The Rose, the Rich Man, and Mother Berchte

Steven Piziks

Santa Claus brings what you want. Mother Berchte brings what you deserve.

The jingling stopped and heavy pounding shook the cottage. Gretchen squeaked with fright and dodged behind Mami’s skirts while Papi went to answer the door. Karsten, Gretchen’s older brother, stood next to the stove trying to look brave. Hoder, her younger brother, stuck his fingers in his mouth and wriggled on old Oma’s lap. He was too little to know what Mother Night was about.

Gretchen’s heart was going bumpity-bump and she didn’t know whether she wished Papi would open the door quick or slam down the bar to keep it firmly shut. She was a sturdy child, with red braids Mami had coiled special just above her ears for the Mother Night celebration. Mami’s skirts were rough between her strong little fingers, but they wouldn’t save her from Mother Berchte.

Papi took a deep breath and opened the door. Snow swirled into the room, making the candle flames dance like little ghosts, and Mother Berchte stomped into the cottage, muttering and complaining under her breath. Gretchen swallwed hard. Mother Berchte was tall, taller than Papi, and she had horns on her head and fangs in her mouth and claws on her fingertips. A tail dragged the ground behind her, and she carried a sack flung over one shoulder. She smelled like smoke and old meat. Behind her stood a huge white goat, the biggest Gretchen had ever seen. It was as big as Papi’s plowhorse, and it followed Mother Berchte into the house with a clattering of hooves and a jingling of bells.

“Good evening, Mother,” Papi said respectfully. He closed the door. “Enter and welcome.”

The goat sank to its knees in the corner closest to the stove and Mother Berchte glared angrily about the room. Gretchen hid her face in the folds of Mami’s skirt, but eventually she couldn’t bear it any longer and peeped cautiously around to look.

Mother Berchte was staring right at her.

Gretchen tried to hide her eyes again, but found she couldn’t. Mother Berchte’s glittering black eyes held hers for long time, and Gretchen almost stopped breathing, she was so frightened. Was Mother Berchte going to stuff her into the sack and take her away? That’s what happened to Katja last year. No one had seen her since.

Then Mother Berchte grinned a wicked grin and opened her sack. “All right, then — gather around.”

Gretchen let her breath out with a whoosh. Once Mother Berchte told you to gather around, it was safe. That’s what Papi said. It didn’t matter if you were good or bad or hiding in bed. If Mother Berchte took a child, there was nothing anyone could do about it.

Gretchen let Mami nudge her forward as Mother Berchte began pulling brightly-wrapped presents from her sack. Gretchen quickly forgot her fear as she unwrapped a new rag doll — how had Mother Berchte known her old one had fallen into the well? — and a new dress and new shoes and new mittens. Karsten got a shirt and leggings and boots and mittens and — best of all — a real, sharp-bladed knife that caught the firelight and made it glitter. Karsten’s eyes shone with pride as he strapped it to his belt and strutted importantly around the cottage. Gretchen felt a surge of jealousy and Mother Berchte opened her sack again.

“All right, then — gather around.”

Gretchen’s eyes grew round, jealousy quickly forgotten, as Mother Berchte handed out food. Sweet little cakes and decorated cookies and red apples and purple plums and — oh my — even strawberries. Everyone, including Oma, thanked Mother Berchte nicely, and Gretchen, remembering her manners, did not gobble up every strawberry Mother Berchte laid on the table, but instead offered to share with Oma and little Hoder.

Mother Berchte, meanwhile, pulled a large cauldron out of her sack, drew her knife, and turned to the goat. “Nassirskaegi!” she spat. “Come here, you old goat!”

Nassirskaegi, forgotten in his corner by the stove, slowly rose to his feet and clattered across the floor to Mother Berchte. A hush fell over the room and Gretchen paused with the last strawberry halfway to her mouth. She had heard stories about this, but she had never seen it. She threw a quick glance at Oma, who winked, and that made Gretchen feel better as Mother Berchte yanked Nassirskaegi’s head back by one horn and, with a swift slash of her knife, cut Nassirskaegi’s throat.

Blood ran into the cauldron at Mother Berchte’s feet and Nassirskaegi collapsed without a sound. In no time at all, Mother Berchte had him skinned and butchered. Gretchen couldn’t believe her eyes. Not even Papi, who butchered pigs every fall for the neighbors, could work so fast. An impossibly short time later, the cottage was filled with the thick, savory smell of goat stew. Gretchen felt rather sorry for poor Nassirskaegi, but hadn’t Papi always told her that animals were meant to be eaten?

