Suzanne J. Willis
The Snow Queen’s Women
…………I. Granny Storyweaver
On winter nights, Granny and her words
are warmer than the hearth-fire, though her stories
are of trolls and goblins, and magic mirrors
splintering the heart. She serves her words
with cinnamon-spiked tea, honey-sweetened
so the listeners know they are safe from the stories.
Granny has lived long, knows how they end:
…………depends, she thinks, on the snow-bees swarming
…………or the old gods mourning, calling across
…………the green-lit sky. Thunder. Sigh.
Mirror-mimetic and its shadow ghosts
hold no surprises for her.
All the same, when the old gods call solemn
and the snow flurries in scarves, or queen’s robes
billow in winter winds, she quietly covers
the mirrors. Adds lavender to the tea.
Granny has lived long, and knows
heartbreak can come splinter-sized,
or no bigger than a grain of sand.
So she arms the boy and girl with stories
to outlast the shadow-frosts, to show them
the path. Words, like hot copper pennies
on frozen windowpanes.
With them she weaves their memory into a tale
snowflake-delicate, soft as a snowmaiden’s kiss
to whisper to the trolls and old gods listening
for Granny-storyweaver in winter’s wake.
…………II. The Season Witch
Mother of flora, poisons and pretties both, lives
in the midst of a cherry orchard. To the little girl’s eyes,
hers is a garden that never dies, flowers bloom and bud
vermillion, magenta, sunshine-yellow and
whisper in language unknown.
…………It sounds like spring winds and the song of
…………sunlight, dancing on the ocean between day
…………and dark.
The girl understands every word, every world
in their stamens, galaxies in their roots,
digging through the loam as the Season Witch
smiles, hides roses in her solstice heart.
“Are not my narcissus, my hyacinth, my tiger-lily
the loveliest of all?”
…………though they speak of self-absorption, death
…………and star-crossed lovers, more compelling
…………and consoling than the silly, sweet-scented rose.
Feeding the girl fruits and honey, she untangles
the child’s hair with a comb of bone and pearl,
to tame memory. She knows the girl will not stay
just like the others, so the Season Witch will have her
keepsakes: the child’s youth and her sadness,
her secret heart to bury among the rosehips
when the girl leaves her, alone, in her Demeter’s garden,
twin faces of life and death both turned to autumn’s call.
…………III. Princess Knowledge
An empty chamber, a hidden staircase, a princess
carrying the knowledge of the world. Two sweetheart
crows, her secret-keepers, black wings— a reminder
of courage, of cunning, a reminder that Thought and
Memory are more valuable than a Queen’s treasure.
The princess wishes for things to which ordinary
princesses do not turn their minds, not for her pearls
and platinum, goblin gold, or lovers true.
She longs to run with the Shadow Hunt
each night beckoning the dreams
and nightmares from the minds of men.
Draped in midnight gowns, lit by long-dead
stars aching to call the Hunt on an ebony horn,
run light-as-air down the palace halls
out to the forest, frosting the grass, silvering
the night with footsteps bare to spread the cold
from her bones, cover the land in its shroud
to brush past the girl-child tiptoeing the halls,
and be thought the ghost of a Huntress of old
or winter wind stirred by raven-wing.
Cast the sky full of crows
…………No white bees swarm here
Princess knows the truth of her people, herself,
the creeping child. Raven keepers all of our own
lost secrets, and the dark promise
of the morning to come.
…………IV. The Little Robber Girl
In her heart, she is a Hunter.
Had a mirror-splinter lodged there
no change would it work, even though
she has no taste for flesh as her mother does.
Like her mother, her beauty will fade,
skin pulled and pinched by time
and the cruelty she metes out with words
and blade.
When the blonde girl-child
Sweet, in her sadness and royal disguise,
steps shaking, from a carriage of gold
and deadmen, the Robber-Girl hopes that sweetness
might slough her own calloused, thieving thoughts,
melt the lies lying heavy, in wait.
…………It is hard to cast off, even for a moment,
…………habits of a lifetime, however short.
Little Robber Girl, murderer-in-waiting, smiles,
lifts her knife to the sleeping child’s throat.
Its bite sharp as an ice-storm,
its bitterness her only friend.
Then, the Hunter’s call on an ebony horn,
rose-scented shadows rushing by,
eyes the colour of copper pennies.
Under their gaze she shivers, sheathes the blade
…………that will one day slip just as easy between
…………the ribs. Not tonight,
the Shadow Hunt sings.
She bites the child’s shoulder to wake her,
watches as the reindeer bears her to north’s
eternal night, leaving only blood, the copper
of pennies on her liar’s tongue.
…………V. Lapp Woman
Home may be a hovel, roof sloped to the ground,
the smell of burning whale oil acrid in the air.
She has only codskin, dried and dull, upon which
to scratch a message, warning, wish complete.
