The Prisoner of Hyram Miel
From Tales the Wind Told

By Brooks Mencher

T he story of the Prisoner of Hyram Miel exists in several versions, though the differences, for the most part, are minor. The characters and the circumstances of their lives are essentially the same. The order of events may vary somewhat, and some versions are shorter and some longer.

The version presented here the oldest; it is the longest and most complete. It is the most complete because it contains the deepest secrets, and in it are remembered the conversations that took place on the outskirts of the village of Hyram Miel between an old man and a tree. There had been some degree of public concern earlier that these conversations were unnecessary and interfered with the story. If that is a concern to the reader, then the best solution is to rely on any one of the other numerous versions of the story, and leave this one where it will not be a problem.

The tale of the Prisoner of Hyram Miel, of course, does not begin with the secrets of a tree or an old man, but with the wind. All the myriad versions of this tale begin with a wind above the Earth, and they start so much the same that the only variance may be the tone of the reader's voice. The story begins like this:

The wind, amid all its mysterious meanderings above the Earth, one day blew a scrap of paper from the old village of Hyram Miel high into the air, up over the river and into the nearby forest. There, it settled like a wind-blown leaf and like a drifting flower petal at the base of an orange wood lily - - and at the feet of a small person who lived in the forest.

The feet belonged Snorri Sturlesson, a gnome who had lived for many, many years deep in the wood and never ventured beyond its rocks and creeks and meadows. He tended the flowers and trees, and he herded small animals like moles and rabbits from vale to glen or from meadow to meadow depending on his mood and the inclinations of his day. There was no animal who was not his friend and no flower that ignored his happy company.

Snorri Sturlesson dressed unbrightly. His overalls were the color of sopped winter leaves, his vest was like brown winter mushrooms and his cap was like a plop of squeezed mud and like a mud-glued bird's nest with little twigs razoned wildly about. He wore wool socks and wooden shoes. His scarf, which he had knitted himself, was lichen-green and he was nearly invisible when he wandered or gardened in the forest. He ran quickly and liquidly, like a field mouse, and could not be spotted even by an owl unless he wanted to be seen.

"I am a forest gnome, and of the gardening variety," said he. "The years of my life add one upon the other, and the other upon the next, and I have watched saplings grow to old age, and even watched their seeds turn to new saplings. How wonderful! Can you imagine?"

The gnome shifted his weight from one foot to the other, and said, "I will tell you my greatest secret. Why? I don't know! You need to know this! It is a great secret, and I will tell you: Trees can talk. There. I said it."

He dusted his hands against each other. "Trees can talk!" Then quieter, "Sing, actually. They sing, kind of, their speech, you know. Tree speech is like opera, I suppose. If you place your ear against a tree, the tree will sing and talk in a voice much like a bass violin or like a cello. Clearly! Those who have heard it, well, they are quite lucky. Orsifawn, my oak tree, sings day and night, and so I listen and sometimes I like to play along with a flute."

Snorri Sturlesson had been standing in the shade of a nightshade that grew in the shadow of his oak tree, which he had been listening to and talking with. It was summer. The forest was quiet. The scrap of paper had twisted on the breeze high above the treetops, and, in no hurry, it swirled downward and landed, as you know, like a leaf and like a petal at the feet of Snorri Sturlesson. What else could he do? . . . He stooped and picked it up.

"Here I have a piece of paper," he said, squinting at the lettering on it. "And the words upon the paper say . . .

Snorri Sturlesson, the gnome, pondered the wind-parceled poem for a number of minutes, turning it over in his hands, studying the quality of the script and the rough, fibrus paper on which the words were written. The top was torn, probably from being hastily torn by the wind from the door of the house onto which it had been tacked. It was grainy and gritty and mottled by dirt or blackened by coal dust.

"It is as if I can hear this note whispering to me!" said Snorri Sturlesson, his eyes growing wide. "And it is as if I can feel a soft hand on my arm, and a voice whispering, "Gardens and wrens, fields and fens, Snorri Sturlesson!"

Was he losing his mind, he asked himself? What was this voice, and why on Earth did he feel even lighter than he was (for gnomes, of course, weigh very little).

He folded the paper and tucked it into his pocket. Then the strange feeling of lightness disappeared like a mist and like a dream. He sighed as he leaned over and spoke to Orsifawn, the oak tree. "I have never seen such writing," he said. "And such poetry. It is a glorious diamond delivered on a bit of fibrus paper! Here, we have a poet of the gardens. Flowers and summer showers, after all!"

Then he turned to the other trees of the forest and said, "I must find the writer of my note, a poet, a floret! Perhaps a spirit, after all! I must inquire within, and I will set out from my forest in great haste, for I am utterly under the spell of these lyrics and must know, once and for all, who is behind them. I will find the poet, just as I have been so strangely asked to do!"

The bushes stirred at Snorri Sturlesson's decision to leave the forest, but they remained silent. A bear who had been sleeping nearby pointed his ears in the gnome's direction, but he, too, said nothing. The oak tree was thoroughly troubled by the gnome's decision, for it was this tree under which the gnome had lived for many, many years and the gnome and the tree had spent long hours talking about the world, and the wind, or woven cloth and various other things and ideas. But the tree, too, remained silent: A gnome, it knew, must think for himself, no matter what the cost.