Mother Berchte, meanwhile, dropped a ladle into the cauldron, which sat in the middle of the floor. No fire heated it, and Gretchen hadn’t seen Mother Berchte empty out the blood, but it was undeniably full of bubbling stew.

“Eat all you like,” Mother Berchte commanded, “and throw the bones in my sack. But break none.”

Gretchen took up her little bowl and quietly got in line as Mother Berchte dished up stew for Oma, Papi, Mami, and Karsten. Hoder had been put to bed.

“Thank you,” Gretchen whispered when Mother Berchte filled her bowl, but Mother Berchte only grunted in reply. Gretchen decided that Mother Berchte didn’t have very nice manners, even if she did bring presents.

Everyone took their places around the table, Oma said a quick blessing, and Gretchen took a cautious bite of stew. It tasted every bit as delicious as it smelled — thick and meaty without too many icky vegetables. There was soft, hot bread from Mother Berchte’s sack along with apple juice so cold it made Gretchen’s head ache. Mother Berchte gave Mami, Papi, and Oma rich, dark beer, and Papi seemed to be drinking an awful lot of it. Gretchen wondered why.

Karsten smiled at her from his seat next to her on the bench. He was eating with his new knife. Mother Berchte sat at the head of the table where Oma usually sat, but she didn’t eat or speak. Instead, whenever someone picked a bone out of the stew, she held up her sack. Bones flew steadily across the table, each landing neatly in the sack, even when Gretchen threw them.

In between tosses, Gretchen snuck glances at Mother Berchte. She visited five or six houses in the village every year on Mother Night, but this was the first time she had visited Gretchen’s house. Gretchen could see why people were afraid of her — she was frighteningly ugly — but the only bad thing she had done so far was butcher Nassirskaegi, and even gentle Papi did things like that. And the longer Gretchen looked at Mother Berchte, the less ugly she seemed. There was strength and power in her when she moved, and Gretchen was willing to bet she wasn’t afraid of anything, not even the monster under Gretchen’s bed. Mother Berchte, Gretchen decided, could probably have the monster under the bed for lunch.

Eventually, every bit of stew had been eaten and Gretchen was so full she felt ready to explode. All Nassirskaegi’s bones were in Mother Berchte’s sack. Mother Berchte took up the sack and Gretchen held her breath. She could feel everyone else in the room doing the same thing. Karsten was clutching the hilt of his knife with white fingers.

Mother Berchte gave the sack a rough shake. “Come on, you old goat!”

The sack exploded open and Nassirskaegi popped into the room, completely alive. There was no sign that he had just been butchered and eaten. Gretchen squealed and applauded. Even Oma looked amazed, and Gretchen knew Mother Berchte had visited Oma’s house many times when Mami was a girl.

“Spring is coming,” Mother Berchte said in her harsh voice. “It’s always on its way.”

And with that, she towed Nassirskaegi out the cottage, jumped onto his back, and rode into the dark, snowy night as Mami and Papi heaved heavy sighs that seemed to come all the way down from their toes.

A while later, Gretchen was tucked into her little bed with her new doll beside her and Karsten in the next bed over.

“Mami,” she asked, “why did Mother Berchte tell us that spring is coming? Everyone knows it is.”

Mami tucked a strand of brown hair back into the braids twisted around her head. Gretchen wondered what it would be like to have brown hair. Her hair was red, like Papi’s.

“Mother Berchte says that because this is the longest, coldest night of the year,” Mami explained, “and sometimes it’s hard to remember that spring will eventually get here. That’s why Mother Berchte brings us fresh food and drink.”

“But why does she do it?” Gretchen persisted. “Why?”

Mami chuckled. “I can see the only way to get you to sleep is to tell you Mother Berchte’s story.”

Karsten sat up in his bed and Gretchen caught sight of his new knife, hidden under his pillow. “Tell us, Mami. Please?”

“I’ll tell you,” Mami said, “but you have to promise to go right to sleep afterwards.”

“We promise,” Gretchen said quickly, and Mami smiled again.

oOo

A very long time ago, Mami began, Mother Berchte didn’t come to visit on Mother Night. She came to visit anytime she pleased. In fact, she made her home above this very village in a cave at the top of Mother’s Mountain.

“So that’s why it’s called Mother’s Mountain,” Karsten said.

