The Lady and the Serpent (part 3)
Third episode of a personal rendering of traditional folk tale from Norse tradition, full of embodied wisdom.
Previously in the the second part of this traditional folk tale, we found out how the queen had poured her heart and soul in performing a ritual with the moon in order to bring an future heir to the throne. How she stumbled on the last set of instructions but had somehow the feeling that she did her best and felt at peace with her decision.
You can read part one here.
The midwife, her apprentice along with the maids come to assist the queen in her labour. They reassure her that she is doing great and tell her to keep breathing deeply. In between contractions she is made aware that if there is anything else she would like to help her being more relaxed, she should just say so.
It’s the first child she was hoping for and she wants to make sure she does not disappoints herself, the king and the kingdom in providing a future heir to the throne.
The king is present, holds her hand and comforts her the best he can with gentle words and cleans the sweat on her forehead.
As the contractions get ever more intense, the midwife senses that it would be best to provoke the burst of the waters rather than waiting for them to do so on their own, and after letting the queen know, that’s what they do.
From that moment onward, the contractions the gain few orders of magnitude and the queen indicates that she would like to try to deliver the baby standing up instead of laying down. The midwife, the king and the other helping hands assist her in repositioning towards the wall and step into a large bath where they can pour lukewarm water from her neck to treacle down her back and help her relax. Once she’s settled in that position, they all start singing to soothe her in a mantra fashion:
“Sacred human I am,
Bare feet I walk across the river stones.
I have the water in my blood and the earth on my bones.
I tend the fire in my heart, so I am never alone.
Sacred human I am.”
And indeed not so long after, as the singing goes on and on, the midwife can see that something is emerging out, and in theory it should not be too long before they can all celebrate.
Except that this time, something seems really odd. In decades of practice, the midwife had never seen anything like it. She does not want to sound alarming or overly concerned, but she is clearly taken aback and concerned. She is silent now and as the head comes out, it’s ever more clear that what comes out now does not have much resemblance to a human head. It’s dark-red, brown and black, the eyes seem to have no eyelids, and a the neck seems to have no end and is now undulating sideways and now using its bi-dent like tongue to taste the air. After few more centimetres, the horror vision seems now to be all too real and the midwife is now certain that things are not looking good. But she urges the singing to continue, and comforts the queen she is doing a great job with her breathing and that they are almost done. The midwife is now more focused than ever and picks up a towel and grabs the baby lindworm from the head, wraps it up and takes it to a table where a basin with warm water is already present. She calls the king and in the most stoic tone, she announces to him that this is his new baby. As the king’s face shifts from excitement and joy to confusion and disbelief, the midwife calmly asks him what they should do with it. The king seems now thunderstruck as the animal dwells in the water exploring the new boundaries in a way that does not appear threatening.
After a minute or so, he is becoming somewhat mesmerized and seems to be going deeper and deeper into his thoughts until the agitation around him feels like a distant echo and can instead hear and feel his own heart pounding on his chest.
In what seemed to be like an eternity, the midwife touches the kings shoulder and asks him again how they should proceed? At that very moment, the apprentice calls the midwife again as another head seems to be coming out and the queen is back on grinding her teeth and moaning to push the new baby out. The singing starts again.
That’s when when the king closes his eyes, tilts his head down and proceeds with focusing on his breath and on his heartbeat. He can still hear the energy picking up again with the ladies a few arm lengths away helping the queen with the new waves of pushing through contractions. He recognizes through sound that the midwife’s voice is calmer now and seems to have things under control. He hears more her encouragements. He hears how she finally announces to the queen she can come and grab her new baby quickly. He hears how very carefully she hands her the beautiful chubby baby boy she was hoping for. He feels how the ladies are helping the queen to lay down on the warm bath. He hears how they bring her new son to her chest where she can admire him and make her feel safe.
The relief is now palpable in the air and the king is now trying to reach a decision on what should they do with the beast that is calmly resting on the warm bath in front of him.
Kill it? That could be always an option. But there is also something about the animal that is right in front of him that does not seem to give any signs of threat. On the contrary it looks very placid and one could even say majestic and graceful with his red and dark tones. Somehow killing this new creature does not feel right to him. It did not choose where or to whom to be born on this earth.
