Prior story.

When they opened the midnight gate, all the travelers and all the town rushed in, bringing with them all their foods and decorations and presents.

The Tree Son was beside himself with joy. It was his familiar winter land, but changed. The Tree Father was there with a jolly laugh, handing out presents for all.

When they passed through the gate, the dumb animals—the donkey, the monkey, and the turkey cock—first were able to speak and then transformed into men. (more…)

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.  After much sailing, they walk the moon path to the winter land.

When they got to the shore, they went to the city. It was early enough in the evening that there were still lights in the windows, gaslamps lit on the streets, and passersby in top hats or bustly dresses moving on the cobblestone streets greeting each other with “Merry Christmas.”

“Is this the land of Christmas at last?” the Tree Son asked.

“This is the land of Before Christmas,” a jolly fellow in a green top hat and a yellow scarf. “Christmas is that way.” He pointed down to the street to the end of town, where an evergreen hedge had a giant gate set in it. “The gate is closed, for fear of a monster called Ogredak who lurks on the other side. No matter! We’ll figure it out sooner or later and in the meantime, more time to prepare!” All through the town they saw and heard delicacies being made, the saw and hammer going for toys, decorations being hung and strung, voices practicing carols, and so on.

Over all there was a bustle of merriment.

When they came to the town hall to ask for the key to the gate, they saw the town council sitting soberly in session. The lords and ladies of that place, 12 men and 12 women, were very grave as they worked.

Down popped the ninth and tenth children, a boy and a girl. Fwoosh!

Father, Mother, joy is come

brighter than the noonday sun

Ladies soon will blithely dance

Lords can’t help but leap and prance.

The newest young man hopped up on to the council bar and started hopping from one foot to the other. The monkey joined him. With that and the Tree Son’s merry laugh, the lords starting leaping too, all except two who were too old but clapped merrily.

“Your name is Joy to the World,” the Tree Son said.

Meanwhile, the daughter began to dance beautifully. She shone like her mother. The ladies were touched and joined also in the dance, all except one who was too old but nodded along to the stately measures.

“Your name is Gloria,” the Starwife cried.

The Tree Son took the key and then, lords leaping and ladies dancing, they all leaped and danced their way to the gate. The townsfolk joined them.

But when they arrived, they realized that in all the excitement, the last two babies had hopped off and were not to be found.

Just then, above the noises of the crowd they heard a rat-tat-tat and a troo loo loo. Around the corner and across the square came their last two children leading drummers and musicians.

The girl sang

Mother, Father, hear them play

a tune as new as buds in may

a tune as old as stars above

and always fresh, like mortal love

The boy hollered

Father, Mother, our ships creaked

and we often had the tramp of fee

With those old familiar rhythmic sounds

These drummers make the world resound.

They  named those children Old-in-New and New-in-Old.

The Tree Son and Starwife unlocked the gate and opened it.

In they all marched, leaping, dancing, singing, drumming, playing.

The ogre ran away.

Thanks for reading.  My goal is to update these every day through Christmas until Twelfth Night and Kings’ Day.  The concluding episode is tomorrow 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 the Christmas Season.

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. (more…)

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, aided by their children.

They then have the adventures in cloud land of the donkey, the monkey, and the turkey cock, aided by their children.

They then descend from the clouds to an autumn land.

They were in a beautiful land. The air was crisp and clear. The leaves were red and yellow and orange; they shone when the sun filtered through them. The grass was still green. The fruit hung heavy on the trees and fell heavy onto the ground There were meadows where fat elk and fatter cattle grazed, and under the trees where fruit dropped, and even though there was no sign of any folk, there were fields with corn stacked in shocks and pumpkins growing orange. The donkey, the monkey, and the turkey cock immediately ran around prancing and skipping and generally making fools of themselves. It became a general frolic and then a dry wood fire and then hot coals and when the sun lowered in the west a feast with meat and nuts and fruit and corn and all manner of good things.

The next day they also lazed and played games, jumping into and over great piles of leaves. The babies still clinging to the Tree Son and the Starwife squealed whenever the parent sprung into the air. That afternoon while the Tree Son studied the trees and their ways and the Starwife contemplated the light and the leaves filtering down from the canopy, several of the children went exploring.

(more…)

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, aided by their children.

They then have the adventure of the donkey, the monkey, and the turkey cock, aided by their children.

