The Widow's Riddle

A woman’s husband had recently died, leaving her and their tiny baby boy in a crumbling wooden shack on a tall, grassy hill, in the shade of a twisted apple tree.  

The man had been cruel - a drunkard. Hard to make smile and harder to make kind. In the nights he still lived,  the widow could never lie easily, for the marks of his displeasure would burn. 

She did not weep when they laid his body to rest, but simply hitched the child up further and walked back up the hill to the hut and the apple tree. Then, she got to work. 

For the widow was the best cobbler for miles. Her leather felt like cotton on the skin. Her cotton, like silk. Her silk, like air. In the summer she would drag her thick, worn cobbler’s bench out into the sunshine, under the apple tree. Then, she would drag out her infant’s crib, so he could be next to her while she worked, and coo at the waving leaves which bent before him. There she worked, both of them sheltered from the sun and rain. 

People would travel for hours to buy her shoes under the arms of the apple tree. At sunset they would gather, and trade golden shoes for golden coins. Now that her husband was not there to piss away the coins down street alleys and into the hands of the barkeep, the woman and her baby soon lost the thin desperate look of those who have not eaten. The shack became sturdy and strong, the baby plump and smiling. Even the apple tree seemed to straighten without the weight of woes. For the first time in years, it snowed down apple blossom on the pair. The woman laughed, and picked out the pink petals from her child’s hair. 

Weeks passed, and the hill became sunsoaked, the air smelling sweet. Soon, men arrived at the apple tree, hovering like flies, attracted by the cobbler’s shiny hair and shinier coins. They deemed amongst themselves that enough time had passed for her mourning, and swarmed in to ask her hand in marriage. 

However, when they proposed, the cobbler would not even look up from her work. 

“No”, she said, “I am not yet done in my mourning”. 

She would place their gifts into the hands of her best customers, and they were so delighted that soon they visited as friends, chatting to her as she worked, and playing with her son. Then, every evening as the sun set low on the horizon and the insect began to chirp, crowds would come to line up and buy her shoes. 

The men watched these events, the money passing from many hands into one, and became even more determined to have the cobbler. However, she continued to repeat herself, never even looking up at them as they came. As the summer heat set in and the shadows slunk away, so too did the men begin to leave. They grumbled as they left, muttering about how old the widow was, how ugly. Their pride tarnished, and tail between their legs, they left for the taverns, to whine into thick mugs.  

Only one man remained. Handsome, tall, and strong. He came often, and spoke cordially, sweet as the scent of growing apples. Yet his eyes did not change with his smile. They remained as shiny and as cold as the coins passed between hands.

The first month he smiled his wide, wide smile. Staring at her, as she worked and chatted to those around her. The second month he brought flowers and sweet things. The third month he tried to wheedle and flatter. But, still, the cobbler would not look up to him. Still, the same answer.  

On the first day of autumn he marched up the hill to the little house and green apple tree. The cobbler was putting out her tools. It was early, and the light was pale and gold. None of her friends had arrived yet, her son was not even awake.

The man’s smile was wide, his eyes dead. He grabbed the cobbler’s wrist in his hand and squeezed until the bones scraped together. He waited for her to cry out, and yet she did not. 

All she did was set down her tools with her other hand, look up at him, and wait.

“Your mourning has been long enough!” He ground out, smiling all the time. “You will never be able to survive this winter alone. You will never be able to look after your money alone. You will never be able to look after your child alone. Marry me, and I shall look after you and your child. Then, we shall have many children of our own.”

She looked up at his face for a long moment. Over his shoulder, she could see her friends walking up the hill. The pause lengthened, became long enough for the man’s smile to grow fixed on his face. His hand tightened on her wrist. 

Just when he thought her bones would snap under his fingers, she answered him in a clear, smooth voice. 

“Yes, I will marry you.”

With that he triumphantly released her wrist, and moved forward to embrace her. 

He was stopped short by her hand shooting up between them. “ - However”, she continued, quickly, “I must check that you are as wise as you are strong. If I was to die, then I need to know that my son,” she paused and gave him a pretty smile, “and any other children we could have together, would be have a wise father to care for them.”

“I am wise!” He shot back, annoyance creeping in despite her smiles. “I am wise and strong and brave!”.

“I am sure you are” she placiated him, soothingly, reaching out to pat his arm. “I know you will pass my test in no time, and we should be married tomorrow morning.”

Now her friends had fully gathered around them, and they studied this man with the smile and shiny eyes with their arms tightly crossed. 

The man glanced around him, seeing the eyes that hovered, and ears which overheard their conversation. His smile faulted. His mouth raised into a sneer.

“Alright, woman. I will take your test. I shall prove that I am the best husband you could ever have”.

“Would you swear it?” her eyes were sharp, icy blue. “Would you swear, in front of these witnesses, that we shall only marry once you have passed the test?”

He scoffed and waved his hand dismissively. “Of course, I swear it. I can complete any challenge you could set up for me”.

At this, the woman smiled one small smile. Then, abruptly, she turned from him, and addressed the crowd, her voice strong and carrying. 

“Friends! Gather around. Here stands my suitor, who has sworn to marry me only once he has proved himself through passing my test. For, any husband who could not pass his wife’s test is no man at all!”

There were murmurs of interest and cries of agreement from the friends, who were beginning to smile. The man feel them pressing closer. He could feel the eyes of the men and women  burning on his skin. He smiled at them and stood taller. 

Once we are married, he thought to himself, there will be no more need to see these friends.

“Give me your test, wife!” He cried out, “The sooner the better, for the sooner we can be wed.”