Keep it? The impossibility to keep secrets in a court would lead sooner or later to distorted rumours leading to more superstition. He could try to be imaginative to explain the presence of a snake in the castle, but no one has ever seen the king mentioning a fascination for reptiles before; so why on earth would the royal couple start a new “hobby” with a new pet while a son is demanding all their attention. Being a king is difficult enough during normal times. Surely at the next moment of tension due to bad crops, diseases or turmoil at the periphery with the other kingdoms, this exotic host will feed negative energy and bring more chaos. And who needs that while you could avoid it.
What about setting it free? After all, lindworms can fend for themselves from day one, and releasing it into the wilderness would not raise much suspicion. Certainly they can live a better life on their own than being kept on a cage in the castle.
The king opens his eyes, and takes one more long breath in. Exhales. Approaches the midwife. Touches her shoulder and mentions close to her ear that he thinks the best is to discretely release it into the wild and forget about this part of the story. The midwife simply nods and replies that she will take care of it and that he can count on her. The king then returns to his queen and child and notices how they both look radiant, calm and beautiful. He feels he can now be fully present for both of them. He lets her know how happy he is to feel blessed with her and thanks her for all the efforts she had gone through.
A couple of decades pass and the prince is now an agile, handsome and grounded young man. He honores his parents, tends to keep quiet and loves spending most of his time outdoors with horses. He occasionally climbs trees and loves to dwell and contemplate near waterfalls but also enjoys being there for his people.
One day after a long summer month spent outside contemplating by the river, the prince comes back to the castle and declares to his mother and father that he will depart to visit the neighbouring kingdoms in search of a lady that will accept him as a husband. The parents are supportive and trust he knows what he wants and reassure him that if there is anything he needs from them, they will be there for him.
And so the prince departs the following day with his favorite horse and dashes to the east for hours, until he reaches the limits of his father’s kingdom and finds a large river with no bridge in sight. After a moment spent studying the water, the prince reckons he can likely cross the river on his horseback anyway and proceeds to negotiate his entry into the water. As he comes out and reaches the other end, the prince is struck by the presence of the largest serpent he has ever seen. It’s enormous and looks like it would have no troubles swallowing him up and his horse in one go. It’s recoiled on the riverbank, staring at him. Then it slowly re-positions itself to prevent the prince and his horse to move deeper on the east bank of the river. The serpent raises its head up, looks very intimidating and moves closer to face the prince directly. The beast stops and says with a firm and assertive tone:
”Older brothers get to marry first!”
The prince is not equipped to face such adversary and decides to retreat back on the west bank of the river. He tries to move up and down the river to see how he might outrun the threat. He can clearly see that the reptile on the other side is still keeping an eye on him. It’s calmly following him along to make him understand it is very determined to stand its ground. As the prince senses in his heart he is no match, he resigns himself to return and head now to the southern border.
A day passes and he is finally reaching a very dense forest indicating he is now about to enter the neighbouring kingdom on the south. He jumps over a log, and slaloms between two large trees. When he suddenly sees coming down a branch in front of him at the last moment, the very same large serpent’s head he had seen on the east river. The fright makes the prince loose his balance and fall of his horse but he intuitively rolls on the ground and with relatively no harm. The beast is now slowly coming down from the tree, closer to the prince. And when it is just in front of his nose, it opens its mouth and says with the same determined and firm tone:
-”Older brothers get to marry first!”
The prince crawls backwards facing the beast despite his concussions and stands up with his arm in front of his head to prevent any potential sudden attack. The serpents is now standing still simply staring at the prince. The prince retreats a bit further to create space and turns his head to search his horse, and luckily sees that he is coming back and not too far away. The serpents keeps an eye on the prince and seems to be letting him recompose himself and stays where he is to let him retrieve his noble steed and mount him again. The prince takes another look back at the enormous snake to make sure it’s not getting closer; then decides to gallop to the west.
Another day passes, as he arrives to the reaches of an oceanic landscape. Soon after he has the sea on sight, and finds a shore where he could possibly find a fisherman’s boat and hitch a ride to another land across the sea.
As he rides along the long sandy beach, he finds eventually two piers in the distance and one of them seems to have what could be a boat moored to it. He decides to approach it.
