The Tale of the Butterflies

This is a tale about sharing love and happiness, emotions and a magical Gift.

Long, long ago, a happy family of Elves lived in the outskirts of Tower City.

Despite the mother’s departure from this world, the father and his four beautiful daughters lived a comfortable life in their estate with a colourful garden.

All that saw the garden for the first time longed to wander around in it, and they could do so. The father allowed everyone to visit the garden, lounge in the shadows of the trees and marvel at the many flowerbeds.

Years passed, and the four daughters grew up to be even more lovely. They all were kind hearted spirits, and it didn’t take long, before the first marriage proposals came. The father was not picky on suitable lovers and allowed his daughters to choose the man whom they would marry for themselves.

The first to be wed, was the second eldest daughter. She married the local silversmith in the summer and moved to live at his place.
Shortly after, the eldest daughter found a man to her liking. Despite him being a simple farmer, they were very much in love and married during autumn, when all the leaves had turned bright red and yellow.
At their wedding feast, the farmer’s brother, who was a tannery worker, was introduced to the third daughter. They started seeing each other more and more, fell in love with each other and married on the winter solstice.

Now three of the four daughters were married and the youngest of them, Meary, stayed at the estate. Her father got ill during the winter and she would not leave his side, to take care of him. She therefore had to reject several marriage proposals from lads that had met her. She wanted to keep the house clean, do the laundries and make sure the garden was kept in good shape.

The months passed and in the early spring, just after the leaves appeared, the father died from his illness and left Meary behind. The young men, who did not wish to waste their time impressing Meary, who would refuse their proposals anyway, stopped visiting. They called her a ‘picky and stubborn young lady’.

Meary was now all by herself and spend most of her time in the gardens to tend the flower beds, trees and shrubs. When she was alone in her bed, she cried until the tears stopped coming and her eyes ached. She sang sad songs to ease her pain and felt terribly abandoned, even though the garden was still visited by the local townsfolk. When people spoke with her, she would suppress her sadness by listening to their stories about divorces, losing dear ones and harvests that didn’t yield enough to pass the winter.

She never spoke of her own pain, thinking it was her own burden to carry along. To find some distraction from her sadness, Meary started helping poor and ill people by offering meals and hand woven blankets and volunteered at the local orphanage.
This way, she passed the summer. Birds, bees and butterflies visited the garden to feed and made the colourful garden even more vivid. It made Meary feel like she was somehow not really alone.

But then fall came. It had been a year since her sisters moved out of the house. This brought sad memories. The flowers had withered, the trees had shed their leaves and the garden was left bare and grey. Both the insects and the visitors stayed away because of the cold weather.
Meary became lonelier by the day and started spending full days and nights at the local shelter for the poor.  She felt a little better when helping the helpless and hearing their stories. She worked so hard, she neglected herself and often felt ill.

When finally spring returned and the trees started to show the first leaf buds, Meary felt like a worn doll. She had given so much love and care to others and completely forgot her own health. She felt weak.
When the townsfolk came to visit the gardens again, she tried very hard to give them the attention that they deserved, but she couldn’t keep up with it. Despite her young age, she felt like an old and broken woman already.

To protect herself, she started ignoring the visitors. It didn’t take long before the people from town stayed away. They didn’t understand why Meary had become so ‘selfish and haughty’. Soon the word spread that the last daughter wanted to keep the gardens all to herself…

When summer arrived, the garden was in bloom. All seemed perfect, but the butterflies were nowhere to be found.
On a peaceful summer night, Meary couldn’t sleep and stayed up to watch the garden in the full moon light.
She gazed around the garden and suddenly spotted an unusual flower in the flower beds she had never seen before. Meary walked up to the curious plant and studied it for a while. The petals looked like they were made of the purest crystal.

She couldn’t keep from her own curiosity and wanted to pluck the flower. But before she could even touch it, the flower shattered in a thousand pieces. From the crystal particles, a small, luminescent  figure appeared. It flew up and landed softly on Meary’s hand. It was a fairy, and Meary knew a fairy seldom appeared to people. She was amazed when the fairy started talking to her.

‘My dear Meary, look at you. You are skinny as a twig and restless as a worker bee. Your thoughts keep on haunting you, preventing you from smiling. What would become of you if you stayed on this path?’ the fairy softly spoke. She then levitated in front of Meary’s eyes.

‘Because you have given the world so much joy and love, you forgot to love yourself.
And since you have given so much of yourself to others, let me give you a Gift. It is a magical Gift, so you may once again enjoy life and let the love of others in. The tears you shed will come again for sure. Cry, my child, and feel relieved of all the sorrow you have in you. All you need to do, is collect your tears in a small glass bowl and sprinkle it on the flower beds.’

With these words, the fairy touched Meary’s nose and then disappeared, like a small light that was dimmed.

Meary did not understand why, but suddenly she felt tears forming in her eyes and she started to cry. Quickly, she ran to the kitchen and grabbed a glass bowl. All the sad and scary memories she had, came flooding back and she cried until all the tears were shed.
When she looked at the bowl, she saw that her tears had magically turned in some kind of sweet, golden honey. It truly was a miracle!

She dipped her fingers in the golden tears and carefully rubbed it on one of the flowers. Not a moment passed before butterflies appeared from all over the garden. All were beautiful and graceful and bigger than normal butterflies and danced around like little fairies. They came in all the colours of the rainbow, some were even sparkling or had a pearly sheen and all seemed to glow soflty.

This display of colours and beauty made Meary so happy, she danced around the garden with tears of joy in her eyes. Her tears fell all around the garden and attracted even more butterflies.
And for once in a long time, Meary felt happy again.

How Meary’s story went from here, can be told shortly.

With the return of the butterflies and Meary’s happiness, new visitors came to the gardens once again. Finally, Meary allowed herself to share her grief with others who now understood why she had been so secluded for a while. She was loved by everyone again and it didn’t take long before a kind and handsome young traveler visited the gardens. He and Meary wandered around the gardens many days and decided to spend all of their days together at the estate.

And as the years passed, Meary cried from time to time, but every time her tears would turn to honey, and the butterflies would cheer her up again.