The Singing Needle

Beyond the seventh summit of the seven ranges stands an empty needlemaker’s hut. Many years ago, a poor needlemaker lived there—back bowed low from long nights bent over his workbench. He smithed by the light of a single taper, ignorant of the stars that traded places with the sun. One evening, a song floated through his window.

“Good sir or serf, please let me in

My sight is gone, my eyes are dim,

I’m broken shards split limb from limb;

Good sir or serf, please let me in.”

Outside lay a porcelain owl covered in sheathes of copper feathers and shattered in three pieces. Cracks hewed each wing from her body, while a jagged hole gaped above her beak. The needlemaker scooped up the pieces and rushed inside. He bathed the porcelain in cold water and untangled her copper feathers. He mixed clay and water to seal the wings against her body. He pasted canvas over the hole and painted two glossy eyes.

That night it snowed, the first of many storms. “Lady Owl,” said the needlemaker, “The snow will bleed ink from your eyes until you turn blind. The clay on your wings grows brittle with cold, and will snap in the wind. I am a poor needlemaker, but I urge you to winter here.”

The porcelain owl weighed his words. She bowed her head. “You must never touch my feathers. My home is a long journey eastward, and I will never make it back without all intact.” The needlemaker agreed, certain that her copper feathers would hold no temptation. He offered to share his repast and they feasted together on bread and cheese.

Every clear morning, the needlemaker trudged into town to sell needles, and every stormy day he smithed. He worked on longer needles, sharper needles, thinner needles, and needles that were easier to thread. As he worked, the porcelain owl preened and arranged her copper feathers. They glinted and shone until the owl was radiant and the needlemaker could think of nothing but her quills.

Through the winter, his temptation grew and he longed to mend her loose quill. If it fell, could he keep it? Trade it? A single quill would buy a room full of lamps and oil to keep them alight year-round. Imagine how she would shine! He dreamed of using copper quills for the finest needles, of becoming court needlemaker, of trading delicate feathers for unworn tools. All day and night his thoughts rang with desire.

Spring came, and the porcelain owl flew away, blazing like a sun in the sky. The needlemaker removed cotton from his ears, where it had dimmed the taunting noise of her feathers. He took cotton from his eyes, where it had blocked the gleaming copper. He took cotton from his mouth, where it had stifled every urge to ask the owl for her quills.

The next fall, the needlemaker was again at his bench when he heard a voice.

“Good sir or serf, I have returned

Remembering each night you yearned

And now I bear your riches earned;

Good sir or serf, I have returned.”

The window was ajar, the porcelain owl perched on its ledge. “In return for your hospitality, I give seven needles from our finest birds. Keep them or sell them, but know they contain the magic to give them life. Press a single needle into the taper that lights your workbench and keep it near while you smith. When it finishes burning, swaddle it in soft cotton away from the light for one hundred days and one hundred nights. When you unwrap the cloth, no person on this earth will work silk as well as the magic needle.”

The porcelain owl issued one last caution. “You may only forge one needle at a time.”

The needlemaker thanked the owl and they feasted on bread and cheese and reminiscences until the owl took her leave.

The next evening, the needlemaker pressed a needle into the bottom of a new taper. He smithed through the night and into the early morning, when the candle sputtered into darkness. He covered it in cotton and placed it in a wooden box above his hearth. After one hundred days and one hundred nights, a humming noise emerged from the box, wherein an ebony needle glowed. When the needlemaker picked up the needle it sang with the crystalline voice of a winter night. He jabbed the needle in its cotton swaddling and delicate embroidery bloomed in his unskilled hands.

The needlemaker brought the magic needle as a gift to the Queen. Pleased, the Queen ordered enough wares to keep her ladies-in-waiting in thimbles for a year. The lampmaker’s daughter, enamored by this rapid ascent, pumped the needlemaker for his secret throughout a hasty courtship until the very hour of their vows.

“Pooh!” she said, “Why haven’t you started another magic needle? Lamplight is mine as a dowry. What about a larger home? A carriage?”

The needlemaker reluctantly wedged another needle into his taper. All night he tried to ignore his wife’s idle chatter, but his thoughts were jumbled worse than a stewpot; he mixed suet, sewing, finery, filing, poultry, poultices and polishing until the candle sputtered out. He yearned for the porcelain owl, who never minded when he stopped his ears with cotton. His wife complained for one hundred days and one hundred nights, but a faint hum still emerged. 

The needlemaker’s wife offered it as a gift to the Marchioness, who knew of the Queen’s singing needle and long coveted her own. She rewarded the needlemaker’s wife with a carriage horse. The needlemaker’s wife rode back to the cottage, certain that riches lay ahead.

“We must not squander our gift,” protested the needlemaker; his wife, incensed, refused to speak until their daughter was born.

“What about now?” she said, “Think of our baby, you lout. Surely, the Marchioness is expecting us—her needle is nothing compared to the Queen’s, you know.”

“Our fealty is not to the Marchioness,” said the needlemaker. Still, he prepared another taper backed by the endless squalls of his infant daughter. She cried for one hundred days and one hundred nights, only drawing breath at the magic needle’s hum. Its voice whispered like the smoothest silk, soothing the child’s wails into a broken chorus of soft hiccoughs.