“Shhh!” Gretchen said. “Mami’s telling a story.”

Every so often, Mami continued, Mother Berchte would decide it was time to go visiting. She took up her sack, strapped on her great iron shoes, and went smashing and crashing her way down the mountain, kicking up sparks as big as your head, until she got to our village at the bottom. When she arrived, the streets were always empty, of course, because people were afraid of her. They shut their doors and locked their windows, hoping Mother Berchte wouldn’t choose their house this time.

Mother Berchte stomped through the village with her sack over her shoulder until she found a likely cottage. Then she picked a window and stared and glared through the glass until the people inside gave her food and gifts to make her go away.

“She took presents instead of giving them?” Gretchen asked, amazed.

“Shhh!” Karsten said. “Mami’s telling a story.”

Things went on like this for many years until one day, a rich man moved into the village. No one knows why he decided to move here, but the first thing he did when he arrived was build a great big house with a great big wall that went all the way around it.

The rich man wasn’t a very good neighbor — he never invited anyone over to his house and he insisted that everyone call him “my lord,” even though he wasn’t a noble. He was a short, pudgy man with dark hair and greedy, glittering eyes.

Now the reason this rich man built a wall all the way around his house was that he was a gardner. He was the best gardner in the entire world, in fact, and his garden was a place of wonders. He grew daffodils and bell-lilies and tulips and lilacs and even rare goldenrod. His flowers always bloomed with the brightest of scarlets and golds and greens and purples and they smelled so wonderful, the bees themselves fought over which would be the first to sip their sweet nectar.

But the rich man was jealous, and he didn’t want to share his garden with anyone else. He was afraid that someone would steal his secrets, and that’s why he built the wall around his house.

One day on the top of her mountain, Mother Berchte realized she hadn’t gone visiting in quite a while, so she took up her sack, strapped on her great iron shoes, and went smashing and crashing her way down the mountain, kicking up sparks as big as your head, until she got to our village at the bottom. The first thing she noticed, of course, was the rich man’s house, and, like any good neighbor, she decided to pay him a visit.

A locked gate around back kept most visitors away, but Mother Berchte knew it was meant for other people, not her. She smashed her way into the rich man’s yard to see what she could see.

When she came around the corner, she found the rich man on his knees weeding a rosebush, and she nodded to herself. This was the proper position for someone to greet her.

The rich man looked up. Because of the wall around his house, he hadn’t seen Mother Berchte’s sparks or heard the smashing and crashing of iron on stone, and because he never spoke to his neighbors, no one had told him who Mother Berchte was. And although Mother Berchte is frighteningly ugly, all the rich man could see was that she had crushed an entire bed of freshly-planted marigolds, and he became instantly furious.

“What are you doing here?” he snapped. “How dare you barge into my garden like this?”

Mother Berchte blinked at him in surprise. No one had ever spoken to her like that before.

“I am Mother Berchte,” she growled.

“I don’t care who you are, you senile old hag,” the rich man barked. “Get out of my garden before I throw you out!”

Mother Berchte began to get a bit annoyed. She decided someone needed to teach this man a lesson, and that someone would be her.

“You call this a garden?” she mocked. “Pah! This is a tangle of weeds. Now my garden, my garden is perfect. Yours is nothing, little man. Nothing at all.” And she squashed a patch of violets to prove her point.

The rich man leaped to his feet, face red, eyes bulging from their sockets. “You’re as stupid as you are ugly, old hag. My garden is the finest in the country. In the world!”

Mother Berchte laughed. “Well then, little man, why don’t we make a bet? I’ll bet you that my garden is better than yours. If you win, I’ll be your servant for a year and a day. But if I have the better garden, you serve me for a year and day. What do you say?”

“Who will judge?” the rich man asked shrewdly.

“You.”

It was the rich man’s turn to laugh. The hag couldn’t be serious. Not only was it impossible for anyone in the world to have a better garden than his, he certainly wouldn’t admit it if they did. He would get a free servant out of it, and while she wasn’t much to look at, she was obviously strong and would doubtless be useful. He could hitch a plow to her and save his horses in the spring. Perhaps he would even use a whip. Yes, that would be very nice.

“Very well,” the rich man said. “You have a bet. May I see your garden?”

“Not today,” Mother Berchte replied. “If you want to see my garden, be at the top of my mountain at sundown on Mother Night, the longest night of the year. Agreed?”