S norri Sturlesson began the long walk out of the forest and after a few days he arrived at its edge. "A gnome does not leave his forest lightly!" he said. "Yet, I am troubled in mind, for something awaits me in the wide world! How could I go on living my quiet and wonderful life, never knowing who has posted this note upon the wind? Alas, I will sorely miss my trees, the squirrels, and so much my dear oak whose name is Orsifawn."

In front of him was a wide river, and in the distance on the other side he could see the hovels and homes of full-sized human people.

"I will make a coracle from a round frame of willow twigs, and then cover it with leaves and pine pitch," he said, and he did this and attached some twine to the front end. Afterward, he had a short discussion with a muskrat who lived on the river, and who had lived on it for a great number of years and seasons. "You know well the terrain and the currents," said Snorri Sturlesson to the muskrat, "and I would appreciate your assistance in pulling me across the river by taking this leader in your mouth and tugging my boat across the water. In this way, I will avoid any unforeseen dangers in the river, and my crossing will be all the faster."

The muskrat agreed in a businesslike fashion and immediately pulled the coracle and the gnome across the river. When they arrived on the far bank, the muskrat swam back, pulling the little boat with him and leaving the gnome on the far riverbank and alone in the wide world. He shook his furry head, and thought, "Alas to me, I cannot tell what urges a child of the forest to visit the world of humans! Little good will come of this, I am certain, for I have a feeling in my bones that he is in for trouble. Which bone? A rib bone, I know, for that bone is near my heart!"

Snorri Sturlesson knocked on the first door he came to - - a weathered and battered batch of pithy boards that had been pounded haphazardly together with square-headed nails and attached with rings and rusted bolts to a tarpaper and shake-bark shack smeared with pit tar and grass and rude bits of refuse, and the entire outfit belonged to Gritsen and Melkin who lived on the outskirts of the village of Hyram Miel.

"Who's that out there? Out there in the . . . on the PORCH!" shouted Melkin from inside the house. "Ye on the PORCH! Go and see who is it dares disturb our tranquility, my love!"

Gritsen, his wife, obeyed and went to the door. She opened it and found nothing there! "I see nothing at the door, Melkin," she said over her shoulder to her husband. Her voice was middle-toned and grated like a door creaking on its hinges and like a cat whose poor tail had been caught in the joint. "I see nothing at our doorstep, neither man nor animal, stone nor bone," said she, having by now turned around completely to address Melkin.

"Then clearly there was nothing there after all! Our porch is secure and our lives may go on as normal," said Melkin. "There was not one thing that come knocking at that door of ours, nor was there any creature lurking on our porch to do us evil, Gritsen my love," he said in a high, strained voice, "and neither did any commotion disturb the peaceful nature of our home!"

"Clearly!" agreed Gritsen. "You are right as always, Melkin, able to see through to the truth of things, to be sure." But no sooner had she finished speaking and closed the door than there was a second string of raps on the pithy wood.

"Do us a favor and answer the door, Gritsen my pet, and this time make certain there is someone THERE!" whined Melkin as he twitched his hips in his chair to get more comfortable.

Gritsen opened the door a second time and peered out to the steps and then to the gravel and the river, and eventually the forest, all of which were visible from the door of the small shack. Nothing!

Then Gritsen looked down at the threshold and saw the gnome. She gasped mightily and immediately slammed the door closed! She turned to Melkin, pale as a horse, and said, "There be a creature at our doorstep, and no bigger'n an apple, Melkin! A creature strange and cunning, I am sure! A rat-devil bound in fleas and vermin and weeping sores, Melkin!"

"A small creature, you say?" scratched her husband, pushing himself back in his chair and scraping studiously at his stubbly chin.

"Small! Size of an apple! At the end of a trail of blood and brine, Melkin!" shouted Gritsen. "It's come to do us in!"

"Small as an apple, I hear," said Melkin. "Arrgh." He scratched his wispy-haired head and thought deeply.

"Do you think it be such a creature as you can punt it, Love?" he asked. "That is to say, be it such a creature as could be punted from the step of ours, and out into yon dirt and bramble, or yet farther unto the river, yet farther beyond that to the forest itself, I say, and, it being in dismay and disarray after the punting, not feel inclined to return and do us evil, rat-devil that it may surely be?"

Gritsen thought for a moment, and said, "With my good work boots from coal-hauling, I could punt the creature a good way were I to use my sound right leg and had a descent run at it, Melkin!"

"Then let us get on with our motion, Gritsen my pet!" Melkin said, "I will swing open the door after you begin to sprint at it from across the room, and I assure you we will get a good, solid distance in that punt!"

So Melkin crawled out of his low chair and stood in a stooped position with one hand on his back hip, emphasizing his pain and stiffness and in this way he hoped to describe just how much effort he was exerting and how much pain he was suffering in the endeavor to free the house of evil. He lumped over to the door, grasped the handle and stood at the ready.

Gritsen pulled on her big, round-toed, two-layer leather boots and thumped loudly to the far corner of the room.

Then she took a deep breath and ran madly at the door, her skirts and her hair flying wildly behind her and the spare furnishings of the room tipping and rolling in her wake. Melkin quickly threw open the door and Gritsen landed a solid blow to the creature and punted it with her mightiest kick.

S norri Sturlesson sailed high into the air, but not in the direction of the river as Gritsen had intended, for at the last moment, her boot wavered and her punt was skewed and the gnome was launched directly into the center of the village. He landed gently, all things considered, and rolled like a pear blossom and like a milkweed tuft until he came to a stop near a fence where a small crowd of ducks and geese had gathered under the afternoon sun.