For the first time in weeks, there was peace.

The needlemaker’s wife carried the third needle to the Marchioness, who eagerly traded a simple carriage for having more magic needles than the Queen herself.

By now, word of the singing needles filled the country and the needlemaker’s wife was worried… they only had four needles left. She pushed and prodded until, come winter, the needlemaker agreed to prepare another if she would stifle her words.

She prepared the taper and pressed a needle into the base of a taper, then quickly wedged in the other three. The needlemaker saw his wife’s deception when the candle sputtered out. “Swaddle them anyways,” she encouraged, “perhaps the owl lied.” 

One hundred days and one hundred nights passed with little notice, save for a sickly scent permeating the house. The box, once filled with needles, became blackened, rotting flesh. The needlemaker’s wife threw the box away. “You promised to provide in thick and thin.” she scolded. “You must find your owl and explain—call it an accident. Bring her back. You saved her life—she can hardly refuse.”

“I haven’t seen the porcelain owl in many years,” he protested, “I only know that her country lies far to the east. It may take months to find her, perhaps a lifetime.”

“Then go eastward. Our life is nothing but poverty,” said his wife. 

The needlemaker took nothing but a mending kit for his shoes and a loaf of bread for his mouth before he kissed his daughter goodbye. “Goodbye, Leya—remember me.”

In the first year the needlemaker’s wife built a perch where the owl could watch clouds dapple the village with shadows. A crisp wind blew into the room, and the needlemaker’s wife shivered. “It wouldn’t be right to let the owl sleep in a draught, would it? I’ll build something to keep out the breeze.” 

In the second year she constructed a shelter where neither breath of wind nor band of sun could crack the darkness. Leya stood on one foot to peer over the window and wobbled. Her small hand caught the door latch and sprung it open. 

The needlemaker’s wife needed certainty against her daughter’s clumsy fingers—a higher latch and a barred window. She installed a lock on the outer door. The owl could call them if she needed anything.

In the third year, funds dwindled, so she sold her husband’s leftover wares and traded his needles for their future. Customers asked for singing needles and she placated them, saying they took time. She sang the needle’s song every night until her daughter mumbled it back in her sleep.

In the fourth year, the needlemaker’s wife stopped expecting the needlemaker’s return. Only tin needles remained and the cheap metal warped and sold poorly at market. For the first time, the needlemaker’s wife saw bare boards line her pantry shelves, poverty hovering a breath away.

She dragged her daughter to the next market, clutching the girl’s scrawny wrist. Leya stumbled as she tried to keep pace with her mother, their basket of wares hugged close to her small body. They swept out their stall and draped an old, embroidered cloth over their table, hem cascading towards the dusty ground. Leya huddled in the dark space beneath and hummed the needle’s song in her thin, reedy voice.

“Singing needles! Singing needles for sale!”

“Show us how they work—”

“These ones… shy… they go quiet over time—”

“... how much?”

“Samples… beautiful work—”

All the while, Leya’s voice grew fainter. She coughed, breaking the needle’s now-threadbare tune. The table shuddered with her mother’s boot and a thin card of needles fell beneath the fabric’s shifting folds. 

“Thank you, Sir, I just caught my foot. I know these needles aren’t full strength, but times are tough.”

“You ask too much for a trinket.”

“Stop! Thief! How dare you steal the little I have left?” 

“You forget yourself… an accident—”

“Lout-faced, lying—”

“Perhaps it fell…”

The cloth rippled.

“LEAVE IT.”

The man swept back the fabric to reveal the card of needles and Leya’s shrinking form. A hand pulled her into the glaring light.

“So what? I can’t help having the brat.” The needlemaker’s wife said. She frowned at the stranger. “But I was mistaken, forgive me.”

“You forget something.” The man raised an eyebrow. “What about the singing?”

They were thrown out of the market, pushed by jeering voices and ugly laughter. 

“That bird ruined your lousy father, but you ruined us,” said the needlemaker’s wife. “I’m going to wring the neck of that hollow-hearted owl.”

She traded their carriage for casks of bird lime, slathering every tree in their woods. Many were shoved in the owl’s hut, but others became meat in her evening stew. 

Leya ate with the horse—watery bowls of tasteless gruel.

In the fifth year, the bird shelter—now an aviary—risked overflowing. The boards bowed outwards and their cries pierced the air. 

One afternoon, she left the house only to have white spatter hit her arm, followed quickly by a second drop and a third. She stomped to the aviary and pounded the warping wood, hoping to quell the squalling birds. Their cries grew thricefold and the onslaught of droppings turned too many to count, coating her arms and streaking her legs.

“I’ll give you something to cry about,” she yelled.

Rather than sending Leya to make a poor bargain, the needlemaker’s wife rode to town through the barrage and threatened the stonemason to take the dilapidated horse on her terms. 

The stonemason built new walls around the aviary until it stood larger than the hut they lived in. He mounded earth until the enclosure was muffled by the weight of an entire hill. Finally, silence reigned and the circling birds dispersed.

