Treasury of Fairy Tales

The Poor Woman

By Nina Boyd

Once upon a time, there lived a poor woman in the middle of a lonely wood. She often went for days without seeing any other people, and so was of the mind that any person was a good one, a welcome break in the silent monotony of her life. 

One cold gray morning, she came across an old woman, pecking and scratching blindly at the path with a gnarled old tree branch. The poor woman watched the sightless crone try to find her way with her shaking walking stick for a few moments, and then ventured forward, arms extended. 

"Please let me help you, old one," she said kindly, taking the old woman's shoulders to lead her down the path. 

"You are too kind, my dear," the old woman croaked, leaning against her heavily. 

When they arrived at the end of the path, a strange look came over the crone's eyes, almost as though she could suddenly see. She pointed to the squat stone cottage before them and croaked, "Go down to the cellar and find a chest with a green lid. Open it and pull out the spool of brown thread. Unravel three times the length of your arm and snip this from the spool. Then you will have an answer to your question." 

The poor woman drew back in surprise at this sudden pronouncement, but she did not question it. She knew her fortune had just been told, and now she must do as the crone had said. 

"Thank you, old one," she said, dipping into a quick curtsy. The old crone smiled mysteriously, then turned back on the path and shuffled away the way they had come. 

The poor woman turned towards toward the cottage doubtfully. It did not look as though it could even have a cellar, but she knew it must. 

She approached the short wooden door and knocked. 

There was no answer, which did not surprise her. She pushed the door open and stepped into the cottage. It smelled of freshly baked bread and spices. She realized she was hungry, but did not pause to investigate the kitchen. Terrible things could happen to those who didn't heed such instruction as the crone had given, after all. 

She found a door leading to a set of stairs and went down them, smelling a mustier and mustier odor as she descended. 

The cellar was drier than most, and smelled more of hearth fires than earthiness. She saw three chests on the floor against the wall in front of her. One of them indeed had a green lid, and so she gathered up her skirts and knelt in front of it. She had to pry the lid up quite forcefully, but when she finally got it open, she saw the chest was brimming over with sewing stuffs. There were several spools of thread, but fortunately only one brown one. 

She followed the crone's instructions and then held the length of cut thread, waiting. She hadn't even been sure what her question could be until this moment-then she realized what she really wanted to know was, would she always be poor and alone? 

Suddenly the dull brown thread began to glow and shine until it became a rich golden color. It began to grow and stretch before her eyes, and she quickly began winding it around three fingers to keep up with its rapidly increasing length. 

When the thread finally stopped, she realized that she had several spools' worth of it; enough to make a few garments at least. Her first thought was to sell what she could make with the thread. 

"What a pity there is no fabric as fine as the thread to go with it," she said aloud. 

Almost as soon as she had spoken, the lid of the second chest popped open to reveal stacks and rolls of fine silks.  

She hesitated. The old crone hadn't said anything about taking things from the other chests. Then again, wasn't the chest opening an answer to her question? 

She took enough fabric to make three dresses, and rose to head back up the stairs. The lids of the two chests closed quietly. 

Back at her own much humbler cottage, she slowly laid out patterns and began sewing three gowns. It took her several days because she did not possess any refined sewing materials, but her needle flashed swift and true, and after a fortnight she had finished the very last stitch. 

She gathered up the gowns and wrapped each one in plain brown paper, regretting that she did not have anything more beautiful to hold her creations.  

But she was quite used to making do with the plain and sensible, and so carried her three parcels into town to try to sell them. 

She went into the dressmaker's shop and asked for the head seamstress. 

A plump woman came out to inspect her wares. 

"I've never seen finer garments," she announced, and offered a price that made the poor woman blink very rapidly and ask her to repeat it. 

On the way home, with the foreign sensation of coins jingling in her pockets, the poor woman wished she had more of the thread and fabric, but she knew better than to go back to the three chests. She had gotten what she was meant to, and that was that. 

But when she opened her cottage door, to her surprise there was another stack of fabric and more spools of golden thread piled atop her little wood table. 

Wordlessly, she sat down and inspected everything. If possible, all was even finer than before. 

She put her earnings in a jar inside a cupboard, and then drew out a few coins to take to the market for food and sewing materials.  

At the market, the poor woman who was no longer poor bought meat, bread, and cheese, and then realized that for the first time she could afford fruits and vegetables as well. Then she bought several new needles, some thimbles, and other things that she had never before been able to replace. Then she went back to her cottage; feeling contented for the first time, and made three new dresses. 

And so the woman continued on, selling her dresses to the head seamstress until the plump woman asked her to work at the shop. The magic thread and fabric replenished itself again and again for the kind woman, and she saw many people each day that loved her dresses. But she never forgot the crone and the cottage in the woods, and how one kind act can change a life.