The gnome, as you know, had never seen a village, large or small, for he had lived his life comfortably in the forest, and his familiarity with the world was limited to trees and lichen, and to small bunches of mushrooms and moss. He had only just encountered his first human person, and that was Gritsen, and it had been unpleasant.

To get a better view of his surroundings - - the very village of Hyram Miel - - he climbed on the back of a white-feathered duck who shuckled his wings briefly and then allowed the gnome to stand there. The duck turned in circles to give the gnome a full view of village grounds, including the shack homes, furrowed dirt and so on.

The gnome was struck with amazement at all the hovels of the village. There were nine or ten at least, and those were only the nearest of them. Some were of sod, some of wood or stone and others had bits and parts of plaster and batting and thatch; they were amalgams of fur and balls of weedgrass and milkweed. There were rectangular garden plots of half-grown cabbages, mid-term radishes and young turnips, and there were mounds of potatoes. And in the distance were narrow, winding fields of green barley and other coarse grains.

It was clear to the gnome that he would have to explore the village if he wanted to find out where the poetic note had come from. The duck, who had always been fond of gnomes even though he had never met one, was very willing to carry Snorri Sturlesson anywhere he wanted to go, within reason. So the gnome rode the duck along the footpaths and packed-dirt wagon roads in and around Hyram Miel.

When they came at last to the grain mill, Hyram's Mill, for which the village had been named, Snorri Sturlesson was amazed for a second time.

D uck" he said, "here is the grain mill. It must be the center of this village, for from it comes much of its food. Yet we must ignore it for now, curious as I am about its inner workings, for we must find a likely door and inquire within - - I am a gnome who is fond of poetry, and I must find the poet of the poem. I am, by the way, a good gardener, and flowers are my specialty. I have wandered field and fen, and can tell a robin from a wren while standing on one foot, or while standing with both feet upon a duck such as yourself! My wooden shoes are perfect for gardening, and I have gardened in them for years beyond count! Surely, I must find the writer of our note, and ignore the risk of another punting!" He placed one hand over the shirt pocket in which he had tucked the neatly folded scrap of paper, and the other over his butt, which had received the booting. Then he leaped down and pressed his ear against the duck, in the manner that he listened to trees, to see if the duck had anything to say. But the duck used his mouth, and simply quacked.

Snorri Sturlesson's eyes wandered to the old mill, and he spied a small coal shed attached to the far side of it. This was where chunks and grains of soft, punky coal were stored for heating the mill and the village hall, or were sold to the villagers to fill their tin coal burners during the winter. The shed door was coated with cracked white paint, and it was smudged and rubbed deeply with coal dust. But there were two unusual things about the door. The first oddity was a clutch of red and yellow tulips growing on each side of the door, their colorful beauty in stark contrast to the shack. The second peculiarity was a scrap of black or brown fibrus paper pinned to the door with a nail! Surely he could match the torn scrap on the door with the wind-blown poem in his hand!

He began to walk to the coal shed, and the duck followed. He was so happy with his discovery, however, that he was no longer aware of what was happening around him. Tall shadows sneaked up and fell over Snorri Sturlesson.

The duck quacked. It was a quick quack, like a half-quack caught somewhere in its long neck before being ejected like a pea from a peashooter.

A cow mooed, and its moo was like a half-moo that barely made it from the inside of the cow to the outside.

The duck, having finally regained its voice, let out a tremendous screech, and then, for both the duck and the gnome, everything went dark.

L ater that same afternoon, Snorri Sturlesson and the duck were emptied from a coarsely woven burlap sack onto the floor of the village meeting house. They tumbled onto the floor like dice and like beanbags, and they stood up sputtering and stumbling about, for they had been treated irreverently while inside the sack. The gnome fell out first and knocked his head on the floor; then the duck fell out and flopped on his belly; and a rock rolled out and thumped solidly onto the planking.

"You are all under arrest, and it is in your best interest to admit your crimes immediately," said a tall man in a long black cloak. He wore a thick, hanging mustache and a store-bought hat with a brim. He was the vice-magistrate and was also known as the Emissary of the Commissioner of the Politzia of the Magistrate of the County, meaning . . . police chief. He traveled from village to village maintaining law and order and making judgments in criminal trials.

He had a long face with long cheeks and shallow jowls, and the tone of his skin was gray, and the tone of his soul was also gray. He sat down with great aplomb and attitude in a thick, dark chair behind a heavy table that separated him from the "criminal class" that was strewn across the floor. He sat staring at Snorri Sturlesson and the duck, sucking stuff out of his teeth all the while.

A large, leather-bound ledger, a quill pen and a bronze ink well were positioned on the table to his right, and he pulled them in front of him and opened the big book. He peered over the book and then rose and leaned over the table as if pulled by the magnet of his irritation, half out of his seat, and he leered at the gnome, the duck and the rock from under his furious eyebrows.

"You are under arrest! Don't you understand?" he asked loudly. "What is there NOT to understand about this? I have arrested you for your crimes, and you sit there and pretend that you cannot hear me!"

There was only silence from the three.

"We will begin with you," he said, looking directly at the gnome. "After all, you are the ringleader. Your accomplice," he said derisively, "is … a DUCK! It's a white DUCK, you fool! And then there is the rock. Yes, a rock. And we will deal with that right now!" He leaped over the table, seized the rock, ran to the door and pitched it as far as he could.

"You," he said, returning to his chair, "what is your name."