Without their horse, she could no longer afford the endless trips back and forth to collect the birds. She hauled Leya along on her outings, forcing her daughter to peel the birds from the sticky sap and carry crate after crate back to the aviary.

“Forgive me,” Leya pleaded to the birds. Lime stuck to her fingers and stained her clothes, yet she pitied the undeserving creatures.

“I wish the magic owl pitied us, too.” Her mother snorted. “Maybe she’ll see what we had to resort to.”

In the sixth year, birds were scarce. Rumor mills turned until all knew of the woman who buried birds alive in her hill. Still, the needlemaker’s wife knew how to snatch at opportunity. She demanded an audience with the castle gamemaster and offered a trade: her finest game in exchange for guards around the hill’s locked door. Her collection would be the crown of the kingdom; they would have their pick of fowl.

The Queen, who disapproved of any who stole songbirds from their mornings and gamebirds from their tables, refused. The Marchioness, however, agreed, becoming renowned for elaborate hunting parties that disgusted the Queen as much as they were favoured by her court.

In the seventh year, the needlemaker’s daughter found a golden raven in the traps, gilded feathers glittering and dancing as it picked at the lime. She hummed the needle’s song, soothing the raven’s frenzied motion, and cleaned its beak.

“Oh daughter who has set me free

From bondage, caught in yonder tree,

What reward shall laurel thee,

Oh daughter who has set me free?”

“Good Raven,” Leya began, “My father once journeyed east in search of the porcelain owl, who wintered with him many years before. How does he fare?”

The raven looked solemnly at the girl.

“Daughter,” he said, “I have not seen any man reach the eastern lands, but for your service, I will ask among my peers.”

The needlemaker’s daughter thanked the raven and offered to share her meager lunch. Over the meal, Leya told the golden raven about the aviary in the hill and warned him to be careful, and the golden raven promised to spread word. 

Hardly a week passed before the woods were barren. Leya returned empty-handed for three days before her mother intervened. She took over the rounds and saw the traps caught nothing—perhaps she had truly caught all the birds in the world. The owl was fragile; surely it had withered away since then.

Then she heard a distant caw.

Caught in the centremost tree in the wood, feet bound by day-old lime, was a golden raven. 

“Let no one enter but me,” she declared to the guards, pushing away her eager daughter, “and you will each receive a golden feather. This bag is for the golden raven’s feathers and the stewpot is for his body.”

“And the rest?” Leya asked, eyeing the buckets piled beside the door.

“To pluck down from every bird—a feather or two each—which you will make into a tick. A mattress from the feathers of every bird in the world.”

When the needlemaker’s wife entered the locked hill, her shriek, despite the thick earthen walls, echoed long over the countryside.

Her daughter waited as the sun crept from the horizon and arced above the trees. She waited as cool morning turned into the glaring beat of midday sun. She waited as the guards shuffled and yawned and planned for their pending reward.

Come noon, she was worried. “Perhaps something is wrong.” 

The younger guard shook his head. “I won’t be chancing my feather on a girl.”

So she waited some more. In mid-afternoon, a servant from court arrived.

“Game collection: three quail, nine grouse, and twelve pheasants.”

“The aviary is closed,” the older guard said. “There’s a golden raven inside.”

“The Marchioness sent word yesterday.”

“Orders are orders.”

Then, the Marchioness came. She swept past Leya, straight toward the door in the hill. “Where are my birds?”

“My Lady,” the guards bowed deeply. “The goodwife insists that, on no condition can the hill be opened today.”

“Where is she?” The Marchioness frowned at Leya and fixed her eyes back on the guards.

“In the hill, my Lady; there’s a golden raven.”

“Finally, something worthwhile. Open up.”

“My Lady, with all respect—”

“I do not repeat myself.”

The older guard handed the younger guard the key. He nodded towards the iron-clad door. The lock clicked and the door cracked open.

All was silent—not a single birdsong or squawk or screech, no beating of wings or rustle of feathers.

“Allow me.” The Marchioness stepped into a flock of birds bursting from the aviary doors. Out flew the grouse, the storks, the pigeons, the pheasants, the swallows and larks, the doves and the nightingales. At last, the Marchioness swayed alone—shredded gown, torn skin, and bare patches where hair had been. She fainted.

When Leya approached, only the golden raven remained.

“Oh daughter, do not mourn tonight

For I have set your wishes right;

The time is near to reunite—

Oh daughter, do not mourn tonight.”

“Fear not, for you have remained steadfast and true. Weave a large basket of rushes. We will fly you to our homeland on the same winds that will finally carry your father there.”

In three days, the basket was completed and a flock a hundred strong carried her into the sky. They flew over the castle, where the Queen rejoiced at the return of birds to her lands. They flew over the countryside, where the Marchioness shuddered and ordered for her drapes to be drawn. They flew over distant kingdoms and far-off oceans until they reached the eastern lands, where—in return for their good deeds—the needlemaker and his daughter were reunited.

So it is that, beyond the seventh summit of the seven ranges, stands an empty needlemaker’s hut. It stands alone, brushing the heavens, and listens to the nearby woods filled once again with song.