Lady Willow

 

LADY WILLOW

 

     No, sir, I’m afraid the sale is over now. I’m sorry that your train was delayed, but the advertisement clearly said that first come, first served, and all sales final. Yes, the Tudor sideboard is gone, and the Pre-Raphaelite organ; indeed, all of the big items listed were sold. There’re only a few odds and ends left …

     You’d like to see them? Well, I suppose so, just so your trip won’t be a total loss. But really, it’s mostly jumble-sale fodder now. Perhaps something might strike your fancy, and I don’t deny getting these things off my hands and a few more pennies in my pocket will certainly help. The Staynles’s may have started out in the lesser nobility, but they’ve been part of what Dickens called the shabby-genteel for donkey’s years now.

     Great-Aunt Sophie (this is her house, and these were her things) was the last with any of the old legacy. As you can see by what’s left of the fittings, she wasn’t exactly in the position to look after the family relics with might be called museum-quality care. The antique dealers who came to buy let us know that quite clearly and offered us considerably less than we had hoped, by several hundreds, because of the condition.

Well, here’s the lot. Make of it what you will. Mis-matched tea sets, broken clocks, twisted fireirons … the normal detritus of everyday life. Good enough in its day, and still fine old material, but now … what, the wooden tray? Oh, I was wondering if anyone would notice that! The ‘experts’ all passed it by without comment.

Of course, it is very rough and battered by the years. It began as a wall-panel over the chimney in a much grander hall, so Aunt Sophie said, but was removed by the family when they had to leave the place under Henry’s so-called reformations, which were just a power grab, plain and simple. I’m sure you’d recognize the name of the rich family which now occupies what used to be Staynles Hall, while Auntie was the last of the true inheritors and lived in this poky little place.

Who, me? No, I‘m just a Barnable myself. I won’t bore you with genealogical details, but there are only the thinnest ties with the Staynles line. Yet here I am, winding up Auntie’s business. I did visit her with the cousins when we were small, so I heard all the family stories along with the others and grew rather fond of the old girl. She made the most amazing raisin oatmeal cookies …

Yes, the wooden plaque. Hand-carved and a little beaten by time, but the picture is still quite clear. You see? A willow tree on a hill, with all its branches flowing like a fountain. Ah, but there’s a trick to it. Try tilting it a bit and holding it aslant of the light.

There! You see it, don’t you? I can tell by your eyes. The tree becomes a lady, the branches her hair, the trunk her neck, the hill her shoulders. We children would look at that, for hours it seemed, fascinated by the change. It was like magic. That was Lady Willow.

There is a story to it, a long sort of ballad, that Auntie would sing to us. I must have heard it a hundred times, but I can only remember snatches of it now. But I know the gist of the story well enough. It was about the first of the family line, Sir Richard Staynles.

You’d like to hear the tale? I suppose it would make sense, if you’re thinking of buying. Might help you make up your mind, eh?

Well, a long time ago – I don’t know when it was supposed to be, exactly, I don’t think I ever heard any dates – Sir Richard was the first of the line, called Stainless because of his character, don’t you know. A very perfect, gentle knight, as Chaucer would have it. Lord of the manor. Anyways, besides of all the usual knightly pursuits of jousting and wars and managing his lands, Sir Richard quite enjoyed hunting in the forest.

In those days, the woods were really one big wood, and the towns and castles just little islands in a vast green sea, and a rather dangerous sea at that. But Sir Richard loved roaming it by himself, whether he caught anything or not, and as time went on, he went farther and farther out and spent more and more time under the greenwood shade.

Now one day, when he had ventured far beyond any place he had ever been before, he came upon a marvel. There, in the middle of the woods, was a hill, and on top of the hill a great willow tree, and from its foot a spring of water running down the hillside. But the most marvelous thing was that a beautiful lady sat among the roots of the tree, playing on a harp and singing with a silvery voice, long golden-brown hair falling past her shoulders and down almost to her feet.

Of course, Sir Richard was stunned by her beauty and stopped to ask her what she was doing there all alone in the middle of the houseless forest. She answered teasingly that there were innumerable courtiers surrounding her that would come in answer to her call. Someone with such a court must be a great person, says he. No less great than yourself, Sir Richard, says she.

Since you know my name, says he, it’s only courtesy to tell me yours. She tells him that she is Lady Willow, and that her liege is styled the Lord of the Woods. Sir Richard says he’s never heard of that noble before, and she tells him that his house was established “ere Alfred or William claimed the land.”

