Stories for Another Day
A king once had a son called Turin, whom he loved more than anything in the world. The child’s mother had died soon after he was born, which made him even more precious to his father.
One day when the king was sitting at his dining table waiting for his dinner, he heard a great hubbub coming from the kitchen. He went to see what was causing it and found all the cooks and under-cooks and kitchen maids and scullery maids sobbing and crying, with their aprons over their faces.
“What’s all this?” he demanded.
The chief cook took her apron off her face and said, between sobs, “The scullery-maid invited a fortune teller into the kitchen while we were getting the dinner ready, and he told her that one day a weaver with a sword will overpower the prince and take everything he has.” The cook burst into sobs again, and the king could well understand why. He was horrified.
“Bring this fortune teller to me, immediately!” he shouted. But the mysterious fortune teller had vanished and was nowhere to be found. The king decided to take no chances. He ordered all the weaving looms in the kingdom to be gathered into a great pile and burned. Where there were no looms, there could be no weavers, he thought.
In many houses where the women had supported their families by weaving cloth and selling it, there was great unhappiness, none more so than in the tiny cottage where Tamina lived with her grandmother.
Tamina was hardly more than a baby herself, but she loved playing with her grandmother’s silks and cottons. She had been wrapped in a cloth of her grandmother’s weaving when she was born, and since then she had never worn anything which her grandmother hadn’t woven.
As she grew, she longed to make her own cloth, in patterns and beautiful colours, just as her grandmother had done. One day her grandmother found her sighing over a length of material, feeling the soft cloth between her fingers. “Bless you, my child, we don’t need a great wooden loom to weave!” her grandmother said. From an old chest she took out an odd contraption that Tamina had never seen before.
“Now, sit on the floor,” her grandmother instructed, “and put this strap around your back.” She tied the warp to one of the houseposts, and then she showed Tamina how to weave back and forth, leaning back to keep the threads taut, and leaning forward a little when she wanted to pass the shuttle between them. With just a little teaching, Tamina began to weave lengths of cloth as beautiful as any her grandmother had ever made.
“You are a born weaver,” her grandmother sighed, “but you must tell no-one, because the king has forbidden weaving of any kind.” So Tamina and her grandmother worked in the garden all day long, and at night, Tamina would settle down and weave by candlelight, and her heart was happy.
At length, as the years passed, Tamina’s grandmother grew older and died. In her sorrow, Tamina searched through all the baskets of thread that her grandmother had left, and found a spool of finest white silk. She wove a square of soft, smooth cloth, in a design that her grandmother had taught her, called Liar’s Cloth. Her tears left their pattern on it, and her sorrow and love were woven into it. It was the most beautiful thing she had ever made.
Before many days had passed, a most extraordinary thing happened. One of her neighbours wanted to buy the cloth, but he didn’t want to pay a fair price for it. He pretended to see mistakes in the weaving, but as he spoke, a shadow appeared on the cloth, and where he touched it, the cloth went black.
Word spread quickly that Tamina had woven a true liar’s cloth, that could show when a person was lying or not, but of course no-one wanted to touch it, or even to come near it, in case they were revealed as liars. Tamina folded the cloth up and put it away in a safe place.
Now one of the king’s most trusted advisors was the general of his armies. The general wanted to win fame and glory for himself by leading his armies into battle, but how was he to do that, when the king was so peace-loving? He grew more and more discontented, until one day he thought of a plan. He went to the king and said, “My spies have seen an army gathering on our northern border. We must send troops to fight them, or else they will invade our kingdom.”
Prince Turin, who had grown into a fine young man, said, frowning, “That’s impossible. I visited the prince of the northern kingdom just last week and he spoke of the peace between us just as warmly as I did.”
The general said, “Lies! Smiling faces often conceal lying lips. You must listen to me, your Majesty.”
Prince Turin said hotly, “You are the one who is lying!”
The general turned a cruel frown on Turin. “Perhaps the prince is in league with the northern kingdom, to overturn your Majesty’s rule and have the kingdom for himself.”
“Never!” shouted Turin. “This man is a foul liar!”