"My name … is Snorri Sturlesson," said the gnome.

"It is not," said the vice-magistrate calmly. "I will ask you again: What is your name?"

"Snorri Sturlesson is my name," he said.

"Your name is NOT Snorri Sturlesson, and I know this for a fact, for that name has already been taken. I am not a fool and I easily know that it is the name of the great poet and writer of the old tales. The greatest writer on Earth, may he rest in peace, and you dare to say that you are HE! Do you take me for a complete IDIOT?"

"Nevertheless," said the gnome, "Snorri Sturlesson is my name, and it was given to me by my father and by my mother, for it was they who named me after the great poet, Snorri Sturlesson, collector of the great sagas of the world, and they were acquainted with him and were quite friendly as I understand it."

The vice-magistrate sneered. Then he coughed. And he sniffled a big sniff back up into his nose.

"Liar." Then, gruffly, he said, "Age!"

"I am 387 years old," said Snorri Sturlesson.

"LIAR!!" shouted the commissioner, and he pounded his fist on the table. He was no longer calm, for his nerves had been pushed to the breaking point. "You are in no manner 387 years of age!! WHY do you continue to play me along like some bit of fish on a line!! I will ask you again: AGE!!"

"Three hundred and eighty-seven years of age, this fall," said the gnome. "I was born on the cusp of fall and winter, the child of my mother and the child of my father."

The commissioner, in silence, began to grow red with rage. He took a deep breath, and settled himself back into his chair. Then, after composing himself, he exhaled calmly and said. "It is NOT the case that you are 387 years old, for you are not. You are a liar. I can believe nothing you say. It is not possible for any person to be 387 years old, and especially you."

The commissioner waited for a few moments and continued. "Yes, I was not born yesterday, you little devil. You are in no manner 387 years old, for I tell you that you are ONE year old!"

This left the gnome perplexed, but he said nothing, knowing that the vice-magistrate would soon elaborate on what he meant.

"You are one year old, that is certain," said the vice-magistrate. "You are the size of an apple, therefore you can only be as old as an apple. It is simple math. An apple from the autumn is stored well into the following summer. They are eaten through the year as we await the next crop, and they are stored well in cellars. Therefore, you have been living in the cellar of one of the villagers, secretly living there in the dark, and you are actually less than a year old, and more likely I would say you are nine months of age, and not a day older!" With that, he wrote the age into the ledger, nine months, and added the charge of trespassing in an apple cellar to the crimes of which the gnome had been accused.

"Occupation," he said to the gnome.

Snorri Sturlesson said, "Gnome, I suppose."

"LIAR!" shouted the vice-magistrate. "Rat-devil! Tell me your occupation immediately!!"

"I garden a bit, I would say, and, well, I herd small animals from meadow to meadow as I see fit," said the gnome.

"You imbecile!" growled the vice-magistrate. "You do NOT garden, and I tell you that you cannot tell a flower from a coal noggin!! I will tell you this, 'sir:' You have never tended a garden, nor do you herd animals! Do you think me a fool? I know that you do not garden for you are evil, and the size of an apple! You have no tools and could not use a shovel! There! You could not use a shovel because you are smaller than a shovel blade! As for herding, I know you do not do that, and have not EVER herded an animal or I would have heard about it!"

"Nevertheless . . ." said the gnome.

"Your crimes," said the vice-magistrate, referring to his enormous ledger, "are disturbing the peace, threatening a villager, casting curses, stealing livestock, terrorizing the roads, footpaths and trails in and around the village of Hyram Miel, riding ducks, trespassing, property damage, etc. etc., etc. I say you are the reason the sheep stray, you are behind the bad apple crop last year. And you are the thief that stole a cup of grain from my own pantry! I can see it all now! Perpetrator! And the duck is your willing accomplice! What have you to say for yourself before I sentence you for the crimes?"

"The duck is innocent!" cried the gnome.

"Guilty!" yelled the vice-magistrate.

"Innocent!" shouted Snorri Sturlesson.

"You'll hang for that, you rat-devil!" growled the vice-magistrate. Immediately, a silence fell, then a cock crowed and the sun was blocked by a thick cloud, casting darkness over the village.

Hyram Miel had never had a hanging. Yes, there were common criminals here and there, and there were occasional highwaymen who robbed a villager who had wandered too far afield. And yes, there were domestic and civil disturbances that were settled by the inhabitants themselves, sometimes even by the vice-magistrate. But a hanging? Never!

T he day of their sentencing, Snorri Sturlesson and the duck were imprisoned until a gallows could be constructed on the village market and festival grounds.

First, they were put in a closet in the village hall. But that first night, there was some unknown person from the village who silently crept up to the hall and somehow unlocked the window, probably using small iron rods or a crochet hook to pick the locks, by the look of the scratch marks in the morning. How strange! Snorri Sturlesson did not know a soul in the village, and knew of no one who would help him escape.

But, somehow, the window swung open that night and the duck crawled through to freedom and sputtered to the ground. The gnome escaped on a length of yarn that had been left by the mysterious village traitor, and that, aside from the scratches, was the only trace of his escape.

Unfortunately, however, the two were rounded up next morning by deputies of the vice-magistrate, and their new prison assignment was to be tied in a small boat that was anchored in the middle of the millpond. They were tied in ropes of cotton cloth by the vice-magistrate himself, and water was poured on the cloth by several of the villagers to make the knots impossible to untie.

