Storytelling: Week 7: The Wizard's Wife

One evening in autumn, the Wizard Loro planned a trip into town to fetch supplies for his three wives. Lila, a clever witch; Ramara, a fierce and brave fighter; and Milly, an artful healer, helped him govern their quaint kingdom, and Loro did whatever he could to make them happy, for he appreciated them each for her own character.

 

(Loro in CuJu Forest)

He headed toward town by way of the CuJu forest, where the trees grew close together and the magic was very thick. Just as he passed a large and knobby tree, a troupe of vicious black monkeys jumped from the branches and attacked him, picking at his skin and eyes. Their sharp tiny teeth glimmered with blood, and their coats were tinged an ugly yellow from the black magic that flooded their veins. 

Wizard Loro cried out, begging for mercy, but the monkeys were relentless. He tried to deflect them with magic, but their power and number were too much for him. In a few moments, Loro laid motionless on the forest floor, bleeding and unconscious. 

A little while later, a young woman named Indigo traveled the same path through the forest, and seeing Loro, cried out in shock. She knelt beside him and inspected his wounds, and as she did, she recognized him—The Great Wizard Loro of the tower in the South. 

Her heart wrenched in sympathy for him. She attended to his wounds with the cloth she had with her, dragged him out of the path and covered him with mara leaves, and left to alert his wives.

After the three wives had received news from Indigo, the four women returned to the forest. But it was getting dark, and they couldn’t find Loro's path.

Soon, however, Lila devised a plan to charm their husband’s footprints and follow them into the forest.

As they followed the prints, they came across the band of monkeys that had attacked Loro. Ramar immediately drew her sword and cut off their heads, for she was brave and quick on her feet, and fighting ran deep in her blood.

When they finally found their husband, Milly mixed a salve to ease his wounds for the journey home. They laid him on a stretcher made of vines and rushed him home. Indigo carried the forth corner of the stretcher, worrying and wondering about the fate of this brave, faithful man.

When they returned home, Milly was able to heal Loro, and he awoke with a fire in his eyes.

“My beautiful wives!” he cried. “Thank you. I know it is you who have healed me and brought me back from the pit of the forest. Without you, I would be dead.

“But I had a vision as I slept. A faithful and true man can only have one wife. You three and I make up the greatest power in the kingdom, but that alone is not reason for us to be wed. I must choose one, and be faithful only to her.”

The three wives were distraught, but vowed to help Loro in his decision, for each assumed they would be his rightful wife.

Indigo watched them present their arguments with a sadness in her heart.

“How difficult this must be!” she thought. “He loves them all, and has been faithful to each one. It was not his own choice to take three wives, but the kingdom’s, and now he must choose between the three.”

Loro listened with rapt attention as each wife stated her case.

“I should be your wife, Loro,” Ramar said. “For without me, you and your other two wives would be dead, for I fought off the monkeys who attacked you.”

“But without me, your dead body would lie marred and forgotten in the forest!” Lila insisted. “For I uncovered the path to find you.”

“Fighting off vicious primates and finding our husband is all very well, but it is useless had he not been healed by my methods,” Milly said. “I should be your wife, for I saved you from certain death.”

At this, Loro was thoroughly distraught. He dismissed the three, requesting a moment alone.

Indigo offered to stay behind to help the wizard, and he agreed enthusiastically—he could not imagine choosing. Maybe she could shed some light on his decision.

Indigo found a scroll, and helped Loro create a pro/con list. She asked him what he loved about each woman, and who made him the happiest. She listened and questioned, and made small suggestions, but she told him the ultimate decision was his own.

Several hours later, Loro called his wives back in.

“I have made my decision,” he said. “You are all lovely and valuable in your own special way, and I am eternally grateful for the kindness and love you have shown me over the years, and which you have shared with the kingdom.

“But I can not keep any of you as my wife.

“Each of you fought for yourself, and to ensure your place in my home. Only this woman, Indigo, had my best interest at heart. She alone asked what would make me happy, and because of that, I wish to do everything in my power to bring her happiness.

“Indigo,” he said, turning to the small woman who now stood silently in the corner, her eyes wide would surprise. “Would you be my wife?”

She smiled. “It would be my honor, sir. But only if you allow these three to continue to rule over the kingdom with you, for as you said, they are each valuable and wise governesses, and I would not betray my kingdom by depriving it of such leadership.”

“Of course, my darling,” Loro said, positive now that he’d made the right decision.

Bibliography: How the Wives Restored their Husband to Life, by Richard Edward Dennett (1898)

Author's Note: In the original story, a man is attacked by an ox on his way to hunt another ox to feed his three wives, who constantly complain of their hunger. One wife is a dreamer, one is a guide, and one is a raiser of the dead. His body is left for dead, since no one in town knows what has happened to the man. But then his wife, the dreamer, dreams that he has been killed by an ox, but she doesn't know where. So the "guide" wife offers to guide them all to where his body is. And from there, as you can guess, the raiser of the dead raises him from the dead. 

On their way to find him, they start to argue about whose hut the man will enter first when he comes back home. (Which, to me, is pretty trivial considering their husband just died, and they're wondering who he's going to sleep with next.) So they decide to each cook a pot of food, and see whose he eats from first. They each think it should be them, arguing as my characters do: "I led you too him!", "But I dreamt he was dead!", "But I brought him back to life!" The man eats from the resurrector's pot, and says, "The one woman dreamt I was dead, but didn't feed me because I wasn't found; then you found me but didn't feed me because I was not fit to eat. But you gave me life and made me well! Therefore, you are most prized." Then the villagers argue that he should have mixed all the food in one pot and eaten that way. 

I thought the logic and arguments in this story were pretty weak, so I decided to change it a little. I wanted to give the man a better reason to choose one wife, rather than something none of them could control. I made it about how the wives treated him, rather than the limitations of their powers. I also wanted to nix the idea of multiple wives altogether, since that's not acceptable nowadays, and even when it was, I feel like it would pose to many difficulties. I made him a wizard and a sort of ruler in the kingdom, just because I thought it would be fun, and give him more of a reason to have the multiple wives in the first place.