The king said, “Enough! One of you must be lying.” But turning from one to the other, he was filled with doubt. Turin was young and inexperienced, but was he plotting to take over the kingdom? The general was a trusted friend – could it be that he was dishonest?
A young servant coughed and said nervously, “If it please your Majesty, it is said in the village that there is a young woman who has a magic cloth that can show if a person is honest or not.”
The king could hardly believe it. He stroked his beard thoughtfully and said, “Send for this woman and her magical cloth.”
When Tamina came in, carrying what seemed to be just an ordinary, folded white cloth, the king wondered if this was going to be a waste of time, but Turin noticed her clear grey eyes, and her quiet fearlessness before the king.
“I have heard that you have a cloth that can tell whether a person is lying or telling the truth,” the king said.
“It is true, your Majesty,” Tamina said, in a low, calm voice that stirred Turin’s heart. “If a liar passes his hand over the cloth, it will turn from white to black.”
The king thought for a minute. “How do I know if this is true, or if it is some kind of trick? Let us test your cloth, and see.” He ordered a prisoner to be brought from the palace dungeons, a man known to be a thief.
The prisoner came up with his jailer, protesting, “I am an honest man! I have never stolen a thing!”
The king’s glare silenced him. “Place your hand upon this cloth,” the king ordered.
The thief touched the cloth, and immediately black marks showed where his fingers had touched it. The whole court gasped, amazed.
“Enough,” said the king. “Take him back to the cell where he belongs.”
The king felt the white cloth, turning it this way and that, but he could find nothing extraordinary about it. Turin stepped forward. “Let me, father,” he said. He took the cloth in his hands and said, “I am your Majesty’s loyal and faithful servant.” The whole court held its breath, but the cloth in his hands stayed snowy white.
The king was satisfied. He turned to his general and said, “Take the cloth and swear your loyalty.”
The general blustered and drew back, turning red. “You know I am your Majesty’s loyal servant! Would you trust a peasant’s cloth over my spoken word?” He tried to smile, but beads of sweat sprang out on his face and made his hands damp.
“Take the cloth, now!” insisted the king.
The general brushed one hand over the cloth, as lightly as he could, but before he could even speak, it turned black.
“You traitor!” the king said in an icy voice. “Take him away!” The general was dragged off to prison.
The king turned to Tamina. “I must have this cloth. Name your price.”
“I will not sell it, at any price,” she said. “I will only give it away, to the one I love with all my heart.” And she smiled at Prince Turin.
“Then tell me where I may buy another one like it,” the king said, growing angry again.
Tamina said, “There is no other like it, for I made it with my own hands.”
“What!” thundered the king. “You are a weaver?” He started to his feet in anger. “Do you have a sword?”
“Of course,” said Tamina.
“Seize her!” shouted the king. The royal guards sprang forward and took hold of Tamina’s arms so that she couldn’t move an inch.
“No, Father!” Prince Turin said, for he had loved her as soon as he set eyes on her.
“My son, she admits she has a sword,” the king insisted. “Remember the prophecy! A weaver with a sword will overpower you and take everything you have.”
“Wait, Father,” Turin said. He put the cloth in Tamina’s hands and said gently, “Will you tell me what you plan to do with your sword?”
Tamina said, “Every weaver has a sword. It is only a flat piece of wood that we use to beat down the threads, to make the cloth firm.” The liar’s cloth in Tamina’s hands stayed perfectly white.
Turin smiled and said to his father, “I would willingly give her all that I have, with my hand and my heart, and pray that she would accept them,” he said.
With the king’s blessing, Turin and Tamina were married, and of course the liar’s cloth was Tamina’s wedding present to her beloved Turin. It found its way into the royal treasury and there it stayed for many years, and more than once it saved the king from an embarrassing mistake, but that is a story for another day.
In time, Princess Tamina set up a weaving school in the palace, where she taught anyone who wished to learn. New looms were made, and before long the kingdom became known for the most exquisite weaving in all of the seven kingdoms. But whenever Tamina wished to make something special, wrapping blankets and christening shawls for her own babies and her grandchildren and their children, she would bring out her grandmother’s loom and sit on the floor and weave to her heart’s content.
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