Samples
“…thou be such a clever fellow that surely one wish will do thee…”
- Clever Clyde
Excerpt from The Crone’s Tales: Fables for New Times
© Copyright J. D. Jahn 2021
Tale the Twenty-sixth: The Princess and Her Suitors Three
Once, not so very long ago, there lived a princess as fair as is a summer’s day. Like flame were her flowing tresses; her form, supple as a willow, and her bright eyes were as sapphires blue. Throughout her father’s fiefdom, each and all did sing her praises, and she was courted by three bold and handsome suitors.
As is the way of things in such Tales as these, their curly locks were all honey blond o’er noble brows. Their chests were broad and their shoulders wide; their chins were cleft, and the light in their eyes danced like the sun on the teal-blue waves of the sea.
Equal were they in fortune, age and birth; and therefore was the poor princess, though flattered by this embarrassment of worthy suitors, at great pains o’er which or how to choose ’mongst ’em.
“Dearest Mother,” she appealed to the queen, “whate’er shall I do? Am I not the proverbial ass caught twixt two equally delectable bales of hay? He that’s turned to stone in indecision? Yet, I must choose it seems, for all eyes be upon me, and my majority approaches like a thief in the night.” At which, a crystal tear slid down the princess’s unblemished cheek.
“There, there now,” soothed the kindly queen. “Thou wert, in sooth, born a Child of Fortune, as ’twas foretold at thy cradle side. Therefore, not many a maid hath either your chance nor your choice. Well I ken that good fortune hath its burdens. Bethinketh me now how ’twas when I had to opt twixt your father—our noble king, God-bless- ’im—and that rich merchant’s son with the pearl-white teeth, artful song and shapely calf.
“Tut, my child. Put but an end to all this sighing and calf’s-eyeing! I’ll send for the old woman who dwells deep within the dark forest, for ’twas she that counseled me in my time of confusion and shall, no doubt, assist thee in thine, as well,” comforted the queen, brushing away the princess’s crystal tear.
That very eve, as a silver sliver of moon slid behind a murky cloud and a hush fell o’er the night fowl, a shadowy figure did steal into the Princess’s Bedchamber, wherein awaited the queen and her fair but trembling daughter.
“’Tis good to see thee again, dear Madam,” said this witch. “All’s well as goes well, I trust.”
“Well enow with me,” replied the queen. “But alas, it goes ill with my daughter, the princess, here. For she is in a poor maid’s quandary and in sore need of help to select her a husband.”
“Ah, I see,” said the crone, eyeing the cringing princess narrowly. “Husbands do be difficult to choose—and then to manage—I well know. Goodness! My share of ’em I’ve seen, for certain. Be thee not afeard, My Pretty, for help and succor I am here to provide.”
The old woman then took the princess’s dainty chin in her gnarled fingers and gazed into her chalk-white face. “Three there be, I perceive,” said she after a moment’s inspection, “and they be rather hard to tell apart, it seems. This be a fine kettle o’ fish, for thou must decide with which of ’em to spend thy happily-ever-afters. Well now, rest thou easy for I have a plan.”
From More Tales of the Crone (forthcoming) by J. D. Jahn
The Grimacing Saint
Once was it bruited far and wide that greedy Lord Godfrey could squeeze blood from a stone, so grasping was he.
Should a hen belonging to one of his tenants lay an egg, why then, Lord Godfrey would levy a tax upon that hen and another upon the egg. Should the egg hatch a chick, why then would Lord Godfrey lay a levy upon that chick; and should the chick grow into a laying hen—or e’en into a pullet for roasting—at once would Lord Godfrey’s agent knock at the unfortunate farmer’s hovel door to claim the lord’s surtax on the meagre meal.
In this manner and more, Lord Godfrey multiplied the weal and pelf his ancestors had acquired, and amassed stores of silver and gold that were the envy of all the wealthy in that realm.
One late September eve, as the dying sun lengthened the shadows of the stately oaks and plane trees that adorned his lands, Lord Godfrey rode forth on his gelding of steel grey, seeking those who might trespass to poach his deer or his grouse or his rabbits as the long, bare winter drew nigh.
Ahead in the pathway, he espied a dark, huddled figure hobbling slowly upon a cane and carrying on its spindle arm a creel of the brightest, reddest apples the lord had e’er seen.
“Hold there, thou sluggard,” roared Lord Godfrey. “Who goest there and why? Dost thou not know that these be my lands, my fields and my woods, and thou be a trespass hereupon?”
Slowly the figure turned its face to the lord—and ‘twas the face of an ancient crone, with eyes like pitch and an inscrutable smile upon its withered lips.
“Good e’en, Master,” said this old one graciously. “Good health and prosperity be unto thee.”
But Lord Godfrey neither smiled nor returned a word unto this fair greeting. Instead, said he: “There be grave penalties for thy trespass upon this, my road through my lands, the which I have owned and long o’erseen. That so, stand thou and deliver unto me the toll thou owest, or in a trice shall I ha’ the sheriff and his men fall hard upon thee!”
The old woman gazed up at the haughty lord, perched upon his steed of 13 hands, and replied e’en fairer to him, “Why, good sir, I be but an aged thing leaning upon a stick. Cans’t thou not find it in thy bosom or in thy soul to see me on my way? ‘Twould be all saintly kindness and generosity on thy part, and I am certain sure thou hast such goodness somewhere in thee!”
Despite—or mayhap due to—the Old One’s supplication, proud Lord Godfrey was neither moved nor dissuaded from his fixed purpose, and he again insisted she deliver the severest of tolls or pay the consequence.
“Truly sorry am I to see thee so resolute,” said the old woman resignedly. “For, I am poor and little enough have I to spare.”
“Nonsense,” bellowed Lord Godfrey. “Thou art poor because thou doth not or care not to work. ‘Tis no concern of mine. Pay me what thou owest or thou shalt be locked in chains and scorned by one and all as a miscreant pauper.”
“I am already by many scorned,” murmured the old crone, more to herself than to the blustery lord. Then spake she more loudly: “But, as thou will not alter thy purpose nor thy mind…”
…and, as if from thin air, this beldame pulled forth a florin of the finest gold. This bright coin, along with an apple from her basket, she did press firmly into Lord Godfrey’s right hand, grasping that member longer and more insistently than the lord thought necessary as he trotted home to his proud fortress, munching on the hag’s juicy fruit.