Even Grimmer Tales

by Valerie Volk

  A beautiful young girl with long golden hair has been imprisoned by a wicked witch in an isolated tower. There are no doors, but the witch gains nightly access through a window by climbing the long ropes of hair that the girl lets down in response to her call:

  Rapunzel, Rapunzel, let down your hair

  so that I may climb the golden stair.

  Clearly her hair has strength as well as beauty … (beauticians take note!) One day a prince riding through the forest hears the girl’s singing, sees her at the window and falls in love with her. Seems she’s talented as well as attractive. The prince watches and then imitates the witch’s access to the tower. They fall in love, a reward for his enterprise and athleticism. When the witch discovers his nightly visits, she cuts Rapunzel’s hair and casts her out, then uses the golden ropes to haul the Prince up to join her. Horrified, he leaps from the tower and is blinded. Later, he and Rapunzel are reunited when he hears her singing in the forest. Wasn’t it lucky that she had a voice as well as looks?

  Hairific

  I heard her singing.

  That was how it started.

  A sound so sweet, almost heart-rending,

  it floated on the still night air.

  It hovered,

  notes cascading in the dark

  like raindrops falling on still water,

  sending ripples out.

  I’d stopped my bike to rest –

  one of those long night rides

  I took to wear the body out,

  to reach exhaustion.

  Kill the need.

  If possible.

  Now there’s an irony.

  To kill the need.

  What need?

  The need to kill.

  A paradox quite neat enough to satisfy

  the mind of any sophist. Although in truth

  I’ve never felt the lust to kill. Sometimes

  it’s necessary. You could say it happens …

  Perhaps ‘collateral damage’ is the term to use?

  They never seem to understand exactly

  what it is I’m after.

  I’d seen a girl the night before.

  Had followed her

  almost to her front door,

  my mind bewitched

  by long dark hair that swung across her shoulders,

  gleaming in the moonlight.

  I could feel

  already how it might be underneath

  my stroking hand, its smoothness

  as my caressing fingers gently touched

  those tresses, so seductive, so alluring.

  Almost jet black.

  No jet blacks yet

  in my collection. And my favourite length,

  not just a colour that I lacked.

  She turned (don’t think she’d seen me)

  at a garden gate.

  The front door opened, someone

  welcomed her.

  Knew I’d missed my chance.

  I left in haste. Still felt

  the raging need, so rode

  long hours into the night.

  This house was dark, upstairs one light,

  and from a lamp-lit window came

  a voice.

  Then she looked out, beyond the sill,

  singing old songs

  through evening air.

  The moment that I saw her,

  forgot her voice at once.

  Leaning out, she turned from side to side and,

  as she moved her head,

  her hair swung in the moonlight.

  I stood transfixed.

  It was beyond

  my wildest dreams.

  Pure gold. No trick of lighting, this.

  Her hair was shimmering,

  molten gold,

  and long …

  It rippled in the soft night breeze.

  I staggered, bike forgotten where it fell –

  the rush of hot desire,

  felt once more

  the old familiar swelling need.

  That hair …

  But as I moved my hand to bring relief

  she saw me where I stood under the shadow

  of the trees. “Is anybody there?”

  I moved;

  I could have been sleep-walking.

  Stepped into the patch of moonlight.

  Heard again:

  “Who’s there? Please come and talk to me.”

  My voice was hoarse, I knew, rough with desire.

  “Come down,” was all that I could manage.

  “Can’t do it. I’m locked in at nights

  while Mum’s at work. But I’m bored silly.”

  She was right. The house was firmly locked.

  No window even that I could have broken.

  Shuttered up, the whole place was.

  Almost a prison.

  But when I looked again

  it drove me almost wild.

  She’d started to braid up

  that hair, those golden swinging sheets of hair.

  “Leave it,” I croaked. “I’ll climb the tree.”

  And so began our nights.

  I rode there, every night,

  to climb the tree to talk to her.

  Didn’t really have a lot to say. I’d watch

  her hair, imagine how I’d run it through my fingers,

  feel it swing across my body, move delicately down

  my flesh to tease and tantalise.

  She knew just how

  to madden me. One night

  she wore a scarf;

  that night I would have wound it

  round her throat if I had got to her.

  And then the hair could

  have been mine.

  But how to get to her?

  She wouldn’t say her name. “You could call me

  Rapunzel.”

  That was all she’d say.

  Back then I didn’t understand. But now

  I do. I’ve read the story that they tell.

  Idiotic notion,

  that a prince could climb her hair.

  And yet, I guess you could say that

  my body rose under the influence

  of all those golden braids.

