15Jorinda was easily the most beautiful girl in the village. She might well have been the most beautiful girl in the kingdom- well, the province, at least. Her beauty was quite renowned, and many travelers came just to see her.
Her hair was red-gold and fell in loosened curls to her knees. She never wore it up, and even when she was working it was secured by only a leather tie. Her eyes were a pale but deep blue like the sky on a clear day. Her skin was the pale, freckled curse all redheads bear, and she was often rosy red from spending too much time in the sun. But her smile was sweet and she never complained about her sunburn, with her typical forbearance.
She had a plethora of suitors. They lined up down the street to dance with her at village festivals. Her house was inundated with flowers and baubles on her birthday, and she even once had a noble lord propose to her.
But she turned them all down. It puzzled people, how such a beautiful, skilled, marriageable woman apparently wanted no part of marriage. It was especially unsettling when she turned the lord down, for what sort of woman rejects such a prize? Nobody, that's who, and especially not a poor village girl who will most likely never get a better offer. Her sister, a girl of fourteen who was promising to be almost as pretty as Jorinda, was barraged with questions as to what would make her sister marry.
"Love," said the girl, whose name was Elisbet, and who was Jorinda's trusted confidante. "She won't marry any man whom she doesn't love and who doesn't love her."
She was dismissed as "full of ridiculous romantic notions that'll never get her married" by the adults, but the boys of the fifteen to twenty set were still bent on winning her love. True love was professed to her no less than fifty times by fifty different boys, and yet she rebuffed them all. She wasn't interested.
I myself never participated in Jorinda madness. I knew that if she wouldn't choose any of my handsomer friends, she wouldn't choose a gap-toothed, dirty shepherd. My family was one of the poorest in the village. We lived in a squalid hovel on the outskirts of town, and my mother was scorned as a tramp by the other villagers and generally avoided. My father had perished in a mysterious goat stampede accident- or at least that's what I had been told, though even when I was seven years old I thought it unlikely- and my mother raised me alone. I was her only asset, and the only way I gained her respect was by bringing home money.
She worked as a laundress, a low-paying, dull job that she despised, but continued with because she needed the money. As soon as I was of age, I began herding goats for my father's old customers, who were only too glad not to have to do it themselves. They paid me lower than the others they had previously employed, and I did a better job. It's not much to brag about, but I was easily the best shepherd in our village.
I had never once tried to woo Jorinda, as I said before. I didn't see what the big deal was. Yes, she was pretty. I supposed she was smart, although I had never really spoken with her. I had heard she was hardworking. But I was a poor shepherd, and she was- Jorinda. And so I never tried to dance with her, or send her flowers, or any of the other romantic pursuits others attempted. I actually didn't like her all that much, I had convinced myself, and I'd be better off marrying one closer to my station.
And that was why it seemed so strange when she ended up choosing me.
In the end, I determined that it was because I ignored her that I attracted her attention. She was so used to every male fawning over her that one that didn't was exceptional. I was unaware that every suitor she turned down she turned down for me, and that every boy she danced with she imagined was me. While I was pointedly not looking at her, she was quite pointedly looking at me, waiting for me to notice that she had noticed me. But to her surprise I never did, that irritated her.
Enough so, indeed, that one day she skipped out on her chores, leaving them to Elisbet, to meet me in the meadow above our village.
I was shocked to see her, to say the least. Her coming up the hill was the last thing I expected to see. Carefully I feigned nonchalance, while really I was both excited and incredibly nervous. Jorinda was coming to see me, surely? As she approached I rationalized that surely she wanted to check on her family's goats. One of them had seemed slightly peaky, now that I thought about it. Yes, surely that was it.
"Shepherd-boy!" she called in that musical voice, and immediately my resolve melted away and I stared at her intensely. Noticing my gaze, she picked up her skirts and began to run up the hill. Out of breath, she plunked herself down next to me.
"Hey," she said, still breathless.
"Hey," I said back. "What are you doing here?"
I could have slapped myself for my lack of tact.
Jorinda just smiled at me. "I came to visit you," she said cheerily. "It must get lonely up in the hills."
"Not really," I said truthfully. I rarely was lonely. The goats and my thoughts kept me company, and I often daydreamed- usually about Jorinda, but I would never have told her that.
"What do you do up here?" Jorinda asked me. I didn't even notice she was flirting.
"Um. I watch the goats, and make sure they don't get lost. And I eat my lunch. And I watch the clouds and sometimes take a nap. Then I take them back into town." Really, it wasn't that complicated. Obviously this Jorinda wasn't as smart as she was made out to be.
"Well I knew that, silly," she said, laughing. "I meant what kind of things do you think about, alone up here?"
"Just stuff," I said, reluctant to reveal what I thought about to her.
She nodded and we were quiet for a while.
"I'm Jorinda," she said suddenly, offering her hand to me.
"I know," I said, unthinkingly, then I blushed as deeply as my tanned skin would permit me. "I mean, I'm Jorindel," I corrected.
Her face broke into a genuine smile. "Jorindel? Really?" she asked, a giggle in her voice.
If possible, I flushed even darker. "My mother thought your name was beautiful," I explained. "She decided to name her daughter Jorinda. She got me instead."
Jorinda laughed, her voice like ringing bells. "Jorindel," she repeated, as if tasting my name. "I like it."
Just then I noticed that one of my goats, a black ram owned by the mayor, wandering off toward the forest.
"Sorry," I excused myself. "I have to go get my goat."
When I left her, she was laughing, probably because I'd just used the phrase "get my goat", but when I returned, she was gone. At first I was upset, but I shrugged it off. Jorinda was notoriously fickle, and why would she want me, anyway?
But the next day, as I collected the town's goats, she appeared at my side.
"Jorindel! Do you mind if I come with you today? It looks like a lovely day for a picnic, and I've brought cheese sandwiches," she said cheerily.
I wasn't one to turn down Jorinda, or cheese sandwiches, so I agreed. And soon we spent every sunny day on the hillside, watching goats and talking. And despite everything I'd promised myself about not falling in love with Jorinda, I fell for her. But that wasn't what surprised me.
What surprised me is that when I kissed her, she returned my kiss with equal passion.
All she said to me, when she pulled away, was "What took you so long?"
This is a portion of my retelling of the Grimm's brothers' fairy tale, "Jorinda and Jorindel". It will be expanded into a full story before too long, but for now it's a oneshot.
Be my best friend and leave a review?
~~Mazzie~~