But on this second night, a mysterious person somehow swam unseen to the boat - - swam beneath the water! - - impossibly holding their breath for the whole distance, and untied the prisoners by prying their bonds apart. Thus freed, Snorri Sturlesson rode on the duck's back and they paddled to shore and to safety. Yet they did not know who had saved them, for it was dark and the person stayed in the water and only the arms and coal-smudged hands could be seen as they untied the knots.

But then, in the morning, the gnome and the duck were discovered smelling the flowers near the mill pond and they were promptly arrested a third time.

"Who is helping us?" Snorri Sturlesson asked the duck in a whisper. "There is someone out there who is our friend, yet I know not who it might be! I have no clue!" He scratched his head. "But there is one thing! Yes, I am convinced that even in the moonlight, I saw coal dust on those hands! That is a clue! But what good does it do me? It does me no good at all, duck, for we have been caught again!"

The vice-magistrate, who had grown impatient and frustrated, decided to imprison the pair in the middle of the village festival grounds in a goat corral beneath the large village oak tree.

Moreover, he decided that the gnome and the duck must both wear red sashes across their middles so they would be easily identified by the villagers if they escaped once again, and all the villagers agreed that this should happen. The sashes were tied around their bellies and double-knotted, and their imprisonment this time involved being chained with heavy iron links and large iron padlocks to large stones in the middle of the enclosure. The gnome's clothes were nailed to the ground with him in them so he could not move around. Then the vice-magistrate threw a coil of twine over a low, heavy branch of the tree, and he and several villagers tied a huge boulder to one end, and they hauled on the twine, lifting the stone high into the tree where it hung threateningly over the prisoners. The other end of the twine was tied loosely to one of the spikes that pinned Snorri Sturlesson and his clothing to the ground.

The result: If the gnome moved, or disturbed the spike in any way, he and the duck would be crushed into pancakes by the rock.

They were left for the afternoon. The hours ticked by until the day was gone and night fell. But in the darkness, a shadowy creature leaped into the tree and shimmied up the trunk like a cat and like a squirrel, and it tied a length of string securely from the stone to the branch from which it hung. The string was tied back and forth until it was all used up, and the strands created a thick mass of rope that was very strong. Now, no matter if the snare was sprung, the stone would remain suspended by the new rope while the gnome and duck fled to safety. Lastly, a jar of grease was left on the ground, and with it, a small scissors. The shadow pulled up the fencing, slid under and dashed off across the grounds and vanished.

Snorri Sturlesson, who had been pegged to the ground facing up, watched as the shadow secured the stone. How interesting! How wonderful! He snatched the scissors and cut off the clothing that had been nailed to the ground. The twine groaned, and the stone swayed and the pegs were ripped from the Earth! But the stone remained aloft, secured by the strands of string!

Then, after smearing the grease on himself and on the duck, Snorri Sturlesson wriggled free of the chains and iron locks and untied his sash.

Finally, he slipped the duck out of his fetters and sash and the pair crawled under corral fence where it had been pulled up.

When the village saw the aftermath next morning, they pleaded with the vice-magistrate to take firmer action, knowing that the rat-devil had powers beyond those of average men, and that he was obviously aligned with the dark powers of demons who assisted him in his evil pursuits during the night. They hunted down the duck and gnome and recaptured them on a grassy knoll near the mill pond where they were having a picnic and smelling the flowers.

It was after this final escape that the decision was made to seal the gnome and duck in old Hyram's Mill, from which they would not be able to escape, for it had been well built and was impervious to wind and weather, to rat and vole and winter rain, and the mill pond surrounded it like a moat. There they were to remain until the terrible gallows were completed on the festival grounds and then they would meet their fate.

So now, their isolation was complete, for they could speak to no one, swim in no pond, walk on no path, and smell not one flower.

Snorri Sturlesson, although he had been sentenced to the horror of the gallows, never wavered in his knowledge that the scrap of paper that had brought him to this miserable fate was truly a poem of mystery and greatness! It had settled at his feet as he stood beneath the leaves of a nightshade deep in the forest in which he had lived all his life! It was like a gift and a like a flower falling from the sky. But where ever had it come from?

And what mystery now lay behind the door to the coal shed?

H ow did the gnome, Snorri Sturlesson, get the wondrous poem, the paper that could lead to his demise, in the first place? The fibrus note had come from the village of Hyram Miel, certainly. From the door of the coal shack, without a doubt. The paper had been carried by the dragon of the wind and by the tides of the sky from the river valley in which the village lay, up over the landscape, and it fell like a leaf and like a woolberry deep in the forest.

"I will pin this note to the door of my home," Tol Marren (her name rhymes with, for example, Tall Heron) had said as she stood on her tiptoes and pressed a nail into the paper and into the wood of the door with her fist. No one offered her a hammer or a rock, and no one paid any attention to her efforts. "And when the wind sees this note, it will memorize my words and cast them about the Earth. I know this for a fact, for the wind is the teller of tales. Therefore, my paper will be received and loved, and the world will move in a new direction," she said.

Tol Marren was a child who lived alone. Her hair was brown originally, but it was usually stained black because she lived in the coal shed and had no other home. The villagers left her to herself and did not speak to her, and for the most part had no idea that the girl even existed and lived among them. Her door to the world opened at the base of the mill, and in front of it, downhill, were the market grounds. Here, crowds gathered each week, and there were cartloads of vegetables and fruits and other goods. It was there that a gallows would eventually be built.