As he gets closer, he dismounts his horse and reaches the pier to inspect it. He suddenly gets thunderstruck again when the same large serpent comes out of the calm waters and intimidates the prince again with the same sentence:
” Older brothers get to marry first!”
This time, it seems the message is utterly clear and the prince resigns himself to return home to his castle. As he finally reaches home, he finds his mother and asks her whether there is anything that they have not told him about his birth. The queen is taken aback by the question but as far as she’s concerned some details are blurry in her mind. In all sincerity she does not recall anything too strange so she says that in this case it’s likely best to ask the king. Both of them go and find the king and ask him if they can have a word. Again the prince asks if there is anything about his birth that they have omitted to tell him about. The king’s expression does shift to a more cold and stoic composure and asks his entourage to leave him alone with his queen and prince. The king asks his son what is his intention with this question and the young man obviously proceeds to explain how his trip abroad was cut short by some enormous serpent claiming that “older brothers get to marry first”; implying that they are somehow related or that somewhere else out there there is an older brother alive that should have priority over him.
The king resolves himself to go into the details of the birth and explains how a lindworm came to this world a few minutes before the prince and how he asked the midwife to let the animal go free where it likely belonged. That’s when the queen added her part of the story and explained the encounter with the wise lady, the ritual and the flowers dilemma she had to resolve.
As the three of them find themselves silent in the middle of royal court of the castle, they come to acknowledge that there is a responsibility to address what is currently at the margins of their kingdom. They all look into each other and the king asks them to come closer and hold their hands. Then he asks to both of them what are they afraid of? What they think is the best way to proceed ?
The prince closes his eyes and takes a few deep breaths. Then after a few moments of landing into his belly and chest, states that he feels helpless for not being able to answer the urge to be with a woman, but also does not think slaying the lindworm with an army is the solution; as clearly there were no obvious signs that it wanted to hurt him. If anything it looked more like it was in a quest for justice and reparation. If there was any clue, the demands were simply clear:
-“It wants to get married too and maybe event be part of the kingdom somehow.”
He continued saying that what he was the most afraid was that there were so many unknowns about its intentions and it could be well seeking revenge and who knows what will it be like to have a beast from the margins back into the heart of the kingdom? The king thanks his son and signals to his wife she could speak whenever she would feel ready.
The queen proceeds then to take also a few deep breaths. After a long pause, she felt the breath setting down on her belly. Then after a few more moments, she voiced that she felt somewhat guilty for bringing a monster into this world. She wished she had not messed things up with the ritual. But at the same time felt she was also ain alignment with herself when she decided to eat both flowers. So instead of seeing this as a curse, she intuits that maybe this is simply meant to be and therefore she will be in service to the kingdom in anyway they think she could help. She concludes with a phrase that sounded almost like it was coming from a deeper place:
“ I am willing to see this in a different way and I surrender to the Unknown.”
The king gave thanks to the the queen with a look of admiration and in tune with the vulnerability she shared. Both men nodded and pressed her hands to indicate they were in this together.
The turn of the king arrives and exactly as the others, he takes a few deep breaths and puts his hand on the belly and stays there for a while. After a very long pause he states that he feels globally in peace with the decisions he had made in the past about not killing the lindworm but also cannot help but feeling like this is a nightmare and wishes this not to be true. After another pause, the king says that he is afraid of letting his kingdom and family down. Nonetheless he is also in service of them and trusts that there is enough wisdom in this castle or even this land to face the beast. He concurs that given the short statement given by the lindworm, it is a sign of strong focus and power. The fact it did not hold his son hostage, and that it did not come to make demands directly that could have created a commotion in the kingdom, were signs of maturity and restrain that are somewhat positive in his view. Also he agrees that the lack of much more information about his intentions indicate that the beast is likely hiding something. Therefore they should definitely prepare for the worst while they open the dialogue. In consequence, it will ask his best men to escort and protect his son on a trip to the last place he has seen the reptile, while they try to get more details from it. If the beast ever heads towards the castle, he would like to be informed ahead of time in order to prepare his people of what is about to come. From there they will see how things unfold.
A group family hug followed and a kind of softening in their bodies could be felt by all three of them. They agree that in three days the prince will depart to the west coast again with the best men from the king’s army and meet the lindworm again with the intention to gather more information and take things from there.