THE OLD WOMAN WHO LIVED IN THE GRASS

A VERY LONG TIME AGO, in the time before time, an old woman left her village and went out into the fields. Why she left, no one knows. She took nothing with her but a knife and a song.

As she walked, she sang of the sun and the rain and the good dark earth. And the sun shone, and the rain fell, and the shoots of grass came up fresh in the ground. She walked for a very long time, and wherever she walked the grass came up at her feet, happy to grow in the sun and drink in the rain.

The old woman walked across the whole world, singing, and soon the grass grew everywhere, so tall and so thick that she couldn’t walk anymore. At last she came to a place where the grass reached up to twice her height. She stopped and sang to the grass, “I will live here. I will sing of the sun and the rain and the good dark earth. I will sing every day.” This made the grass very happy and the tallest and the strongest plants around her responded by bending low over her head to form an arch. Still singing, she reached up and wove the ends of the stalks together. When she had finished, she had the frame of a little round house. It looked like an upside-down basket.

Then, still singing of the sun and the rain and the good dark earth, she asked the grass to help her furnish her house. So the grass reached up and caught a great wind; it lay down as a carpet for her. The old woman walked out into the field and cut the grass gently. She laid it out in the sun to dry, all the time singing her thanks. Every day she went out into the fields and cut down only as much grass as she needed, always laying it out to dry with reverence and care.

When the grass had dried, she began to weave it. She used every part of the grass, the stiff stems and the soft leaves. She began by weaving a roof and walls onto the frame of her house, careful to leave herself a door and three round windows. She put one window on the east side of the house so she could watch the sun rise in the morning, and she put one window on the west side of the house so she could watch the sun set in the evening—but she put the third window high up in the roof, so she could look up and see the stars at night. She made the door wide enough so she could always look out and see the endless sea of grass.

She wove an awning for each of the windows and another for the entrance as well, so she would have shade. She wove herself shutters and a door, so that in the winter she could close the house against the cold and wind. She dug a hole in the middle of the floor and lined it with rocks. She built a bed of dried grass and started a fire to keep herself warm and to cook over as well.

But even after she had finished her house, she still had not finished her work. So she kept on singing of the sun and the rain and the good dark earth. And the grass, happy to help, lay down in the fields again so she could cut what she needed. She needed so very much—much more than you would think just to look at the little grass house. But the grass didn’t mind. As long as she sang of the sun and the rain and the good dark earth, the new green shoots came up happily.

The old woman took the thick strong stems of the grass and tied them into bundles to make a chair and a table and a bed. She used the softer parts of the grass, the shoots and leaves, to make cushions and blankets and baskets and curtains and mats. She even wove herself a hat and a skirt and a jacket of grass.

And finally, at the end of the day, as the very last thing she did, she made herself dinner. She ate the roots of the grass, the fresh young shoots, and the tender stems. She ate every part of it that her old teeth could chew, and when she was done with the grass and had passed it through her bowel, she returned it as night soil to enrich the good dark earth.

Every evening, as the day turned orange in the west, she went out into the fields and thanked the grass for its bounty. She sang of the sun and the rain and the good dark earth.

And the sun shone, and the rain fell, and the shoots came up fresh in the good dark earth.