There once was a very vain and shallow Queen who lived in a very petty and shallow world. Her only major concerns were which gowns she should wear each day, how she should wear her hair and makeup, which delicacies she should eat, which parties and balls she should attend, and who was the focus of the latest gossip. Day in and day out she filled her life with the nothingness of this existence.
One day as she was gazing at herself in a mirror, she
noticed that she did not look as young and beautiful as she once had. This frightened her very much because she
valued her youth and beauty above everything else. She began obsessing on her image, staring
daily at herself in the mirror, wondering if others could notice her shame,
wondering if they would begin to gossip about her. Of course, this made the atmosphere ripe for
the Trickster, who did not disappoint.
He swooped down from his high perch and offered the Queen eternal youth
and beauty but upon one condition: She
must stay in her tower and never leave, for on the day she left, all of the
years would come upon her at once.
The Queen hesitated with this offer because she felt she
could not bear the social exile, but of course, the Trickster had anticipated
this. He kindly offered her a magic
mirror. In this mirror, she could see
all that was happening at every party, ball, dinner, and event in the
country. She could focus on anyone she
wanted to and hear any conversation she cared to hear. This intrigued the Queen immensely as her
hunger for gossip and secrets was enormous.
Coupled with the idea of remaining young and beautiful, the Queen found
herself unable to resist, and she made a pact with the Trickster.
 |
| The old tower in ruin. |
So there she stayed in her tower, beautiful and young. At first her friends sent messages to her
asking her to join them at parties, but she always refused and eventually they
stopped asking. When she was not gazing
at her own reflection in the magic mirror, she was constantly staring in it to
learn of all the latest news and gossip in her queendom. Nightly, she would giggle at the goings on in
the court, feeling very smug with her ill-gotten knowledge.
This kept the Queen satisfied for a very long time
until one day she found she was not very happy and not very satisfied. She could no longer see any of her friends in
the mirror because they had all long since died. In fact, she didn’t know anyone personally
that she looked at, having only met them through the mirror. Invitations had stopped coming to her tower
long ago, and she wondered if anyone even knew she was in the tower
anymore. Since she was on the inside,
she had no way of knowing how much her tower had fallen into disrepair. Some would say it was a ruin only, and no one
would dare approach it as they had heard it was haunted by a terrible ghost
with huge, longing eyes.
The Queen lived this way, not truly living, for a very long
time. And time is a strange Master, they
say, that can chisel even the hardest marble.
It did just that, softening the edges of the old Queen’s heart and
giving rise to knowledge and understanding of the human condition that she
never dreamed possible. Finally, with
the help of the Master of Time, the Queen realized what a fool she had been,
not only in her wasted youth but in having accepted the terms of the
Trickster. It was a bitter realization,
but eventually, time smoothed out even that sorrow.
Time marched on. The
Queen did not look in her magic mirror much anymore, but one night when her
loneliness had consumed her so completely, she pulled the magic mirror out of
her drawer and gazed into it. She did
not recognize any of the faces, and she was immediately bored with the gossip
mongering and incurring of favor that she witnessed in the court. Indeed, she was about to put the mirror away
when she spied an old beggar crouched in the corner of the Great Hall. When all the lords and ladies had left and
the servants had cleaned up, he walked slowly through the Hall, lovingly
touching the table and chairs, fixing flowers or paintings or pottery in this
way or that, making the room suitable for a Queen. He tucked any tiny coins or scraps of food
that he found into his shirt pocket, and then he scrambled out into the night.
The next evening, the Queen looked into her magic mirror
again. She went straight past the petty
lords and ladies and searched for the old beggar, whom she found crouched in
the corner again. She watched him
carefully, and when all the nobles had left, he did the same thing this evening
as he had done the night before. He
seemed to take great joy in arranging the room, the flowers, and the
paintings. He tucked scraps of food and
an occasional coin into his shirt and off he went again into the night.
Night after night, the same thing occurred until the Queen
could not bear to watch the old beggar in the mirror anymore, and she could not
bear her loneliness in the tower either.
In an instant, she made a decision she knew should have made many, many
years ago. When the nobles had left the
court and the servants had cleaned up and left and the old beggar began his
rounds, the Queen placed the magic mirror on the floor. She stepped onto the mirror, and when it
cracked, she went right through it and found herself in the court, staring face
to face at the old beggar.
He immediately bowed and began backing up quickly, begging
her pardon, but she stopped him in his tracks.
She came over to him and smiled and placed her hand on his
shoulder. The old beggar trembled so
much, the Queen was afraid he might fall over.
She laughed and told him that she would help him straighten the Hall
up. Together, they made it beautiful
enough for a Queen. When the old beggar
made to leave, the Queen asked if she could accompany him. Now he thought he truly must be dreaming, for
never had he seen such a beautiful woman and never had a woman ever come to his
humble cottage.
They left together and walked back to his tiny home, the
Queen chatting all the time and asking him about his life. At first he felt tremendously shy, but by the
time they had gotten to his little cottage, they were chatting like old
friends. He invited her in and set an
old cloth down on a very rickety table. He
placed two cups of beer down and broke a loaf of bread in half, and this is
what they had for dinner. The Queen thought
it was the finest meal she had ever had, the beer flowed freely, and the old
beggar was beside himself with joy.
At last it was time for sleep, and the old beggar gave the
Queen the cot in front of the fire and he took the old chair in the back of the
room. Each fell quickly to sleep,
content with the wonderful dinner and company they had. In the morning when the old beggar awoke, the
Queen was gone. He found an old dried
but perfect-looking red rose in the cot where she had slept. He sighed with happiness at this gift, not
knowing that it was all that was left of the Queen herself.
The old beggar placed the rose in a cracked vase he had
found in a pile of rubble at the court. He put it on the center of his
mantel, and it was truly the most beautiful thing his tiny cottage had ever
seen. Every night when he came home, he
would pour some beer into two cups and raise a toast to the Queen, the
prettiest, kindest, nicest woman he had ever known--just as kind as he knew a
Queen would be. He would gaze at the
rose, drink both cups of beer, and eat his humble bread. When he was fast asleep, the Queen would gaze
out from her place on the mantel with joy in her heart at being a guest in the
finest Hall in the land.