No sooner had Tol Marren pegged the note to her door, but a gust of wind blew down the hill and pounced at her door like great, furred dragon and it tore the note from the nail with its huge mouth and sailed into the sky with it. Vanished! It had all happened so quickly that the top tip of the notepaper remained tacked to the door!

It was early in the morning, and Tol Marren had been up all night writing and thinking by the light of an oil-wick lamp, and she had spent all morning tiptoeing and tacking the note paper onto the outside of her door before going about her work.

Tol Marren was a flower girl. That is, she picked the summer blossoms she found on the outskirts of the village and at the edge of the river that separated the village from the forest. She picked no more than a dozen in a day, bundled them neatly in damp rags, and carried them in a basket on her back all the way from the village to the city, which was a four-hour walk along the river.

Once she arrived in the city, she made her way among the massive, gray stone buildings until she came to a bridge over the river. The area was always smothered in river fog until the afternoon, but this just made Tol Marren's flowers appear to glow all the more. She arrived at her usual spot below the arch of the bridge and in a grotto that faced the well-trafficked street at the edge of one of the city's market areas, and it was here that she sold her flowers for a few pennies and shekels, and after she had sold them all she occasionally bought a loaf of coarse-grained bread and then hiked back to Hyram Miel.

One day, a few days after her note was taken by the wind-dragon and after horrible rumors of a rat-devil had echoed through the village, Tol Marren was selling flowers in her grotto. She had sold four already and it promised to be a good day for flowers, all in all.

A stranger came up to Tol Marren as she stood in the grotto facing the busy street. This peculiar person was bent over and had a scarf drawn over her head, and her arms were wrapped in a shawl of great age and in great disrepair, for it was ragged and threadbare, and it was stained and tattered; it was gnawed and shredded and had globs of brown stuff on it. Not one bit of the woman was visible beneath the shawl or beneath her long and shabby skirt, and her arms could not be seen.

She motioned Tol Marren closer, for she was old and her voice was not strong. Closer, closer, until the girl's ear was nearly touching the old woman.

"I have not one coin with which to buy three of thy flowers, Flower," said the stranger, "but if you will take in exchange this delicate crochet hook, and accept these two unusual small rods of iron, then I may go away from this, thy under-bridge, with my flowers, one each in exchange for the rods and hook. I will then take these flowers, show them to the sun, and to the moon, and place them in a vessel of water in the shrine of my heart which is beyond the river, and on the other side of the water; it is into the forest and further and deeper. And then we will see. And we will see."

Tol Marren had never had such a request before, but she saw no reason to deprive a person, however disguised or mad, from having a fresh yellow flower for sentimental purposes. So she gave the person three flowers, and accepted the little rods and the crochet hook as her pay, even though she did not particularly need them.

"Now that we have reached our agreement," said the stranger, "and your flowers will soon be in the shrine of my heart, you must fulfill my wish: You must save the Prisoner of Hyram Miel, for he is a dear friend to me, though he is not tall, not tall, and all the trees are fond of him. He is adored by the flowers, and he is a hero to dirt and stone. The river bubbles at his passing! And to save him, I also offer you this bit of yarn." She fingered the edge of her shawl and unraveled a length of yarn as long as she was tall. She wound it up and handed it to the girl. Finally, Tol Marren caught a glimpse of the woman: her hands! She had never seen any hands like them, for they were brown and so rough that they looked like tree bark! Surely, she had no hands at all, but small branches with twigs for fingers!

Tol Marren had no idea what the stranger was talking about, for there were no prisons in the village of Hyram Miel, and at that time she knew nothing about the arrest of the gnome and his conviction for being a rat-devil. But there was no time to say even a word because the peculiar woman, rags and all, turned and vanished into the labyrinthine streets of the old city.

Within a few hours, Tol Marren sold the rest of her flowers, bought half a loaf of bread, spoke briefly to a cat, and began walking back to Hyram Miel. She was quite confused and had no idea if the village had ever had a prisoner, even without a prison.

When she returned from her sojourn to the city, however, the entire village was abuzz over the capture of a devil, and the brave vice-magistrate had interrogated the growling beast and sentenced it to hang! It had apparently terrorized at least one cottage (that of Gritsen and Melkin), before being captured, and untold evil lay in its wake.

Tol Marren knew she must catch a glimpse of this devil, for surely it must the prisoner of whom the ragged person had spoken.

She wandered the footpaths of the village in an effort to overhear any information about what had happened in the village while she was selling her flowers in the city. The villagers failed to see her at all, and they spoke among themselves as if they were quite alone. Very soon Tol Marren learned that a rat-devil had been sealed in the rear rooms and closets of the village hall as it awaited its death on the gallows.

L earning what she learned, Tol Marren returned to her coal shed to wait out the day. She spent it deep in thought and in a condition of quiet mind, which was not unlike the Earth's mind as it considers a meadow filled with flowers and the humming of bees. As evening fell, she said, "I will, this night, walk quietly to the hall, and there I will slip along the side of the building to the back and inquire of this devil what it is, and why it is imprisoned, and why I should endeavor to release it. Then I will have my answer!" But secretly, she suspected the prisoner was not a devil at all.

After night fell, Tol Marren wrapped herself in her soot-smudged cloak, and because of the coal dust that covered it she blended perfectly into the night and not a soul saw her leave the shed or walk to the village hall or slip along the side to the rear window of the cell in which the "devil" was imprisoned.

