Retold by Harlow Berny

 

Centuries ago, in a long forgotten kingdom, there was a poor and widowed peasant woman with two young children — but only one was still alive. The young son had died before his little sister was old enough to remember him. With no man in the house, the mother worked as a seamstress while her daughter, once she reached six years of age, went to work chopping logs to sell.

One winter morning, the daughter was about to head home with seven logs, when she realized that they were too heavy for her. As she was leaving with only three logs, a well-groomed boy, seemingly no older than her, appeared before her and offered to help carry the other four. The girl happily accepted his help and called her mother to meet the boy when they arrived at her home. The mother came out as her daughter called, but she only found her daughter waiting for her, no boy. The mother assumed that the daughter was talking of an imaginary friend and went back to sewing.

The next day, the daughter came home with a flower bud that the boy had given her, saying that the boy would return once the flower bloomed. The mother laughed and placed the bud in a cup of water, thinking nothing of it. A week passed. One morning, the daughter did not leave her bed. The mother, concerned, went to the daughter’s room to wake her. When the mother pulled the covers off of her daughter’s bed, she found the daughter was cold as stone, yet bearing a warm smile. That same morning, the flower bud bloomed into a crimson rose, and the water turned to blood and overflowed from the cup, like how the blood of the son had flowed from his head when he fell on his axe while chopping logs for his mother.

 

Editor: Shelby Armor

A Re-Telling of Grimm’s