The Fairy Thorn - Short Fiction Story By Sarah Das Gupta

 

 

The Fairy Thorn 

 

Short Fiction Story 

By Sarah Das Gupta 

 

The sun was setting in a furnace of gold and crimson. The Ulster fields had recently been ploughed and the furrows of rich brown soil stretched in perfectly straight lines from hedge to hedge as if the horse and ploughman had used a ruler. Only one field was noticeably different and strange. A large, rambling hawthorn, its trunk gnarled and twisted, stood, a solitary guardian, in the middle of that field. Its leaves were just turning gold and yellow as they smouldered in the last rays of autumn sun. Soon the thorn would be dark and bare in the frost and snow of winter. Strangers might well wonder why leave this ancient tree? It must surely hinder the plough as it turns the rich, peaty soil. Travellers throughout the North and South of Ireland will have noticed these single trees standing proud, solitary in many fields, whether pasture or plough. They are characteristic of the Irish landscape. 

The sun had almost disappeared below the horizon, only a smudge, a suggestion of red, marked the end of that October day. Dusk crept across the silent fields and a swirl of ground mist rose to greet the darkness. The moon, as yet no more than a promise, had appeared pale, ghostly, in the eastern sky. A solitary owl hooting from a distant wood broke the heavy silence. 

Sean Brady heard the owl hooting as he sat by the side of a smouldering peat fire in the Ulster village of Foreglen. He was celebrating completing the autumn ploughing that afternoon, with a dram of Irish whiskey. If it hadn’t been for that big thorn tree in Straith meadow, he would have finished an hour earlier. It was a real nuisance, turning the horse and adjusting the plough share. The old collie at his feet suddenly pricked up his ears and his tail thumped on the floor. 

‘Here we are, back from Derry Town, and all the shoppin finished, so it is.’ The voice of his wife sounded in the farmhouse hall. She hurried into the kitchen and stood with her back to the fire, rubbing her hands after the long walk from the bus stop.  

‘It’s cold outside, they’ll be frost tonight, so there will; the sky’s clear and the full moon’s rising. It’s a night for the Little People.’  

Sean said nothing as he poured another dram, but he had made up his mind to take an axe to that wretched hawthorn tree, Little People or not.  

 

The next morning was crisp and clear. There was a powdering of frost over the fields as if someone had taken a giant sugar sifter and shaken it over the meadows. The hedges were covered with webs of gossamer, and a delicate pink sunrise cast a glow over the farmhouse with its mossed tiles and old chimneys. 

Sean had finished his breakfast of bacon and soda bread and pulled on his old boots. He said nothing about his plans for the day as he went out to drive the cows in for milking. He’d have taken an axe to the thorn before noon and his wife, with the rest of the superstitious villagers, would be none the wiser.  

The herd of black and white cows seemed particularly obstreperous that autumn morning, especially Shamrock who hung back behind the others and then wandered into the wrong milking stall. Next, two of the youngsters bolted off up the lane. Sean ran through the fields to cut them off, only to put his foot down a rabbit hole and wrench his ankle. He had a headache by the time he’d rounded up the cows and regretted that third whiskey. The old sheepdog kept well out of range when Sean swore as the heavy barn door slammed shut in his face. 

By the time he had set off for Straith field, the sky had clouded over and the old collie cowered behind at a safe distance. Under his arm Sean carried a large axe, the head safely wrapped in old sacking. As he opened the field gate, he glared at the offending thorn which stared back at him through wet, yellow leaves. The solitary thorn looked defiant in the middle of the ploughed field.   It was approaching mid-day, and the frost had vanished. As soon as Sean put his foot on a furrow, he sank down into the mud. Walking to the thorn tree was a battle in itself. At one point a boot stuck in the wet soil and he was left looking ridiculous hopping on one leg in a ploughed field. The twisted trunk seemed to be laughing at his dilemma, watching him trying desperately to recover his boot without putting his foot into the deep mud!  

Sean was not in the best of moods when he finally reached the foot of the fairy thorn. His head was aching, the axe was heavy and his right boot was full of slimy mud. He glanced back to see the old sheepdog waiting at the field gate- far too wise to try walking across a newly ploughed field. The would-be executioner paused for a few minutes to recover his breathe. 

The moment had come. Sean unwrapped the sacking from round the head of the axe. The blade looked sharp and mean. He ran his fingers cautiously over the cutting edge. Looking up into the ancient thorn, he could see the ragged remains of a couple of old birds’ nests and little piles of dead leaves caught in the forked branches. Just for a moment he hesitated. He remembered long- ago, childhood summers, picnics under the thorn in full leaf, the talk of the fairy folk and the belief that the tree marked the border between this world and the mysterious, magic world beyond.  