In the dark, she stood on her toes and peeked into the window and into the room. A single candle lit the cell, and Tol Marren clearly saw a white duck and a small person about the size of an apple! She was so surprised that she lost her balance and fell, creating enough noise that both the duck and the gnome ran to the window.

The gnome leaped to the sill and cupped his hand over his eyes and against the glass as he tried to see out into the night. "I am Snorri Sturlesson," he whispered loudly, "a common gnome of the forest and of the gardening variety, and I am here with a duck with whom I have been exploring this village in the hopes of finding a certain poet. I am fond of flowers and know many species and colors. I am an authority on mushrooms and the lives of trees! And yet I have been falsely accused of being a rat-devil and the days of my life are numbered and the days of the duck also grow short!"

He waited a few seconds in silence, and then said to the duck, "It could be the vice-magistrate, secretly coming to do us in!" Hurriedly, he snipped out the candle, grabbed the duck and dashed to the far corner of the room, where they huddled and shook in fear.

Outside, Tol Marren scrambled to her feet and pulled herself up so she could see through the window again. Although the interior had gone dark, she was sure she had seen a gnome who was dressed unbrightly, mostly in various shades of brown but with a scarf the color of tree lichen, and a duck who was a single shade of white with an orange bill. Surely this gnome had found her letter! What other reason could a forest gnome have for visiting the habitations of man?

"I have been sent to rescue you," Tol Marren whispered, "but we haven't much time, so please relax for a while and talk among yourselves and tell each other jokes or riddles as you please, for I must set about cracking into the locks and mechanisms of the village hall!" But Snorri Sturlesson could not hear the thin, whispered voice through the window and wall, and he remained in the corner.

The girl dropped from the window and went in search of a brick to stand on, and she found a brick and stood on it, and with the iron rods and hook she picked the locks of the window with determination and grace. Slowly, she pushed the window open just a crack, then a little wider, and she rolled the small ball of yarn through the window. Then she vanished into the night.

T he flower girl rose before dawn, as always. All was quiet. The air was clean and cool and the sky was deep lemon-blue. She could see the morning star and a crescent chip of the moon. Which is to say, it was still very dark. Quickly, she gathered ten tulips and two wild daffodils at the edge of the village, wrapped them in rags dampened in the river, and began her long walk to the city.

Four hours. She wandered through the fog until she found the small grotto under the bridge where she sold her flowers. She waited for several minutes, and then an hour passed. The fog had begun to dissipate when she saw a strange figure approaching her.

As it grew nearer, she realized it was the same person as the day before. The old woman scrandled through the street, her skirt dragging and brown with soot and dirt. She moved very stiffly, as if she were made of poorly jointed wood. Her shawl was the same color as the dirt and in the same condition as the skirt, and her head was hidden thoroughly in the folds of her scarf.

She stopped two long paces from Tol Marren and stood there, wavering and unsteady.

"Three sweet flowers I ask of thee, my dear," she hummed, "and yet I have no coin with which to pay! But here, let me show you what I have found in my journeys upon this Earth, for I have walked the Earth wide and far."

In her outstretched hand were a tube of wood, like a flute without finger holes, as long as a child's forearm, and a pair of bone knitting needles thick enough to knit a sweater.

Tol Marren, remembering the adventure of the night before, readily agreed to the old woman's conditions, and said, "I have three flowers, but do not know if you prefer tulips or daffodils."

"One and two," she replied, meaning one tulip and two daffodils. "Now that we have reached our agreement and your flowers will soon find a place in the shrine of my heart, you must fulfill my wish: You must save the Prisoner of Hyram Miel, for he is a friend dearer to me than any spirit. Once again, he has been caught and imprisoned! And that you might help him, I also must ask you for your shoes, for the weight of your shoes, Floret, will surely pull you to your death!"

"To my death?" gasped Tol Marren, and she grew pale with fear. She was so shocked that she removed them immediately and stood there in one bare foot and in one foot that had a sock that was missing the toe section. Embarrassed at her poverty, she quickly pulled off the half-sock and shoved it in her dress pocket. "My true name is Tol Marren," said the girl, "and not Floret, although I do sell flowers, but you may call me what you wish. But what should I call you?"

The old woman placed her flowers in her ragged blouse and said, "Tol Marren, we will meet again and do business. You may call me Orsifawn, but you may tell no one else my name. Never utter it unless you face death itself, and even then whisper it softly! Softly." Then she disappeared into the winding maze of streets in the city.

Tol Marren sold the rest of her flowers and returned to the village, walking barefoot the entire way. "I do not mind the lightness of my feet," she said as she walked. Besides, her shoes had so many holes they were mostly holes between which thin straps of cloth had been tied.

When she arrived back in Hyram Miel, the gnome and duck had already been captured again, as the old woman had said, and they had been imprisoned on the boat and anchored in the middle of the pond that surrounded Hyram's Mill. The water there was very deep and there was a strong undercurrent caused by the paddlewheel that had proven deadly to more than one swimmer over the years. Tol Marren walked beside the pond, not looking at the boat, but she noticed that many of the villagers were standing on the shore, talking and pointing. The girl brushed along — no one noticed her bare feet, and in fact, no one noticed her at all — and she closed herself up in her shed.

She spent the rest of the day reading a remnant of a chapbook she had discovered on her journey to the city, and grinding up linen fabric between two rough stones. She hoped to press the shreds into fibrus paper on which to write.

The sun grew quiet and slipped away. A few ducks in the village center quacked and bedded down. Then Tol Marren stole out into the dark.