There were a few verses of banter here that I as a little boy found very boring, but the long and the short of it was Sir Richard asks her to become his wife, and she agrees, after extracting several oaths from him. One is not to bring up her past, one is to never strike her in anger, and one is never to cut wood from a living tree, because “my liege Lord loves the woods so well”. He finds these all very easy promises to make, takes her up on his horse, and they ride to his home where they are wed.

For three years they live in perfect happiness. There is a little boy born to them. Although Sir Richard sometimes wonders about his wife, he never questions Lady Willow, never has occasion to be angry at her, and instructs his servants strictly to never cut live wood.

But then one day he is called by the King to ride out to war. Sir Richard bids Lady Willow good-bye, and she reminds him of his promises. He rides off, and the last thing he sees is her weeping at their parting.

The campaign does not go well. The king’s forces are harried across the land by the enemy for months, and they never seem to win a battle or a foot of earth. Finally, a bitter winter sets in, and Sir Richard and his troops are besieged in a camp on a hilltop, surrounded by a hostile army and cut off from any supplies. They begin to starve.

Slowly they use up all their supplies and their fuel and are left facing death by freezing. But there are three trees on the hill, an oak, an ash, and a thorn tree. Facing immanent death and begged by his men, Lord Richard reluctantly cuts down the trees, first the thorn, then the ash, then the oak, burning each on three successive nights, each night colder than the last. He comforts himself with the thought that his lady will never know. After the third night, they are rescued by the rest of the King’s army.

After this, their fortunes take a turn for the better. The King puts down the enemy, there is much celebration, and Sir Richard rides back. The thought of his broken promise has been tucked away during the hurly-burly of the campaign and is now forgotten in his happiness at returning home.

But on entering his Hall all is not well. Lady Willow is sitting coldly on the high seat, and when Sir Richard comes to greet her joyfully, she rises up and slaps him sternly in the face. Angered at such a reception when he expected welcome, he strikes her back, and asks how such a nameless vagabond of the woods could treat him so. I know, the last taboos.

She turns red then pale with wrath, and now the truth comes out. She tells him that she was the maiden of the willow tree, that had put off her immortal life for the love of him. And she reveals:

"My father was the broad strong oak,

The ash tree was my mother.

And know you that the tangled thorn,

That was my own dear brother."

That is the only complete verse I remember of the whole song. I think it must be because of the look on Auntie’s face when she recited it, and the dread and doom in her voice.

Well, with all the promises broken Lady Willow declares that she must leave him forever and return to the Lord of the Wood. She warns him to take care of their son “for she will ne’er see the babe again” and vanishes with a clap of thunder and a whirlwind. When everyone in the Hall comes to their senses, she is nowhere to be found.

Sir Richard, of course, is struck with remorse, and spends the rest of his days searching through the woods trying to find the hill and the willow, crying out for forgiveness and in his grief never marrying again. Eventually he dies, and his son takes up as head of the Staynles family. I understand the tray was carved some time later, perhaps when the story was not so … touchy.

Of course, it implies that the Staynles’s had a sort of dryad strain running through the family. I understand such supernatural ancestors are not unknown amongst the nobility’s legends. Cousin Jane – she was a rascal - used to joke that explained Auntie’s wooden expression and hard heart. I suppose that even if it were so, it’s all over now. As I said, there’s not a blood relation left.

Ah, so you’ll take the panel, eh? I’m glad it’s going to a good home; otherwise it probably would have just been tossed when eventually everything went to a successor ‘who knew it not.’ Well, thank you, sir … hold on a moment, the tag says … but this is way too much! The story? The provenance? I guess that does make a difference. Even so …

A writer and a folklorist? You’ve been hiding your lamp under a bushel! That sets my mind at rest, somehow. At least the tale won’t be lost forever. Now about these old fireirons … I don’t suppose you’d believe Sir Walter Raleigh bent them fending off an assassination attempt? No? Sorry, sir. Just my little joke.  

              First Draft Finished 10:58 PM, 11/23/2020. 

[Note: I first came up with the idea for ‘Lady Willow’ years ago, maybe as far back as high school. I drew a picture (in which there is no willow tree) and had one verse; the verse quoted in this story. I always meant to write out the whole ballad, but never did. This little tale preserves (as Mr. Barnable says) the gist of it.]