Happy Birthday TVO

she sat down at the scoured table in the swept kitchen beside the dresser with its cracked delft. And every last crumb of daylight was salted away. No one could say the stories were useless for as the tongue clacked five or forty fingers stitched corn was grated from the husk patchwork was pieced or the darning was done. Never the one to slander her shiftless. Daily sloven or spotless no matter whether Dishwater or tasty was her soup. To tell the stories was her work. It was like spinning, gathering air to the single strongest thread. Night in she’d have us waiting, held breath, for the ending we knew by heart. And at first light as the women stirred themselves to build the fire as the peasant’s feet felt for clogs as thin grey light washed over flat fields the stories dissolved in the whorl of the ear but they hung themselves upside down in the sleeping heads of the children till they flew again in the storytellers night.

Liz Lochhead, The Grimm Sisters