But under sky, cold as the Snow Queen’s breath,
Lapp Woman, witch-woman flies unbound.
Reaching to skim her hand across the blue and green
foxtails of light catching on her fingertips, she licks
the light from her skin, flicks the remnants
into the pot, ever simmering revenant of the forgotten
and forgone. A whole world lies inside that hovel
singing across fish scales, curling inside the runes
she carves on sea flesh.
In reply, the new moon, Sky’s scimitar, sings to her,
a low chant, about the bite of the blade
and the bravery of youth, who will set out barefoot
across snowfields and storms, to find the one
with whom she once shared roses.
The chant fades into reindeer footfalls,
Lapp-Woman smiles, grateful she has forgotten
what it is to be young.
…………VI. Finn Woman
A hut hung with scrimshaw, seal bones, narwhal tusks
carved histories of tempest-tossed seas,
the leviathan-deep north, bladed battle death.
Centred, a single autumn leaf, rimed in perpetual frost,
glittering in the firelight, turning to the south.
Finn-Woman knows a child is on her way.
…………What will I say, she wonders
So long has she been without company, for people
search for the truth much less than they should.
Finn-Woman, truth-woman, she, who ties
the four winds with bare hands, and bare-throated cries
knowing naught but the vast chasm to before,
she sings to the wind in a voice that time forgot,
like its own newborn zephyr, the wind answers back
in a flurry of ice sharp as glass or the Snow Queen’s kiss.
Hand aloft, she carves runes in the air in language
voices do not speak.
Naked, she runs across the snow, battle-axe aloft
crying out past victories that circle the world,
kiting her runes behind them. Where they land
grows a rose, a reindeer, a carriage of gold,
a mirror, destined to splinter.
Finn-woman ties histories into new shapes
and waits for the girl-child who knows no knots.
…………VII. The Snow Queen
Lightning under her skin, scribes her bone
with winter’s breath, the fierceness of storm,
frozen in flesh.
She sent her women out, across the world
before time began
…………story, nurture, knowledge,
…………cunning, age-wisdom, history
A queen’s ransom and fool’s fear.
In her heart of glacier and gloaming
the Snow Queen dreams of green-lit skies
and her white bees swarm, staccato,
as easily as thought slips from mind,
they will build a hive for her, its honey
the tale of a girl-child, come to claim
the boy who tries, in vain, to find eternity
in snow and mists. He is like the others,
a child of spring: green and gullible.
The girl-child deserves more, but casts off
six chances, all, to be a child of winter
a woman of words or blade, to hold winter’s
marrow in her own bones. The Queen
will not wait for her (though the girl will
pass this way but once), only leave behind
her icy swarm and her hope that they may sing
the child’s ruby-heart to sleep.
_______________
Suzanne J. Willis is a Melbourne, Australia-based writer, a graduate of Clarion South and an Aurealis Awards finalist. Her poetry has appeared in anthologies by Fablecroft Publishing and Egaeus Press, and in Abyss & Apex, the Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, and The Orange and Bee. Her debut short story collection, Of Starfish Tides and Other Tales, was released by Trepidatio Publishing in May 2022.
Author’s Comments/Backstory: “The Snow Queen” has been one of my favorite fairy tales since I was a child – I read and re-read various versions until I knew the story by heart. As I grew older, I realized that, although Gerda is trying to find Kay via her epic journey, for me that journey is actually defined by the incredible female characters she meets along the way. These women seemed to all be living life on their own terms and were not defined by traditional roles. Although I’m sure that this was not the sort of reading intended by Hans Christian Andersen when he wrote the tale!
But that is the beauty of fairy tales, those stories that are as old as time. They continue to be relevant because we read into them our own experiences, desires, regrets. They help us make sense of the world.
So, I wanted to explore those six strong female characters in my poem – their backstories, their own fears and furies and loves – as well as think about what the Snow Queen may have felt when Gerda actually made it to her palace. Had she met the challenge set for her?
The poem was written in one of my many notebooks over the course of a few months. I reread three or four versions of the original story to get a sense of the depth of the character of those women. I also relied heavily on the beautifully illustrated The Annotated Hans Christian Andersen, edited by Maria Tartar, in delving into the symbolism and meaning of the story.
And, in the best of all fairy tale traditions, I now leave my telling with you…
Editor’s Notes: The Snow Queen’s women in Hans Christian Andersen’s tale aren’t a collective, but rather key female figures who aid or oppose the heroine, Gerda, on her quest to save her friend Kai [Kay], including the enigmatic Snow Queen herself, the benevolent Spring Witch with her magical garden, the spirited Robber Girl who offers protection, and the wise Lapp Woman and Finn Woman near the North Pole. These women, from powerful to kind, embody different aspects of magic, love, and resilience, highlighting themes of good vs. evil and female agency in the classic fairytale (world wide web). Image credit: A fanciful abstract image (by Edith Lüthi from Pixabay)