  It climbed, indeed, a different sort of stairway.

  If not a tower, well at least it rose aloft!

  Perhaps that’s how the story started …

  They tell me now there is a name for how I feel.

  It’s trichophilia, they say. As if I give a damn,

  another bit of useless information.

  I’ve always known that long hair turns me on.

  That’s why

  collecting is the best thing in my life.

  I didn’t mind the risk I took

  in climbing from the tree into her window.

  She’d asked me many times

  to see if I could do it. What she didn’t know

  was that it wasn’t her,

  just her hair

  I wanted.

  I had to keep her quiet

  while I cut it off.

  Who would have thought

  that it would take so long?

  So when at last

  I turned her over, took the pillow off her face,

  I’d half expected that her eyes would open,

  that she’d look up at me.

  But she was just like all the others.

  Like them, she lay there, still.

  They never look the same, without their hair.

  Hansel and Gretel

  In a time of terrible famine, a woodcutter and his wife decide they must abandon their children in a forest. The first time they try this disposal method, clever Hansel leaves a trail of white pebbles and he and Gretel find their way home. But the next time their parents attempt the cost-cutting exercise, Hansel can’t find any pebbles and birds eat the trail of crumbs he tries to leave instead. Lost and starving, the hungry children find a house of gingerbread and sweets, and begin to eat it. The owner, a witch with a tast
e for young flesh, captures them, and makes Gretel a household slave while fattening Hansel in an iron cage for the cooking pot. But the intrepid children manage to trick the witch into herself falling into the oven so that they can escape. One hopes this time they were rewarded when they reached home yet again …

  Pre-prandial musings

  I always give them a good time.

  That seems to me important.

  I want it to be better

  than the life they had with parents.

  If things had not been bad at home

  they’d never have been here with me.

  Used to wonder …

  Now I understand so much

  that never made real sense before.

  Different people.

  Different values.

  Different tastes …

  So very true.

  Once you come to realise

  it’s just a matter of what people say,

  that really ‘right’ and ‘wrong’ are only words

  and have such varied meanings …

  Well, many aspects that once bothered me

  now seem quite ordinary.

  No, Gretel, if you’ve finished dusting,

  now you can sweep the floor.

  It’s very bad, the way some parents

  treat their offspring.

  There’s animals that care far better

  for their young than many humans do.

  But then,

  let’s face it, we’re all animals.

  Just different breeds of living species,

  that’s the truth of it.

  I know that there are people

  who won’t eat the flesh of animals.

  A special virtue?

  Yet vegetarianism takes so many forms.

  I’ve made it quite a field of expertise.

  There’s ovo, lacto, and there’s veganism;

  there’s some who are fruitarians,

  or even pescetarians … it shows you

  that it takes all sorts to make a world.

  Can’t really understand just why

  the family dog or cat in some societies

  is held as quite forbidden fodder

  while others see these as a tasty treat.

  You’re following my reasoning?

  The whole thing’s cultural. Depends entirely

  on the way that you’ve been reared.

  I think a lot about these things. I’ve had

  the time to contemplate the strangeness

  of it all.

  Taboo! It’s curious –

  the way what in one age

  or one society seems normal,

  part of daily life,

  in others may be frowned on …

  We make the rules,

  and then pretend that they’re god-given.

  What presumption!

  The floor’s swept? Mop it next,

  and then you can make lunch for Hansel.

  For me the most important thing

  is to keep others happy.

  Sheer misery – some children’s lives.

  The happiness I bring them

  is worth the price they pay.

  I won’t pretend it’s altruistic,

  but here at least they get a time of pleasure

  that they’ve never known before.

  Warriors in ancient races

  took advantage of the enemies

  they’d slaughtered –

  scavenged bodies

  for new strength.

  Today the Korowai are remnants of the many

  through the ages who have known

  that flesh brings strength – no matter what

  its source – especially when it comes

  from those who have proved weaker.

  (That’s not what I’m about!)

  Eat more meat? So advertisers trumpet,

  And dieticians tell us frequently:

  Red meat is good for us – it’s iron for the blood.

  Then what about straight need?

  Consider history: sieges where,

  in desperation and starvation,

  to survive one fed from any source.

  The faint of heart, or those too squeamish,

  raise hands to lips in horror at the thought.

  We realists say one does what one has to.

  Plane wrecks.

  Survivors of Flight 571

  managed to obliterate taboos

  and emulate those on the raft of the Medusa

  or at the Siege of Leningrad.

  They ate what was available.

  They had to.

  Had to? An interesting thought.

