Rainbow Grove Wedding

On the shores of Zean there grows a forest of rainbow trees, the unique multi-hued bark of which is the most distinctive feature of the tree. Patches of outer bark shed every year at different times, showing inner bark that then darkens and matures to give blue, purple, orange and then maroon tones. In this lovely forest live great many tribes of dryads, in peace among themselves and with the nature.

They had no written language, they built no great kingdoms and in the histories of the elves they merited barely a few footnotes, yet they had a wealth of history, culture and knowledge of the kind that's often difficult to discover. What does it mean to have a spiritual connection to the land and the sky? This is what true joining is among the dryads of the Rainbow Grove.

***

The spring arrived after long winter and as Faojatjara knew whom her heart had decided upon, she begun to collect plants into her sacred maiden chest. She picked coldleaf for burnt orange, tied them in bundles and hanged them from the ceiling of her hut to dry, and the hut smelled fresh like the grove after spring rain. She collected the leaves and flowers of the butterfly bush for lovely golden yellow, like the color of sun just beginning to set, and added this to her collection. She picked purple drops for blue and ripped the soft, smooth leaves from the stems, putting them to ferment with honey. Now the words were passed among her people that the daughter of Yisajatjara was picking her colors and every time one of the men said something in Iludharug's hearing his cheeks darkened to deep moss green.

Many of her friends were giving her somewhat resentful looks, but that was to be expected, of course.

"Now, this reminds me of my own youth," mother told Faojatjara. "Of course, I first decided I was going to marry your father when I was but a child of twenty, but I became serious when I was your age."

"I remember when you first proposed to me. We played house and you made mudcakes, and then you demanded I really eat them. You were so stern I actually did, a few times," her father drawled, and mother twirled her hair, embarrassed.

"Forgive me already, Jeoveney, won't you? You always remind me of that," she complained and kissed her husband. Just a year before Faojatjara would have made a show of telling them to go to their own hut, but now she was very keen to convince everyone she understood the responsibility of forming a family and so she endured in silence. She never cared about anyone else caressing their partner or even falling into a convenient bush together, just walked away to give the couple some privacy, but it was strange how things were different when they were your own parents. She would have preferred to pretend she'd sprung from the ground like a tree.

And perhaps it didn't speak a lot of her maturity that she was so eager for approval, but she was worried. She was of age, but still young to marry, and the man her heart had chosen had a number of admirers. Iludharug played drums in the celebrations and laughed a lot with wide, open smile and she loved the way he had with his baby brother and his spirit, the way he always after blushing held his head high and drawled that maybe, if Fao impressed him, he wouldn't be averse. She loved him, but sadly so did many other women, some of them very accomplished, and Faojatjara didn't think she could afford to wait for another decade.

The season rolled across the land, as steady as Iludharug's drums, and Faojatjara waited for the rainbow trees, for they would give the best colors after a dry period, a long, hot summer. The winters were chilly enough in the forest that firewood was needed over the course of the coldest months, but unlike the tall desert people whose skin was the color of mud, the People of the Green didn't much like felling living wood. They would if they must, but they gathered fallen branches over the course of the long summer, and this was traditionally men's work. They wandered far, bringing home every small stick they found, and Faojatjara was all too happy to shadow Iludharug and speak with him when ever she had time over the course of those days.

"My father still tells us stories of the day they found that tree felled by the storm," Iludharug told his as he bent down to pick up yet another narrow, dry branch. Faojatjara, always chivalrous, was already carrying one pile of wood to help him; it just wouldn't have felt right to watch a man sweat and dilly-dally around.

"I don't know a lot of drum-making, but the trunk of that really made a big one. You must have fond memories of it," she said. So big it was, a gift from the forest, that the children of the drummers often danced on the drum in the less formal celebrations.

"Oh, yes, and whenever we broke the skin, we had to sew the replacement. Hunting the screechers to make it was the fun part, of course." Usually hunting was women's work and fishing men's, but an exception was made when skin for drums was needed; all musical instruments were men's to make, though men and women alike played them. Faojatjara was uncomfortable when she imagined Iludharug going after a screecher; those beasts were quite big and dangerous. But he didn't seem to have come to any harm from it.

"We made thin cords of the guts and stretched them across one of the heads to produce that rattling sound. Sewing wasn't such fun, and tanning was hard. My father kept making me try the spell again and again because I couldn't get it right, and after that using it was tedious and tiring. It has to be cast and and cast - and cast a little more!" he continued his reminiscence as he picked now a bigger branch. They had it easy, of course; the magicless mud people used their own piss for the same effect, she had been told. She didn't know how that might work and the mere thought turned her stomach.

They had left the rainbow trees behind and many woody vines climbed up mottled trees, strangling them as they grew. Some birdcalls could be heard, but mostly the forest was quiet, sleepy under the midday sun. Faojatjara smiled and hoped this could go on forever, yet wished at the same time that autumn would arrive fast.

