and the Starwife are united, and they all frolic with the Godchild on Christmas day.

They then have the adventure of the pheasant and the fruit  and then adventures in cloud land with the donkey, the monkey, and the turkey cock, aided by their children.  The travelers then descend from the clouds to an autumn island and then to the autumn mainland.

As they traveled along that early fall coast, feasting every night, they came to a small harbor with seven ships with sails. Like everywhere else in that strange land, there were no people there. The Tree Son and the Starwife still longed for the winter land. They decided to set sail.

The Tree Son felt the wood of the ships. He knew their strengths and where they would fail, and was able to direct improvements and repairs. The Starwife had an unexpected gift for patching sails with neat stitching and later, when they were voyaging, for knowing which arrangement of sails to set for each wind and each course. “It is a pattern. It is a dance,” she explained. Foresight was their watchman and their navigator. When he took a course by examining the rising of the stars, his mother was filled with delight. Hear-and-Speak listened to the winds and knew when they were going to change. Thingmaker taught them how the ropes and pulleys and capstans and other contrivances worked, and made more. Lifter-Upper was very valuable with the hoisting and lowering of the sails. Friend patiently listened while a thousand and one problems were talked through and solved with Friend as a sounding board. Leave None Out found roles for the various birds, and to everyone’s surprise the donkey, the monkey, and the turkey cock. Work Together for Good made a watch roster, and set the bugle birds to calling the hours and the changes of watch.

Their little fleet set out on its great adventure. As wonderful as it had been to play in the white and pearl grey and black contours of cloud land, and as gorgeous as the autumn land had been, their time on the sea was perhaps the greatest adventure of all. Their white sails spread like swans—the ever crisper winds of deepening fall the further they went—cresting the roaring waves with the ropes singing—sunrise and sunset—discovering unknown islands never before seen by any speaking creature, with towering mountains, waterfalls, cliffs—they found lost treasures and ancient ruins—they saw stars that no one but the Starwife had ever seen. They sang songs and shanties.

They were rosy cheeked. The bird’s feathers shone. Every day the winds grew a bit crisper. Every night it became more certain that the for a few second or even minutes at midnight the dumb beasts, the donkey, the monkey, and the turkey cock, turned into men.

At last they saw a far off the winter land, or at least the coast of the country where the winter land lay. They saw a little city with its gleaming lights. The moon made a trail over the water to it. But when they tried to sail their little white-sailed fleet that way, a great storm rose up and drove them back. They tried again, with the same result. And the cold was beginning to be bitter now. There was ice on the ropes.

They were driven back to an island of spruce and pine and meadows of the tall, dying grass of late autumn they had not been on before. They found there little stone houses, low to the ground, and little stone barns where eight wizened little women milked little cows. With nothing better to do, they helped the women haul in hay from the meadows of that place and they shared their bounty with a great feast. When they were done, the little women said they had a gift to offer the travelers. They brought out barrels and barrels and commenced to milk and pour the milk into the barrels again and again until all were full. The group of friends and family did not know what to do with such a thing but the Tree Son and the Starwife saw the kindly intent behind the gift and with emotion they thanked the women.

When they did, the women began to caper and sing in this way.

Gratitude’s the attitude that unlocks this mouth

we will sing to you a secret none else know north or south

When you see the moon laying out a path

pour our milk upon it, then hurry down it fast

The travelers set sail instantly. When they came for the third time within sight of that shore, the rising moon laid out a path again. They poured out the barrels of milk upon it. The milk spread out on the path but no further. The path no longer seemed to toss in the waves. Finally the golden pheasant flew out to it and stood on it. “Solid,” he said.

They left their ships their in that ocean and walked out onto the moon path towards that city and that shore. At first they moved slowly, wondering, until they remembered the song of the little women. But even so, the donkey and his two dumb companions proved recalcitrant and lingered behind no matter how they were urged and tugged, and when everyone else was safe on the shore they were still yards away when the path turned back to water. A bedraggled donkey pulled his way up the beach with a soaking monkey and a drooping turkey cock on his back.

Thanks for reading.  My goal is to update these every day through Christmas until Twelfth Night.  I have three to four mor episodes to post over the next couple of days with the concluding episode on January 6, Kings’ Day.  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