Broad Begins the Tale of Briar Neustadt

Dear Grandmama,

Greetings to the most lovely, wise and powerful of ancestors, to whom all respect is due and is humbly given!

In my quest for tales that might be useful to your friend Zade, I went last night to hear Broad tell stories. I’d as soon the partners don’t know, or I shall be teased no end about still being a child who wants nursery stories. It’s so unjust: I’m probably as old as Ever and maybe even older than Happy; it’s not my fault that our kind matures slowly. When I contemplate your splendour, I know it could only accumulate over centuries of discriminating and purposeful experience. With your example before me I’m not often impatient. I just sometimes feel unhappy that those around me cannot be as graciously patient as I.

That said, I joined those gathering under the Story Tree, and after the Pitabird sang, Broad began.

Gather around, gentlebeings, put a coin in my bag, or a skin of ale by the Tree.

Cheaters beware –
you’ll be et by the bear!
Hark to a tale,
as long as I’m Broad.

This is a tale of the beginnings of our fair city,
so I’m already a fraud.
No creature, bear of bigfoot or any other,
can tell of a beginning without a before.
But each moment’s an end of some things and a beginning of others,
so any moment at all would do to start my tale,
even this moment now.
Except, dear gentlebeings, each of us can only guess
a few of the things that might be beginning now,
and five minutes out we’d already be so wrong
that this tale would be untellable.
So, dear gentlebeings, let’s pick another beginning.

Let’s pick the birth of a princess in Castle Briar, 250 years ago. You’ve grown up with this story, gentlebeings, of the birth of that child, the hope of the kingdom. You’ve heard the story of the Christening party, cursed or charmed according to the views of the teller. You’ve heard of the fairy godmothers, with their gifts of pink cheeks and blond curls and domestic virtues. Sweet!

Not one of them thought to give common sense or courage, let alone wisdom and the will to endure. Not one of them gave the gifts she’d need to lead and inspire, and make hard decisions when every Jack and Jill in the country wants easy.

The last godmother, Nellie, was so old and frail that nobody though she’d even show up. But she did show up, and some folks think that was the beginning of the disaster. (That word again, “beginning”; I tell you, watch that word.) Some folks thought the old fairy had lost it, had grown spiteful in her dotage. No question she was out of step with the other godmothers. She didn’t give a dimpled bum (about the only place that none of the others had given her dimples) or long eyelashes or the 10 greatest pudding recipes and a spell so they’d never fail. What she gave was a shock: she gave the kingdom a reprieve.

She said that Briar Rose would prick her finger on a spindle on her 18th birthday, fall asleep and stay asleep for one hundred years.

Those who thought old Nellie had lost it, those folks thought that the other fairies could easily undo her curse, as they called it. And it’s not that they didn’t try; it’s just that they didn’t succeed.

The royals and the aristocrats tried; they even banished spindles from the kingdom. So this dimpled doomed princess grew up lovely and beloved, and sure as sunrise, on her 18th birthday a time-warp stasis swallowed the castle with everyone and everything in it. Everything but the briars; they grew and flourished and covered Briar Hill, and when they bloom we can smell them all across the city.

When they bloom we all get nervous, because it’s supposed to mean that the stasis is vulnerable.

The people from the village outside the castle were mostly inside working, though a few had made excuses to be away. Historians have wondered if they were warned? Some of Nellie’s great-grands were out; was that just a coincidence? With the other villages downstream they founded Briar Neustadt. Eleanor, the first mayor of Briar Neustadt, was a great-granddaughter of Nellie’s.

When Eleanor and the other founders were in their cradles, legend says Nellie and a couple of her colleagues gave them the sorts of gifts that nobody thought to give Briar Rose. However it happened, they built wisely, and over 250 years the kingdom grew into the Über Celestia that we all know and love.

But Briar Neustadt and Über Celestia have never celebrated their anniversaries like other cities and kingdoms do. Nellie’s curse (or blessing) was originally for just a century. After a century some wandering prince would be able to penetrate the stasis, find Briar Rose, and kiss her. The time warp would evaporate, the castle and everyone in it would wake up.

By then, Nellie must have reckoned, we’d be wise and powerful enough to deal with that kind of blast from the past. But we’ve never wanted to put it to the test. We don’t celebrate the anniversaries. When the briars bloom we just double the watch, and scoop up any wandering princes before they get within smelling distance of Briar Hill.

A lovely scent on the air this evening, isn’t there? And the moon’s over the treetops; it will light your way home.

So that was Broad’s tale. The listeners got up to go, many carrying pitchforks and stopping to light their torches at the bonfire before leaving. It is always heartwarming to see civic values in action.

Minsky and I stayed to help tidy up. When we were finished Broad turned back into a bear and curled up in his den, and I flew Minsky home taking a wide turn about the castle on my way back checking for midnight snacks princes.

With greatest love and respect,

Yours, Toby