He turned his smile at her, but she did not turn to look at him. Instead, she went to her baby’s crib. He was sleeping, but when she picked him up and hugged him to her, his eyes opened sleepily, and his hands closed around her finger.   

The baby cooed up at his mother, and the pale gold light from the rising sun played with his hair. She held him tighter and walked over to the trunk of the apple tree, weaving through her friends, offering reassuring smiles. Her fiancé followed.

She stopped at the base, next to an old, heavy-looking, wooden bucket. Empty, and waiting to be filled with red apples. 

Finally, she turned to the man, and smiled tightly. 

“The only thing I need from you is for you to fill this bucket.”

“Hah!” he scoffed “This heavy bucket? It is not too heavy for me! You shall see how strong I am!” he confidently reached forward, but again, she raised a hand to stop him.

“I can see that you are strong.” She didn’t look at him, but instead addressed the little crowd of her friends. “What I need to test is your cunning. Your wit. Find the answer to my riddle, fill up this bucket with what I need from you, and then, on that day and on that day only, we shall be married.” 

When she did turn her eyes to him, their sharpness seemed to cut into his skin. Her voice grew softer, as she recited her riddle: 

“One thing a mother needs for her child, 

One thing within the wind and wild,

One thing to help him grow tall and strong, 

Easy to find, growing all year long. 

Soft, sweet in summer, yet in winter

As sharp and piercing as a splinter. 

Easy to harvest, easy to store, 

Lay it out for days, even when raw. 

However, times will become dire

If you were to cook it on a fire. 

A prize for the poor, found in fields 

They delight in the good health it yields. 

Hard to find for the rich in the city, 

It turns only stale, rotten, and gritty. 

Find this for me, for my dear son

Then, for my thanks, my hand you’ll have won. 

But until that fateful, sunny day 

Single, distraught and lonely I shall stay” 

With that she silently pointed at the bucket. 

He heaved it up with a smile and with a laugh, and told her to prepare for the wedding tomorrow evening. 

However, though she kept her promise and laid out her wedding clothes every sunset, she never had the need to put them on.  

This I know, for I was there. 

I saw him struggling up the hill every day with that bucket, as I helped my beautiful, clever friend make shoes in the workshop we built underneath the gnarled apple tree. 

I bore witness to the cream the suitor brought up, the water, the beef. As the years passed, his intelligence ran out, and he started bringing up grass, dandelions, bricks, rusted metal. His smile soon failed, and he would scream and rant when she told him it was not right. Every day she reminded him that he did not have to return, but every day he swore that he would, his mouth foaming and eyes rolling in their sockets. 

But we stood there, her friends, and the daggers that we brought reflected the light that filtered through the apple tree. So he left, more and more deranged, until the next day.   

The years passed, and the workshop grew. She employed others, and taught her son all she knew. We, her friends, who came every day to talk and laugh, watched him grow. He grew up to be a fine, strong lad, with the same sharp blue eyes of his mother, and a ready, happy laugh. With daily teaching, soon he was renowned for making the most beautiful shoes you ever laid your eyes on. His leather was like cotton, his cotton like silk, and his silk like air. As his mother’s eyes slowly failed her, his only grew sharper, and soon he could embroider such images onto the shoes, butterflies and lions and roses, that you would touch them in wonder in how they could not be real. 

Still, the old suitor came. Heaving himself up the hill every sunset, as we friends sat in rocking chairs underneath the old apple tree. 

The weight of the bucket soon twisted his back until he stooped half bent at the waist, and his hair turned a dirty white colour. He looked thirty years older than he was, while my friend, remained as beautiful as a long summer day. 

In the last years, he brought up fragments of glass, steel, rusty nails. Though the son was now a father himself, the old suitor would occasionally raise a withered, skeletal hand to try and force a jagged piece of metal into the young man’s mouth. It was only his kind nature and his mother’s words which stopped the son from picking up the crooked old man and throwing him back down the hill.

As for the judging - though my friend was blind, she would only have to lift the heavy bucket in her arms, sometimes shake it to hear the the sloshing or the rattling, to declare that it was wrong.

On his last trip, the decrepit old man ran a grey tongue across his now toothless gums, and threw down the bucket at her feet. Inside was a single finger, bloody and curled. 

Her son chased him back down the hill. As the skeletal figure scuttled away, he screamed a high pitched wail and waved his wasted, yellow-nailed, ten-fingered hands out in front of him. 

That was the last we ever saw of him. 

The years carried on under the leaves of the apple tree. Slowly, the rocking chairs began to empty as our friends left this world, and then began to refill again, for the old cobbler’s kindness and wit were well known, and people flew to her as bees to honey. 

In the evenings, they left for their own homes, and only her and I were left, quietly rocking in our old age.

One evening, we were sitting in silence, listening to the sound of her son’s happy whistling, as he made his way down the hill to his bonny wife and their small children. 

The sun was setting, the caramelized air hinting with a bite of autumn. We were talking about the other autumns we had seen, and if we would live to see many more.

As the first leaf flickered and drifted from its branch, weaving through the air to finally rest at our feet, I wondered aloud at the riddle my old friend had given so long ago. It was a common question, asked by all of us at some point. Friends. Customers. The old and the young. 

She smiled to me, then, eyes still as blue and still as sharp as on that fateful morning. Her hand raised from its rest on the touch of the wooden armchair, and she gestured towards the old, rusting bucket, which still rested against the apple tree. As she did so, she gave me the answer she always gave, to anyone who asked. 

“Everything you need to know, my love,” she said, her voice soft, “is already there”.