Her bare feet were silent; her coal-dust cloak was invisible. She slid out of her cloak at the edge of the water and slipped into the pond as if it were a blanket, and she scooted out into the center of it where the boat was anchored. She swam below the surface and used the wooden tube to breathe the cool air above the water. When she got to the boat, she dared not pull herself into it for fear of being seen. So she reached over the edge and tried to feel where the gnome was. Finally she located his tied-up body, and somehow worked one of his hands free. Though unable to look over the edge of the boat, Tol Marren began loosening the knots with the knitting needles. "You don't need to see knots to work them out," she whispered.

"Your hands are cold," said Snorri Sturlesson.

"Better that than the gallows!" said Tol Marren.

When the gnome had been untied and was himself untying the duck, Tol Marren pushed off, back into the deep of the pond and toward the shore. But this time she swam too close to the mill, and the water, swirled by the paddlewheel, began to suck at the small girl who was swimming undetected beneath the surface. The force was pulling her down!

She swam madly and with all her force to break free of the undercurrent, and in the end, she did. But she realized that she had come so close to death that even had she worn one shoe and not two, the pond would have killed her!

She gained the shore, rolled into her coal-dusted cloak of invisibility, and slinked back to her shed. She lit a small fire, ate some toast, and tried to rest just a little before her day began again and she would have to traipse to the river to find the newest flowers of the day.

A nd she did. This was the third day of her trials, and she was tired. When she had chosen one dozen, she wrapped them in damp rags, placed them carefully in her basket pack, and began her barefoot journey to the stone grotto of the city. She had no shoes!

She arrived earlier than usual, and had sold three flowers before the old woman approached, shuffling slowly and bent nearly in half.

"Have you three flowers left of yours?" asked the old woman. Her voice seemed hollow, like wind blowing over a hollow tree.

"Nine are left, and any number you like will be yours," said Tol Marren.

"Two my dear, only two today. But those two will suffice, and I will place them in a vessel of water, show them to the sun and moon, and they will smile, and then I will place them in the shrine of my heart and there they will stay. But, I have not a penny with which to pay you, not a ruble or a shekel, yet perhaps you will find some use for these," she said, and displayed a filthy, chipped clay jar of grease, blackened on the outside from either fire or soot. It was as small as a child's fist, and it seemed to have grit or claws or scales or some other matter mixed in with the rancid grease.

A small rusted scissors had stuck to the inside lining of the jar, and the old woman pried at it with a stick until it came loose.

"There," she said. "For this, two flowers, yellow as the sun, bright as the moon. I must ask you once again to save the gnome, who is my closest friend, dear to the animals of the forest, and I must ask one further favor from you, and you must decide whether or not to assist me."

So Tol Marren handed her the flowers, the two most beautiful that she had, and accepted the chipped clay jar of filthy grease with the rusted scissors in it. "What is it that you may need from me further?" she asked, thinking of her shoes.

"I must ask you for your hair, Tol Marren. I am sorry. I ask you to cut off all your hair with this scissors, for if you do you will find two things. One, a way to save the gnome, and two, a cold head!"

The girl thought for quite some time, and then asked the old woman to cut off all her hair with the scissors for she did not have a mirror and could not see her own head to do it.

"I will do it," said the woman, and she plucked the small scissors from the can with her strange, twig-like fingers and cut off all Tol Marren's hair. The scissors, despite its rusted condition, was very sharp, and the girl was shorn in a matter of minutes. She could feel the breeze ripple across her bare head.

"Sit for a while," said the old woman. "For I will braid and weave your hair into a little string, and I will give it to you." And she did that, and it reminded Tol Marren of making dandelion necklaces by linking the stems together. "This is the kindest thing that anyone has done for me," she thought. "And it's with my own hair and bald head!"

The old woman handed her the beautifully braided string of hair, which was red-brown and as thin and long as a kite string, and then she turned away. As usual, she disappeared across the busy street and into the alleyways of the city.

Time passed quickly that day, and Tol Marren arrived back in the village at dusk. She made it to her shed where she wrapped her braided string of hair around her middle over her dress and shoved the grease jar and scissors into her dress pocket. By now it was dark.

"Now I am apparently cold both top and bottom," she said silently to herself, for she had neither hair nor shoes. "But we will see what the night will bring, and perhaps it will bring us luck after all." The door closed silently behind her.

Because of the moonlight, it was easy for her to see where the gnome was held captive. She quietly made her way to the corral. The gnome and duck were pinned to the ground behind the fence and beneath a great tree in the center of the market grounds. Above them hung a huge stone, swaying on a thin piece of twine. Without her shoes, Tol Marren was able to climb the tree with ease, for her feet could feel out the smallest of toe-holds. And never did her hair brush over into her eyes in the breeze. Once up the tree, she securely tied the braided hair string to the stone's own harness, and looped it over the branch. The string was long, so Tol Marren tied it back to the stone, and again to the branch, and over and over until all the string was used up. "Will this be strong enough?" she thought. "I put all my trust in the old woman, want to or not!"

She swung from the tree down to the fenced enclosure and set down the grease can and scissors. But she could not afford to stay to make sure the gnome could reach them! Voices!

There were people coming up along a path through the festival grounds, and they were growing nearer and nearer the makeshift prison. Quickly, Tol Marren pulled up the bottom edge of the fence and scampered under it, fleeing into the dark like a ghost and like a mouse.

Please continue to The Prisoner of Hyram Miel (Part Two)