Mother Friday's Revenge
It had been an abnormally long week. Summer was slipping into the past, while Fall was beginning to make an appearance with its cooler temperatures and bright oranges, dull reds and beautiful browns consuming the leaves and covering the town. Each day seemed to be longer than the last, with thoughts of a warm fire and cup of hot chocolate consuming the minds of the working people as it got closer and closer to each day's end.Thursday was finally coming to a close. Thank goodness it was almost Friday...only one sleep away...
Mother Friday drifted off into a peaceful sleep only to be awaken abruptly at midnight by a startling feeling deep inside of her. If there was one thing that Mother Friday absolutely hated, it was when people took her day to work. It drove her insane and caused an anger to stew in her heart and mind. Furious, she took to the road to find the person who caused her to wake on her day off.
She arrived at a dimly lit cottage and peeked into the window. A woman was sitting inside, calmly spinning her flax and doing work that could wait until next week to do. How dare she! Does this woman know that it is Friday?
Woman spinning flax. Source: Flickr
Mother Friday angrily threw the woman's door open, walked up to her and put dust from the floor into her eyes. She then stomped back to her own cottage, still furious at the woman.
The woman was extremely startled and couldn't see a thing! She ran into town to try to tell others what had happened to her eyes, but couldn't. However, the town-goers knew exactly what had happened.
"You fool, you've brought this upon yourself!" They exclaimed. "Everyone knows not to mess with Mother Friday!"
Aggravated and distressed, the woman ran home. How could she fix this? She begged and begged for forgiveness from Mother Friday, hoping she would eventually hear.
The woman drifted off to sleep that night with the dust still in her eyes.
Luckily, Mother Friday heard her cries and in the night went to clear out the woman's eyes. She knew that the woman would never again dishonor the day that should not be used to complete work, but to relax.
The woman woke, able to see and never again used a Friday to spin her flax. She warned others to do the same and never again heard from Mother Friday.
Author's Note: I've been experimenting with other writing styles and wanted to continue that this week. The original story, Friday, is about Mother Friday and is not told from her perspective. There is a woman who decides to spin and weave flax on Friday instead of resting and Mother Friday does not take to that lightly. Mother Friday punishes the woman until the woman begs for forgiveness. I found inspiration for this story by thinking of ways I could retell this story and ultimately decided that it would be interesting to see this story told from Mother Friday's perspective.
Bibliography: Russia: Friday. This story is part of the Russian Folktales unit. Story source: Russian Fairy Tales by W. R. S. Ralston (1887).
Kelsey,
ReplyDeleteThis was a great story. At first I was unsure of the Mother Friday, I didn't realize what she was at first exactly. I think you chose a good perspective to write it from. Once I figured out who was what, I liked reading your story. Your stories always flow very well. They way you break them up and word them, makes for a easy ready. I think you did well with this writing style. Good job!