After some time, the Tree Son began to long for home. He asked the golden pheasant how they could leave the clouds. The golden pheasant told him that where a thing had descended from the clouds, such as the pear tree they had first encountered him at, there was a a large golden circle left behind on the cloud that a traveler could use to descend also to the original location where the first descent had occurred. The Tree Son and Starwife did not wish to go back to the icy waste, and in any event they did not know where that cloud was. They asked their little group Foresight and Hear-and-Speak and Thingmaker and Lifter-Upper, and Friend, the babies, the golden pheasant, his two dove wives, the donkey, the monkey, the turkey cock and the bugle birds and the whole entourage, to keep their eyes opened. The bugle birds and the dove wives were the sort that flew, so it was no surprise when a few days later they had come to an endless cloud bank and one of the dove wives said she had seen not just one ring but four in the direction of the north star.

(more…)

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, aided by their children.

(more…)

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

When the Godchild went to sleep the mountains disappeared. The Tree Son and the Starwife found themselves back on the icy plain as if nothing had happened. They would have wondered if it were a dream except for the 12 little children that clung to them.

(more…)

(The story so far.)

The Godchild came down laughing to play, the Ogredak fled away, and with him came numerous other little children of his kind.  Many were babies in fact. Twelve of them clung to the Tree Son and the Starwife, who found that with the extra weight they were now able to bear their strength.  They could move without calamity. They and their babies romped and played with the Godchild on that pool and that mountaintop, where for all that night as bright as day and for all that next day gentle breezes blew and all was temperate. The pool of mountain blood became a pool of water.  The barren rock became soft earth.  The Starwife twinkled.

The name of the day was Christmas  and it was merry. When the day was ending, the Tree Son and the Starwife helped the Godchild clean the mud off himself and themselves and their babies. He gave them gifts then left to sleep.

(more…)

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. (more…)

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 dwelt in the bright heavens. She shone. She sang one note in the harmony of the spheres. Her note was eternal. It blended with all the others in a perfect beauty. She danced the stately, unchanging measures of the eternal dance. (more…)

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.

The Tree Son must fulfill three quests to break the curse. In the first one, he retrieves a key from an ogre’s den by the strength of inner fire.

“Next you must find a lock,” the Tree Father said. “In ancient times the dwarfs forged one for me—I paid them dearly—but they were treacherous and malicious and would not give it. Your second quest is to retrieve it.”

“What can you give me to aid, father?”

The Father of Trees gave his son a carrot, two charcoals, and a curious tall hat made of the inner bark of a tree, woven and shaped, and black with age. “When you need aid,” he said, “throw them in the snow and aid will come.”

The Tree Son set off to where the forest gave way to icy waste and where tall frigid and barren mountains could be seen in the distance. There it was that the dwarfs had the entrance to their deep deep burrows.

He came to them in time and went down. But the deeper he went, the more lost he became. The knowledge of roots had taught him much about the earth and deep things, but here he was much deeper than the trees or the soil knew, and the power here was older than even he knew. When the dwarfs saw him they did not speak to him nor attack him, but instead went about their complicated business. They were venting lava or perhaps molten metal through tubes and channels, complicated machinery whirled and pivoted to move the channels from one connection to another, cauldrons poured into waiting pools below, and wherever he tried to go his way seemed to be blocked by these operations. Indeed, he caught hints that it was not all coincidence. He sensed malice behind some of the shifts in operation and in the occasional covert glance he caught from a distant dwarf.

At least, stymied, he fled back to the relief of the surface and looking longingly across the snow fields to the tree line.

He bethought himself of his father’s gifts and, throwing them into the air, chanted the words that accompanied all magic in that land.

Jingle jingle fa-la-la-la

When the objects landed in the snow, the snow took on the shape of man.  Standing, the man took the carrot for a nose, inserted the charcoals for eyes, and put the hat on his head. He then called—loudly at first like an avalanche and then softly and coaxingly like the flump of snow falling off a pine branch. After he called, with a shriek like a blizzard, a corncob pipe came flying through the air. He held it out to the Tree Son.

Wtih the benefit of his inner fire that he had found at the edge of the ogre’s pit, the Tree Son lit the pipe. The snow man then plucked out one charcoal and lit it on the pipe and put it back in his face, then the other.

Then, with two glowing coals for eyes, he said, “What do you want?”

