| The Basket
a fable freely adapted from
The Herdsman decided to guard and watch throughout the night. As the sun slipped away he climbed the broad tree that grew in the cow’s pen. Long into the night he kept himself alert and absolutely still. The cows munched and dozed contentedly beneath him. From far away the Herdsman could hear spiraling tunes and the stamp of dancing feet from his village.
When he reached his doorway and pulled her toward the light he felt a sudden change in his hand. Turning around, he saw the frightened little girl had changed into a woman. She no longer carried a milk pail. Now she carried a basket, and it was covered with a marvelous red cloth. She was the most beautiful woman he had ever seen. The Herdsman released his grasp on her wrist. She ceased to struggle. She gazed steadily back at the Herdsman. He was sure that she would leap away so quickly he could never catch her again, and yet she was still standing there, not moving. A great love grew in his breast and flew out of his throat. He asked her to stay with him. She said: "I have one condition: you must never look into my basket." He said: "Yes, I will never look into your basked." And again he asked her to stay with him, and she said, "Yes." From the basket she drew forth a robe, slipped it on, and for the first time smiled at him, a radiant smile.
She didn’t answer him, but rose and walked away, and he knew that she was angry. More days went by, and still he could not put away his desire to know what was in her basket, and so he found her on the hill top and said to her again, "Please, show me what is in your basket." She looked up at him. Her large, open eyes narrowed nearly to slits. "You promised – never to look." He said no more and walked down the hill to his cows.
The old woman stopped and looked back at him for the last time. "No," she said, "I am not leaving you because you looked in my basket. I am leaving you because you did not see my treasure." She vanished. In her place appeared a little dancing girl who leapt and cavorted across the filed, while out of the forest and the swirling fog a band of children swept to meet her, whirring their strange cries, swinging their luminous pails and dancing through the sun’s rays. Suddenly, like a flock of starlings, they swooped in a single mass back into the woods. They were gone. Forever.
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rouble came. Although many young women sought his
eye and laid soft snares in his path, the young Herdsman lived alone at the forest’s
edge, tending to his cows. In the morning he milked them and led them to pasture where all
day he guarded them against roving men and beasts. In the evenings he gathered his cows
into the safe pen by his hut. Come morning, he would start all over again. But now in the
morning his cows were dry. They had no milk to give him. It was as though someone were
stealing it all.
ery early in the morning, when the earth was quiet
and the sky hovered in the glow of a large moon, he saw a band of children emerge from the
forest. Each carried a small luminous pail, and when they reached his pen they swarmed
around his cows and begin milking them, all the while chattering excitedly in a strange
high tongue which sounded like cries of insects or birds. When one of the children was
right beneath his branch, the Herdsman dropped from the tree. He landed next to a little
girl. Before she could move he shot out his large hand and seized her wrist. The others
fled, whistling terrified cries. The little girl struggled and screamed in his grasp, but
he paid her little attention and angrily dragged her towards his hut.
fter that the Herdsman’s cows were always full of milk in the
morning, and his days and nights were filled with a different joy. He worked hard. She
helped him in everything he did and still found time to play with the children of the
village and tend to the elders. Out of her mysterious basket she brought many things. She
brought forth food when the hunt was bad and they were truly hungry. She brought forth
shining silver balls for his juggling. She brought forth clothing. Each time she dipped
her hand beneath the red woven cloth that covered her basked and drew forth the gift. Each
time he marveled at it. And in the evening when his work was done, he danced and juggled
for her with leaps and crouches and balancing balls by the light of a blazing circle of
fire.
ne day the Herdsman went to her as she sat beside
the river and said there was something that bothered him: she was keeping a secret from
him, she never let him see what is in her basket.
hat evening, as she stood outside watching the sun
set against the forest, he brooded inside their hut. His eyes wandered around the room and
fell upon the basket in a shadowed corner. He went to the basked and looked down at its
red cover. "We should have no secrets at all," he said to himself. Through the
open door he could see her back. Her body blazed in the red glow of the sun. He looked
down again at the shadowed red cloth, and lifted it. He saw nothing. The basket was empty!
He put the cover back and looked again out the door. She was immobile, fixed in the gaze
of the setting sun. He pulled the cover off again, and this time lifted the basket,
turning it upside down high over his head and shaking it. "Nothing," he
whispered to himself. He put the basket back and covered it with its red cloth
he turned and came back to the house. As soon as she
stepped into the room she knew. Before her speechless gaze he dropped his eyes in shame.
When he looked up at her again she had become an old woman. She lurched toward the door,
and he cried out after her, "You are leaving me because I looked in your basket!
There’s nothing in it!"