HEARTHWANE · SPIRIT
old winter spirit, 2000
Was given bowls of snow on every doorstep at midwinter and called Aldrune, and kept the winters gentle in…
THEIR STORY
Above the snow line of Kestrel Heights, on a frozen tarn, stands a hall of old clear glass where the Snow Queen keeps what the world forgets: names nobody says, faces nobody pictures, roads nobody walks. Long ago the hill folk left her bowls of snow at midwinter and called her by a name, and the winters were gentler. Nobody leaves the bowls now. This winter her sleigh came down the white road again.
FROM
the hall of ice above the white road
HOW THEY LOOK
Very tall and very still, white hair to her knees with rime in it, a gown like packed snow. Her breath writes on glass.
IN THEIR OWN WORDS
“Everything is forgotten in the end. I only keep it.”
“You are early. Sit. The cold will not hurt you yet.”
BEFORE THE TALE
700 years ago · the heights
Was given bowls of snow on every doorstep at midwinter and called Aldrune, and kept the winters gentle in return.
200 years ago · the hall of ice
Let a glazier cut one pane from her hall in return for a song he soon forgot; the pane went down the mountain.
60 years ago · the heights
Took a sister's face from a young bone-reader in return for a thaw, and keeps it in her ice still.