Sean took a firm grip of the shaft and swung the axe. It was strange, the wooden shaft seemed to twist in his hand, almost as if it had a will of its own. By now Sean was angry, angry with himself, angry with his wife, angry with his neighbours and their ridiculous beliefs, angry above all with the tree looking so smug and defiant. He seized the shaft again, taking a mighty swing at the tree. The axe flew out of his hand, spun round and landed, head buried in a furrow, several meters from the thorn tree. Beside himself with rage, Sean took the axe for the third time and swung it high, taking aim at the infuriatingly elusive trunk. The blade turned in on itself. For a few seconds Sean felt something dribbling down his leg into the muddy right-hand boot. Then an excruciating pain seemed to paralyse his leg, just below the knee. He looked down to see a pool of blood slowly seeping into the rich, peaty soil round the roots of the thorn. Sean sat down under the tree. Taking the sacking he’d wrapped round the blade, he tied the rough cloth tightly, just below his knee. He fell back, groaning, in the mud. 

It must have been at least fifteen or twenty minutes before Sean began to recover consciousness. For a few moments he gazed around in confusion. What was he doing on a chilly autumn afternoon, sitting under an old thorn tree in the middle of a ploughed field in uncomfortably damp clothes? He looked up at the tree and down at the axe lying in the mud. Suddenly it all came back to him. Grasping the gnarled trunk of the hawthorn, Sean tentatively pulled himself up. Putting his weight on his left leg, he gingerly tried bending his right knee. It was painful but possible.  

An hour later, he was back in the farmhouse kitchen explaining to his horrified wife how he’d slipped while cutting logs in the woods. Maeve took one look at the gash below his right knee, before half dragging, half carrying, her protesting husband to the old Ford parked in the yard. 

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It was not until Christmas, after several visits to Derry Infirmary Outpatients, that Sean was able to walk without pain. He had spent weeks hopping around the farm, losing his temper with the cowherd and the extra casual labour he’d been forced to employ. ‘If I weren’t there, they’d sit on their asses all day, so they would.’  

By New Year, he had recovered enough to drink a few glasses of Guinness at the village pub and listen to his fellow farmers’ banter. ‘Now don’t you be cutting any logs on your way home Sean Brady’ and ‘Watch out for the Little People, Sean!’ 

By May Sean was walking normally. Except for the livid scar on his right leg, there was no evidence of his battle with the old hawthorn. The axe lay at the back of the barn and a shiny, new, replacement leant proudly against the wall in the toolshed.  He hadn’t forgotten or forgiven the cost of the previous encounter. His wallet was considerably lighter after hiring an extra farmhand and more costly by far was his humiliation and loss of pride. 

On a bright, spring day in early May, Sean determined to settle the issue of the fairy thorn once and for all. It so happened that Maeve had gone to stay with her sister who had just had twins and a difficult delivery. Alone at night, Sean had brooded on the vendetta with the tree. In his dreams he was wrestling with the sinewy, thorny black branches entwined round his body like a mythical serpent. He awoke, hot, sweaty and again defeated. 

Armed with the shiny new weapon, he walked through the early morning sunshine The hedges were shooting and were peppered with bright green leaves. As he reached the gate of Straith field, he noticed the barley was growing well, almost knee high and swaying in the light breeze. Sean kept closely to the headland to avoid trampling the crop, as far as possible. He glared across at the thorn, resplendent in its new green livery and creamy white blossom, just coming into full flower. Its winter scruffiness had been replaced by an almost ethereal beauty.  

Undeterred, Sean walked carefully through the barley and stood looking up into the tree once more. The air was scented with the strange perfume of the foaming blossom, a heady, almost narcotic scent of spice and almonds. The trails of blossom looked like the cream Maeve skimmed off the milk in the cool dairy. Sean dismissed the image. Maeve was the last person he wanted to think of at that moment.  

Like an athlete preparing to throw the hammer, Sean placed his hands firmly on the shaft of the axe. He swung back hard and high over his left shoulder. The axe cut deep into the twisted trunk, through the lichen covered bark, through the hard wood. Sean heard the tree cry out in pain or protest. No, it was only the wind in the barley. He prepared to lift the axe for another strike. He paused with the axe high over his left shoulder. A single white bird, fluttered from the branches, over the barley, into the path of the sun. Sean looked at the trunk of the thorn, at the wound in its side. Dark red blood seeped through the jagged cut onto the mossed roots beneath. In disbelief, in fear he watched it dripping into the soil. 

Sean walked slowly back to the farm. He threw the new axe into a ditch at the side of the lane. He sat in his chair in the kitchen long past milking time. As he prepared for bed, he looked at the scar on his leg. Sean ran his hand over its raised surface. In the darkness, he traced the pattern of a trunk with twigs and branches. 

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Late August, they were harvesting the barley in the Straith.  A flock of jackdaws scrabbled and fought for grain left in the stubble. On the fairy thorn the autumn berries were beginning to appear. The light of the setting sun shone on the twisted trunk. All sign of damage had vanished.

 

Sarah Das Gupta is a writer from Cambridge, UK who has lived and taught English in India and Tanzania, as well as the UK. Her work has been published in over twenty countries. She has been nominated for Best of the Net and a Dwarf Star.