Finally the fall came as it must and she carefully, respectfully collected bark and leaves, speaking prayers to Father Anjiwarli. Just as the People of the Green were his children, so were the rainbow trees, and she bowed her head even as she made to tear a stripe of blue bark.

"Father Great Spirit of Forest, the time of Great Songs is past, but between two heartbeats the time may return," she sung, setting the flaking bark on her lap. "Look upon your children that they might face the drought and the storms, and walk the good road to the Day of Song! Father Anjiwarli, fill us with tenderness, as with tenderness we have come up from the ground. With tenderness the trees have come up from the ground and all over the world are Real Children all alike." Red stripes, and orange, green and purple and gold, for the rainbow trees, the children Anjiwarli that the Rainbow Woman had taken as her own, were the most beautiful of all creation. The colors the rainbow tree gave were as changeful as the bark; this time Faojatjara was gifted beautiful green dye and she was glad.

She now chopped the dried coldleaf and butterfly bush to small pieces, put them into clay jars and poured water until the jars were full. She then heated and simmered each jar for an hour until the plants had released their colors. When she was ready she spoke to her mother, who then sent her father to the hunters' hut and called for the wisewoman so that she might come and tell her daughter the Greater Story and for the mothers so that they might prepare Faojatjara for her proposal.

To tell the truth, Faojatjara was intimidated by the wisewoman. Ilweran was so old her skin had wrinkled and taken a grayish tint, so old even she had long since run out of words for numbers, and she knew more numbers than anyone else in the tribe. Her eyes were dark and beady like a bird of prey's and always when she looked into them, Faojatjara couldn't help the terrible, vague feeling that she had been caught at some mischief or greater offense. She was biting her nail as she sat in her the hut she had built for her future husband when she had become of age, next to the most supple, beautiful sapling she knew. One day it would become a great tree and her children would play up in the branches, but first she had to get through this night.

"Idriwanna, the Great One of the Sky," she whispered under her breath, but then gritted her teeth together. How could she convince the wisewoman she was wise enough to become a wife and a mother if she couldn't get through the night without begging for help? But when Ilweran arrived to the hut, the women of the tribe following her and standing guard around so that no mischievous boy would try to sneak close to listen to the Greater Story, her eyes were strangely soft.

"You stand before a great change, young one, that two should be joined as one," the wisewoman said, her voice rolling slow like great stone that moss had long since tied to the ground. And Faojatjara knew the Little Story already, the story told to children and the men of the tribe, and now she offered the wisewoman a cup of water, an offering so that she might learn all. Ilweran was akin to a great spirit herself in the shadows of the hut, a black shape cut against the dark of the night.

"Idriwanna is the greatest of all spirits, for it is she who judges when the Rain should fall and when the Sun should shine. One day when she walked across the sky, chasing her sister the Rain away before her steps, her foot slipped and she fell from the sky. But she was so beautiful that the Four Great Winds, who all love her and play with her radiant hair, gently wound around her body and set her down under a tree." Ilweran's voice swayed like a sapling bending in the breeze and Faojatjara felt as though she was swaying with the words, dancing with them.

"Idriwanna was so surprised to find herself in the forest that for some time she simply sat and looked around, and then, hearing a brook murmuring nearby, she arose to see if she could find it. It was spring and all the flowers in bloom. As Idriwanna wandered up-river, admiring the beauties of this forest, she beheld a hut made of living trees, wound beautifully together like embracing sisters. These trees were daughters of Anjiwarli, but Idriwanna didn't know this. Curious, she hid herself with her magic so that she might see who lived in the lovely hut.

"Now, Anjiwarli was never at home in the daylight, for it was his duty to make the trees grow. At the close of the day he returned home, but early the next morning he was always off again. Invisible, Idriwanna spied when he came home at evening time, and she thought he was the most beautiful man she had ever seen. The next morning she saw him leave. When she was sure that he was out of sight she climbed down and entered his dwelling. There she settled to wait for his return. She ate fruit and mashed roots and then she lay down to sleep, for she was very tired. Now late in the afternoon Anjiwarli returned from his work and went to fish in the river near his house. When he entered his hut, he beheld on his bed what looked like a wreath of spring flowers, but upon closer look was a woman with colorful hair fast asleep beneath his blankets."

So far the Greater Story had been the same as the Little Story and after this she would awake and propose to him and they would forever join in marriage. But Ilweran paused to take a deep breath, and when she continued, the story changed.