The rich man couldn’t believe his luck. No winter garden could possibly compare with his in summer. The hag must be mad.

“Agreed,” he said.

Mother Berchte grinned a horrible grin and left, taking care to crush a few dozen tulips on her way out.

Well, summer passed into autumn, and autumn passed into winter until finally Mother Night, the longest night of the year, arrived. The rich man put on his warmest cloak and climbed carefully up the mountain as the sun slipped toward the horizon. The snow was deeper than the rich man thought it would be, however, and the sun had already set by the time he reached the top, where Mother Berchte was waiting for him.

“You’re late,” she hissed. “Quickly, we don’t have much time.”

She all but dragged the rich man into the forest just as the last streaks of light faded from the western sky.

“Well?” the rich man asked impatiently, shivering in his cloak. “Where’s this wonderful garden of yours?”

“Wait,” Mother Berchte growled.

The rich man waited in the dark forest for a long time. He was about say something to Mother Berchte when he noticed something strange. The cold, cutting wind had become a warm, soothing breeze. The snow melted quickly away, revealing growing grass as if someone were whisking a white sheet off a green blanket. And then the sun rose.

The trees shook themselves and put out thick emerald leaves. Flowers and blossoms appeared like magic on the ground. Daisies and violets and lilacs and roses spread across the forest floor, perfuming the air with wonderful sweetness.

And then animals appeared. Rabbits and deer and skunks and squirrels, all with young ones scampering and playing between their feet. Birds which had flown south long ago trilled and sang in the trees, filling the very air with beautiful music.

It was an amazing sight, breathtaking in its beauty, and the rich man couldn’t do anything but stand and stare. This was Nature itself, and nothing, not even the rich man’s garden, could be more perfect. The rich man also knew that here, in this perfect place, he could never do anything so imperfect as tell a lie.

“Well?” Mother Berchte asked. “Whose garden is better — yours or mine?”

The rich man ground his teeth. The rich man stamped his feet. But eventually he was forced to say it.

“Yours,” he muttered. “Your garden is better.”

Mother Berchte laughed her terrible laugh and slapped the rich man across the shoulders, making him stagger. “Then I have a servant.”

“Please,” the rich man whined, trying to get his balance. “I have obligations, matters to attend. If I disappear, I’ll be ruined forever. Please — give me twelve months to make arrangements, then I’ll return and” — he clenched his fists — “serve you for a year and a day.”

It was on the tip of Mother Berchte’s tongue to refuse — perhaps it would have been best if she had — but she was in an unexpectedly charitable mood. She had just won a bet and humiliated the idiotic human who had dared to insult her. Perhaps she could afford to be generous.

“Very well,” Mother Berchte growled. “Return to the mountain at sundown in one year to begin your service. But remember that I’ll work you all the harder for it. I have matters of my own to attend to, so enjoy the garden. I’ll be back.”

And Mother Berchte left. The rich man tugged at his collar beneath the sun’s heat and looked around at Mother Berchte’s beautiful mountain.

The more he looked, the more he began to hate it.

It was better, more beautiful, than his garden, and it always would be. Jealousy consumed his heart and suddenly he wanted to destroy the garden, find some way to make it less than perfect. But even as the idea crossed his mind, the sun began to set. The wind grew chill, the birds flew away, and the leaves fell from the trees.

The rich man rushed to a patch of violets, intent on trampling them, but they withered away and vanished beneath his boots. He snatched at a clump of daisies, but they too dried up and disappeared. Snow and darkness were falling, and the rich man cast desperately about for something, anything. Then his eye lit upon a rosebush still in bloom. He dove for it, ignoring the thorns that bit his hands, and he tore at the blossoms even as they shriveled away. The rosebush became nothing more than a dead-looking clump of thorny vines, but the rich man noticed a single seed stuck in the blood on his palm. He stuffed the seed into his pocket just as Mother Berchte returned.

“And that was my garden,” she said. “You may leave now. Just remember to return at sundown in one year. Don’t. Be. Late.”

The rich man nodded to her and without a word made his way down the mountain, pausing every so often to feel the hard seed in his pocket. And when winter passed and spring arrived, the first thing he did was plant that seed in his garden. But that year, nothing grew on the rich man’s grounds. Not a single daffodil or daisy, not one tiny tulip. Nothing.

Well, spring passed into summer, summer passed into autumn, and autumn passed into winter, and that winter was the worst anyone could remember. Horrible howling winds tore down the mountainside, bringing avalances of snow with them, until the village was all but buried, and the people shivered in their homes.