The Tree Son told the snow man his quest and how he had been stymied. The man nodded. “Because you have the inner fire,” he said, “they dared not touch you. Because you only have the inner fire, you were not able to overcome their machinations. You must also have a mind like ice—cold like frost, implacable like the glacier, as quick as the surface of a frozen lake breaking under foot.”

With his arms of snow he picked up yet more snow and placed in on the Tree Son’s head. The snow settled down between the cracks in the Tree Son’s head, and even some of the snow man’s arm drifted down into him.

The ice mingled with the fire inside him. His mind became sharp and hard and cold.

He went back down into the deeps. When he went beyond the depths where his experience helped him feel, his mind taught him to understand. When he came to the dwarfs, he saw their operations and their plans and coldly plotted how to navigate their traps and foils. When he saw the dwarfs’ frustration mount, the fire and ice inside him mounted and he gleefully smashed through their tricks. At last they fled before him, all the machinery in that part came silent, and he came to their treasury from which, only, he took the lock.

Then he returned it to his father. “Good,” his father said. “Now,” the Father of Trees said, “your last quest is a riddle.”

“To whom shall I go for the riddle, father?” the Tree Son asked.

“Me,” the Father said.

“What aid shall you give me?” the Son asked.

“I have already given it to you all your life. Here is the riddle. What is the gift that needs a giver but that the gift giver does not give?”

The Tree Son bowed his head before his father. “Father,” he said, “the answer is gratitude.”

When he gave that answer the power was loosed in the Father of Trees and came out of him, and one of the panels of his sleigh flew out until it stood on the ground and was revealed to be a door. In the door the Father of Trees placed the lock and in the lock the Tree Son put the key and the door opened. The Tree Son stepped through and came out a man.

His quest to become a man was completed. But his quest for the Starmaiden was not.

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

Our story so far:

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.

The Father of Trees had compassion on his son. He told the son that there were three quests that could fully free him. “First, you must retrieve a key. Many years ago a crow snatched it. When I shot him down with my bow, alas, he was over the pit and fell there, where I have not been able to go.”

(more…)

Our story so far:

The Tree Son falls in love with the Starmaiden and learns to sing to her.
But the Father of Trees hears, and is angry, and curses the Tree Son.

When he saw that his son had not become a pine or fir or spruce like all the other trees in those forests of the land of winter, the Father of Trees was struck with sorrow in his heart. He fled from that great young oak with bare branches between which one could see the sky.

But not matter how far he fled, the wind carried the sound of the whistle between those bare branches, which sounded like gasps and sobs.

He came back to the bare-branched oak that was his son and looked up through the branches at the stars and remembered his own youth. His heart was moved and with a great gesture he broke his spell. (more…)

[The Tree Son fell in love with a Starmaiden, and learned to sing so his voice could reach her in the sky.  But his father, the Father of Trees, heard the voice also, and the longing for something above and beyond the forest that was in the voice.]

The Father of Trees was angry with his son. He heard longing in the song of his son that carried on the winds. He called out his sleigh. Every part of it was made of the bones of trees, and highly polished. He threw a pinch of pollen into the air and chanted a call for the winds to aid him in his journey, and, reluctantly, they did.

(more…)

Once upon a time in the land of winter, the son of the father of trees roamed his father’s forests in delight. He learned the nature of roots and stones and snow and cold.

But with time everything he knew took his mind upward. The stones piled up in mountains made him look to the sky. After he learned the ways of roots in the earth he learned the ways of trees to rise high and spread their pine or fir or spruce needles against the sky. He saw the sky was from where the snow fell.

So one night the Tree Son raised his eyes to the dark sky and between the needles of the tallest pine he saw very far off, high and remote and twinkling, the Starmaiden.

He longed to speak to her as he spoke to the trees and the stones and the earth. He shouted, but all that came out was rough like bark and did not reach the sky.  He longed for the sky like the trees long for it, but like them the Tree Son could not reach. Then he wept for love of the Starmaiden and because he could not speak to her, with tears like a tree weeping resin.

The North Wind heard and took pity on him. The North Wind blew through the trees like the note of a whistle, and made the icicles ring like bells. The Tree Son heard it from afar off long before the icy blast of the wind reached him, and he understood the message that was carried on the  voice of the North Wind. The Tree Son understood he should sing like the wind did.  The Tree Son sang in the starry night like a bell ringing, like a wind blowing, and the Starmaiden heard.

But the Father of Trees heard it also and was angry.

(Next episode here)

(more…)