"Anjiwarli turned towards the fireplace so that he might cook her the fish, but when he turned around again, the bed was empty. That night he didn't sleep well, for all the time he wondered who the beautiful woman could be. What he didn't know was that Idriwanna had decided to win him for her own, but she could not ask for his hand, for she was such a great spirit that she never must ask for anything and she was proud. Once she married him, he would become as great and important as she, but now he was a lesser spirit; so how could she ask him without asking him? So she had left his hut to ask the Four Great Winds for advice." So spoke Ilweran and Faojatjara trembled with anticipation, for all that she knew Idriwanna would have Anjiwarli's love in the end.

"Capture him and carry him to your hut in the clouds; that is what the Dark Woman Under the Earth did, the Great South Wind advised. But Idriwanna was not as her sister and to do so felt very mean to her.

"Slay his enemies for him like your Sun Sister did for her beloved, the Great North Wind advised, but Anjiwarli was a very peaceful man and Idriwanna doubted he had a single enemy among all the spirits.

"Ask your sisters to speak for you, as you can't ask for yourself, the Great West Wind advised, but her sisters were as proud as she, and Idriwanna feared that the Dark Woman would be cruel or that the Sun would burn down Anjiwarli's hut besides.

"Give him a grand gift so that he might know your feelings for him, the Great East Wind proposed, and finally she had been given good advice. And so she decided to gift him part of her own radiance, part of her own power.

"Red for power, red for passion, and orange that is the scorched earth and harvest both, the secrets of death and life, the left and right hand. Yellow is for joy and green for growth, fertility, the secrets every woman weave in their womb; green is children, and she promised him many children. Blue is the sky reaching over us, the home for great spirits, and there she gave him the pass, and purple for plenty, purple for abundance. From the Great Songs the first was that of colors and it was our mother who made all of the world rich, and her family the richest of all. And this is what you must strive to emulate that you might be worth the love freely given to you."

Ilweran fell silent for a moment and Faojatjara thought of her words. Though she lived in the Rainbow Grove and paid her respects to the Rainbow Woman, though all summer she had thought of little but her colors, she had never considered what they might mean, what power they might bring. Orange she had made and yellow, blue and green a shade paler than Iludharug's skin. She couldn't help trembling a little as she realized she had unkowingly invoked the secrets of life and death, secrets she didn't even know or understand. Joy, better to think of the joy their marriage would bring, sharing her home with her hunsband and the children she would give him.

"I see you understand better now; marriage is no play for children," Ilweran said solemnly. "With these gifts Idriwanna returned to Anjiwarli's hut and when he returned home that night, tired and wondering, all this splendor she poured unto him like life-giving rain that falls from the skies. And Anjiwarli knew she loved him, for why else would she have given him such gifts? And he gave her his hand in marriage and his children who had woven themselves into a shelter for him he adorned with those same colors so that they might be Idriwanna's children as well as his. And together they had many other children as well, but that is a story for another time."

And then, after a brief blessing, Faojatjara left the hut, carrying her dye with her. She had created a wonder, four magical balls that fluttered in the air like butterflies, following her every step, and the whole village was there from the youngest baby to the oldest man who needed a cane to support himself. Fire was used sparingly, but now there was a great fire and the dance of red and sunset yellow and shadows was a promise that took her breath away. In the circle of stones in the middle of the grove stood Iludharug, his eyes bright and wild smile tugging at the corners of his mouth. Faojatjara marched to him with her head held high, certain of her welcome, and he returned her confidence with the pride of one who knew he was the most desirable of the men.

"Iludharug, son of Iludheret, I am a woman of good means, a hunter and a potmaker, and I have made a hut of my own, to which I would bring you to share everything that is mine with you. I love you, I respect you and I hereby swear to cherish you all my days until the end." And she broke the magic she had woven, poured her precious dye on Iludharug.

He was orange and yellow, blue and green of two shades, one paler than the other. And then he was kissing her, whispering his acceptance into her mouth so that her teeth rattled from the force of it, she could swear. The people cheered, and if some of those cheers were less than perfectly enthusiastic, that was all the better compliment, for she had won him from many other prospects. Briefly Faojatjara thought of the secrets of life and death, of what life might bring for their family over the unknown centuries, but this night it was easier to think of joy and babies to come and falling asleep every night by her beloved's side. The sorrows of life could wait for their turn.

***

AN:

The rainbow trees of this story are rainbow eucalyptus, real trees that grow in Australia. Google them; sometimes reality is stranger and more wondrous that Photoshop could ever be.

Coldleaf - narrow-leafed peppermint.
Purple drops - australian indigo.
Mottled trees - blue spotted gum also known as lemon eucalyptus.
Screecher - tasmanian devil.

And what is the deal with the Greater Story? I deals with a bigger issue: that there are "cousins" of them who are not so nice. It got meshed into a lesson about treating your husband with love and respect and it's only told to women because they have to protect the men from the evils of the world. It's a bit prejudicial, but the women of these dryads know better than to trust other elves (with imperial intents.)