  We all have different needs,

  and different ways of meeting them.

  Anthropophagy –

  quite a word. It sounds more scientific

  than a term like ‘cannibal’.

  We all know well, what science can explain

  is more acceptable than grosser concepts …

  No more apologies.

  There are good precedents for how I live.

  And how I satisfy my needs.

  I’m not the first to see the logic of these arguments.

  In times gone by I read how Swift,

  yes Jonathan himself,

  the one we think of when we mention Gulliver,

  created a solution to Ireland’s over-population crisis.

  Quite logical –

  just think of all those surplus children!

  I could have cheered – until they pointed out to me

  that he was known for irony. A pity, that!

  Perhaps you have no stomach for considerations

  of this sort … a bad pun, I’ll admit! But note –

  the flesh should be a tender young one’s,

  nothing old or stringy.

  In my experience, considerable by now,

  a certain change sets in

  at twelve or so. For after that they have

  a different flavour.

  Not quite tainted, but a whiff

  of something less appealing.

  You’d be the first to send it back, complain,

  if restaurants served you tough old steak.

  Those children whom I care for are given

  many pleasures. Sweets and treats galore.

  It’s not a house of gingerbread – that sort of myth

  no-one would ever credit – but they enjoy

  a happy life with me before their time is up.

  Their freedom may be limited; sometimes

  a child’s mind doesn’t know that it’s

  well-off, and till they realise the dangers

  of the outside world, they need to be confined.

  But most of them are greedy little people

  and I have learned through years just what has

  most appeal. To them, I mean, not only me.

  So, Gretel, lots of milk and cheese for Hansel’s lunch,

  and then this plate of cream cakes for dessert.

  Just take it to the garden hut where he is waiting.

  I’ll bring the key, unlock the door for you.

  We need to make sure that he’s been well-fed …

  The Fisherman and his Wife

  A very impoverished fisherman one day catches a large flounder, but puts it back in the sea when it pleads that it is really an enchanted prince. In their miserable hovel that night, his wife Ilsabill is furious that he has asked for nothing in return. Always ready to seize an opportunity, she orders him back to the fish to claim a better cottage. Her subservient husband goes, unwillingly. For a short time she is satisfied, then the domineering woman sends him to demand, in turn, a manor house, and after that a palace. He’s not happy – but he obeys. The fish is amazingly patient – it must have been very grateful! Or sympathetic? As each request is met, the wife’s requirements become more excessive; she insists on becoming first of all king, then emperor, and finally pope. For fear of her, the fisherman y
ields and presents each order in turn, but she is never satisfied. At last she demands to be like god, and to be able to make the sun rise and set. This time when her hen-pecked husband returns from the sea, he finds that they are once more living in the hovel. Did he dare say I told you so?

  Of Mice and Men

  “She wears the pants, of course!”

  So limited in understanding,

  anyone who could say that!

  My smile, a twisted grin.

  It’s easy to accept that many men

  find women who are strong a threat.

  Masculinity’s an obligation, after all!

  What’s always been to me much more intriguing

  is while so many men may fit the stereotype,

  sometimes the ones who seem most macho

  are very likely to be needy, looking, searching,

  wanting something quite outside the norm.

  I learned that early on.

  The ones who lick their lips, and grow excited,

  as soon as they see pictures of a woman with a whip –

  The ones whose needs are so particular they find it hard

  to gain their satisfaction in the marriage bed,

  but seek a woman who will understand …

  In short, someone like me, with skills

  (I learned when young how marketable)

  and courage to pursue my avocation.

  I’m known for that. I did quite well.

  Such men will pay for the discreet indulgence

  of their less usual desires. They like to feel

  a woman in control, to get the punishment

  deserved. Perhaps relief for men who call the shots,

  whose daily lives put them in high positions.

  Responsibility’s a burden. Bliss to let go?

  And they have money. No problem to afford me.

  I don’t come cheap. My reputation’s known.

  No longer any need to advertise. Word gets around.

  The days of magazines that offer special services

  like mine are over. Now I pick and choose.

  Just as I choose the methods that I’ll use,

  the little toys that are my tools of trade – they really

  should be tax deductible – now that I think about it,

  I have some politicians in my clientele … perhaps

  I need to put some pressure on to bring about

  a slight amendment to tax laws. I’ll think about it.

  I find I can get anything I want.

  Except I’ve also learned that sometimes one can push

  too hard. A lesson early in the days before I got to be

  where I am now. Back when I still worked in a house.

  No, not a common brothel. This was exclusive –

  an establishment. Not obvious, of course.