Finally Mother Night arrived and once again the rich man, who had put all his affairs in order, got out his warmest cloak. He closed up his house and, clutching his cloak about him, climbed up the mountain to serve Mother Berchte. But the snow was so deep, he didn’t arrive this time until well after sunset, and Mother Berchte was waiting for him outside her cave.

“You!” she bellowed angrily over the wind. “You did this, didn’t you? This is your fault!”

The rich man took a step back. The cold wind bit into his face and hands. “What do you mean? What’s my fault?”

“Are you blind, man?” Mother Berchte cried. “Take a look around you! What do you see?”

The rich man looked, but all he could see was a dark mountain covered with bare trees and snow. What was she talking about?

Then it came to him.

“It’s not here,” the rich man said. “There’s no garden.”

Mother Berchte reached out with one clawed hand and pulled the rich man so close he could smell her warm, sour breath.

“You took something, didn’t you?” she hissed. “You destroyed the garden’s perfection.”

Fear gripped the rich man’s stomach for a moment, but only a moment. It was replaced by anger — anger and pride.

“Yes!” he sneered. “Yes, I did! Your precious garden is no more, and that means mine is the best. So go ahead and kill me. I’d rather die than serve a filthy old hag like you.”

Wind howled around them, driving stinging snow into the rich man’s face, but Mother Berchte didn’t seem to notice. She released the rich man so quickly he almost fell.

“You stupid, stupid man,” Mother Berchte cried. “Did you think my garden was just there to be pretty? It was a reminder to everyone that no matter how dark and cold and long winter might be, spring is coming. They might not be able to see the garden, but they knew it was there, inside. And now it no longer exists. You’ve destroyed their hope. People will wither and die because what you did.”

“What do I care about the hopes of the poor?” The rich man gathered his cloak more tightly around him. “Just kill me, if that’s what you’re going to do.”

“You still don’t understand, do you?” Mother Berchte drew herself up and wind suddenly hushed, leaving tense silence behind. “If the garden doesn’t exist, something else will have to take its place.”

And with blinding speed, Mother Berchte smashed the rich man across the face. The blow drove him to his kness, and the moment he touched the snow, he began to change. Long white hair sprouted from his back. His hands and feet hardened and split into cloven hooves. Horns spiralled out of his forehead. In moments, standing on the mountainside was not a rich man, but a great white goat as big as a horse.

“Your name,” Mother Berchte hissed, “is Nassirskaegi. Now come!”

And Mother Berchte rode Nassirskaegi down the mountain to the village, where she pounded on the first door she came upon. When the startled people opened it, Mother Berchte shoved her way inside.

You know the rest. Mother Berchte opened her sack to hand out presents and she opened her sack to hand out food. Then she cut Nassirskaegi’s throat so everyone could eat him and throw the bones into her sack, and when the sack was full, Mother Berchte shook it, and Nassirskaegi burst back out, brought back to life again to remind us that out of death comes life, and that no matter how dark and cold and long winter might be, spring is coming. It’s always on its way.

The story, however, doesn’t end there. Mother Berchte and Nassirskaegi visited many houses that first night, and they have visited many other houses since, but there’s one house they have never visited. They never went near the rich man’s house. And that was too bad, for if they had, they would have seen a drift in the garden stir, and they might have watched a single, blood-red rose push its way up through the snow to bloom all night long. And when the sun came up, they may have seen the rose wither away until nothing was left but a single seed, caught by the wind and blown into the forest.

I’m told that if you’re in the right place at the right time on Mother Night, you might also see the drifts stir and watch a single blood-red rose bloom on the white snow until sunrise, also reminding us that no matter how dark and cold and long winter might be, spring is always on its way.

oOo

“But Mami,” Gretchen protested, “doesn’t that mean Mother Berchte doesn’t have to kill Nassirskaegi every year? Doesn’t she know about the rose? She knew my doll fell down the well.”

Mami sighed and kissed Gretchen on the forehead. “I’ve thought about that, too, sweetie, and I think that’s the worst part of the story.”

“What’s that, Mami?” Karsten asked.

“I think,” Mami said sadly, “that Mother Berchte knows about the rose, but Nassirskaegi does not.”

Mami kissed Gretchen again and tucked the covers more firmly around her, but Gretchen was still shivering when she fell asleep.

The End

Copyright © 1997 by Steven Piziks