The Weaver and the Snakes

Stories for Another Day

Malachy was a weaver who worked hard at his trade. His workroom was full of great reels of coloured thread that he used to weave strong, handsome cloth on his loom. All day long he clacked his shuttle back and forth, weaving cloth for shirts and trousers and dresses and blankets.

His daughter Elodie cooked his meals and kept the house tidy, did the scrubbing and dusting, carried the cloth to market and sold it, and carried home new reels of wool and cotton for Malachy to make more cloth from. All in all they did very well together. But time changes everything, as you know, and things could not go on like this forever.

One morning Malachy got up and stretched and yawned and went into this workroom as he always did, to see how his work was progressing and how much he would have to do that day. When he saw the loom, he stopped and rubbed his eyes. How could it be? He was certain that when he went to bed the night before, he had left the loom all threaded up and ready to weave a new length of cloth, but here was the job finished, the cloth cut off the loom and neatly folded on his bench.

Did he dream it? Had he gotten up in his sleep and woven the cloth with his eyes shut? But when he looked more closely at the cloth, he knew very well it was not of his making. The pattern was one he had never seen before, and the weaving was finer and more even than he could ever possibly do.

His daughter Elodie came in and said, “Finished already, father?”

Malachy looked at her, confused, then he said, “Yes, yes,” and handed her the cloth.”This should fetch a good price at the market!” And indeed it did.

Malachy spent the day threading a new warp onto his loom. When he went to bed that night, it was all ready for weaving, but when he got up the next morning, the cloth was already woven, just as it had been the day before. The pattern was unusual and very beautiful, entwined ferns and vines, much more difficult than Malachy would have had the skill to weave even in his wildest dreams.

“Elodie!” he called. “Take this cloth to the market, and ask a very high price for it. This is finer than any other cloth you could buy.”

His daughter took it to the market, and got almost twice the money she usually got for her father’s cloth.

The next night it must be said, the weaver’s curiosity was too much for him. He threaded the loom before he went to bed, as he always did, but this time he crept down to his workroom in the middle of the night, to see who was doing such miraculous weaving. He could hear the loom clacking and clattering inside the workroom. When he eased the door open, the room was full of snakes! There were snakes carrying the shuttle back and forth, and snakes pulling the beater down and back again, and snakes pressing the treadles, snakes everywhere!

Now the weaver had a greater horror of snakes than anything in the world. “Elodie!” he shouted. “Fetch a club, and bring me my shovel! There are snakes all over the workroom!”

Elodie came running, but she didn’t bring a club or a shovel. “Now, Papa,” she said, closing the workroom door quietly, “don’t make such a fuss. It’s just a few snakes, after all, and you know, they are very good weavers.”

Malachy wiped the sweat off his face. “Just a few? Even one snake would be too many!”

Elodie led him to his favourite chair and said, “Sit down, Papa, I have something to tell you.” She went to the stove and heated a little milk and put some into a cup for him.

“Oh no!” groaned Malachy, putting his head in his hands. “Don’t tell me you met a handsome young man in the woods who fell in love with you at first sight and asked you to marry him, then led you to his lair underground where he changed into a snake before your very eyes and now you find yourself the Queen of the Snakes?”

“No, Papa, that’s hardly likely, it is?” Elodie said, for in actual fact, she was no longer a girl, and besides, several of her teeth were missing, and she had given up hope of any young men falling in love with her at first sight.

Malachy said, “Did you find an injured snake in the woods and bring it home and care for it only to find that it was an enchanter who offered to grant you anything your heart desired?”

“No, Papa,” Elodie said. “What an imagination you have!”

“You weren’t bitten by a magic spider that gave you the power to understand the speech of animals so you have commanded these snakes to do your bidding?” he asked.

“Getting closer,” Elodie said. “Now sit quietly and drink this warm milk and I will tell you what happened. Do you remember there was a circus in the village a few weeks ago? Their trained snakes were getting too old and too stubborn to do their act any more and the ring-master decided to get rid of them. I thought that trained snakes would be the very thing for weaving, with their long thin bodies and their clever tails, and those tricky forked tongues for threading the heddles, so I bought them.”

“Bought them?” Malachy cried. “When you know that snakes are the one thing in the world that I cannot bear? You could have gotten spiders, or sharks, or savage man-eating tigers, and I would have been happier!”

“Yes, Papa,” Elodie said calmly.

“I can’t bear to go into the workroom while there are snakes in there!” he moaned.

“Yes, Papa,” Elodie said, still calmly.

“What do you mean, you wicked girl!” her father shouted.

“Now, Papa, drink your milk and calm down,” Elodie said. “You know that your cloth hasn’t been fetching the price it used to. You’re not as young as you used to be and your eyes are getting weaker. It takes you much longer to thread the heddles, you know, and your back is not as strong, so the cloth is of poorer quality.”

“I suppose that may be so,” Malachy said, grudgingly.

“And although I have designed new patterns for you time and again, you insist on sticking to your old patterns,” Elodie said.

“New patterns, pah!” Malachy snorted. “A waste of time.”

“No, Papa,” Elodie said. “Everyone wants new patterns, and they are selling very well, especially when they are woven so expertly.”

Malachy sighed. “I must say that every day I feel more tired than the day before. It is harder to thread the heddles, and the beater seems heavier every day.”

Elodie patted his arm and said, “Now that we have a workroom full of clever, willing workers, you can retire from your weaving and never have to set foot in the workroom again. You can sit by the fire, and read your paper, and warm your toes to your heart’s content.”

And that is exactly what he did.