A little girl once lived with her daddy. Her mama had died. Not far away another little girl lived with her mama. Her daddy had died. These two little girls knew each other and got along well. Over time their parents fell in love and married each other. For a while all was well, but then the mother began to make a difference between the two girls.
She noticed that her husband’s girl was prettier than her daughter, so she began to dress her husband’s daughter in old worn-out clothes and dress her daughter in new pretty clothes. Whenever her husband asked why the girls’ clothing looked so different, she said, “Oh, that girl of yours is just hard on her clothes. They start the same, but hers look ragged in no time.” But even dressed in rags, the pretty girl was still prettier than her daughter. So the mama began to give the pretty girl harder chores than her daughter, but even the hard work did not keep her from looking prettier than her own daughter.
At first her daughter noticed her mama’s meanness and tried to make it up to her stepsister by being nice to her. But then the daughter began to enjoy her new clothes, and she liked being assigned only the easiest jobs, so it became easier and easier for her to be just as mean to her sister as her mother was. And the meaner she was to her stepsister, the more her mama praised her. The pretty girl couldn’t imagine what she had done to cause such meanness to come her way, but she understood how bad it felt to be treated so mean, so she promised herself she would always treat others with kindness. Because she was so kind to everyone, people liked her better than her sister too.
When the mother saw that her stepdaughter was not only prettier but also better liked than her daughter, she grew determined to get rid of the girl. She went off to visit a friend of hers who knew how to cast spells, saying, “Tell me what I can do to get rid of her.”
By the time she left for home, she had a plan. When she reached home, she told her daughter, “I want you to get in the bed and pretend you are sick, even near dying.” The daughter did. Then the mama began wailing and crying like her heart was near breaking.
The kind girl heard her cries and came running. When she learned her sister was sick, she immediately asked, “Is there anything I can do to help her?”
This was just what her stepmother had known she would say. “Oh,” said the woman, “I’ve been to see a friend of mine who’s real good at healing, and she says can’t anything cure her but a bottle of water from the well at the end of the world.”
“Give me a bottle,” said the girl, “and I’ll go fetch the water.”
So, the stepmother gave the girl a small bottle and sent her off with a few dried crusts of bread to eat on her journey. Now, the stepmother never expected to see the girl again, for her friend had promised to cast spells that would send wild animals out to trample the girl to death along the way. Of course, the girl knew nothing of this. She walked through the nearby village and kept walking right into the woods, where wild animals lived. She hadn’t gone far into the woods when she stopped to eat. Then she saw an old man walking along. He seemed to be leaning heavy on his walking stick, and the girl thought he looked hungry too. “Hello,” she said, “would you like to share my food? It’s not much, just some dried crusts of bread, but I’d be happy to share it.”
The old man sat down beside the girl and shared her food. Then he said, “I know you are going on a long journey, and I want to give you my walking stick to help you along your way. Whenever you have trouble, just strike the ground with the stick and say—Stop! Stop!—and you’ll be safe.” The girl took the stick, thanked the old man, and went on her way.
She hadn’t gone far when she heard a rumbling sound. It grew louder and louder. Then the trees and even the ground under her feet began to shake. She saw a cloud of dust coming toward her through the trees. It was the wild animals the witch woman had sent to trample her. The girl was frightened, and at first she didn’t know what to do. Then she remembered what the old man had told her about the stick. She struck the ground, “Stop! Stop!” The dust cloud parted as the wild animals ran around and past her.
The girl walked on through the woods. At last she came to a clearing. She saw a fence. On the gate of the fence was a sign that read: Well at the World’s End. “Hmm,” thought the girl, “I’ve found the right place.” So she opened the gate and started to walk through. But the gate shut on her and tried to pinch her in two. She remembered the walking stick. She struck the ground with it, “Stop! Stop!” and the gate let her through.
Sitting on the edge of the well was a bucket with a long rope. The girl lowered the bucket into the well, but when she brought it up, instead of water, in the bucket was a rawhead and bloody bones. “Wash me and dry me, and lay me down easy,” pleaded the creature. So the girl carefully removed the rawhead and bloody bones from the bucket. She took out her handkerchief and used it to wash it. Then she carefully laid it in the sun to dry.
Again she lowered the bucket into the well, but again she hauled up a rawhead and bloody bones. “Wash me and dry me, and lay me down easy.” Again the girl carefully washed the creature and placed it in the sunlight to dry.
A third time she lowered the bucket, and a third time she hauled up a rawhead and bloody bones. She washed it and gently placed it with the others. When she lowered the bucket a fourth time, she hauled up clear water. She took out the bottle her stepmother had given her, filled it, and headed for home.
As the girl walked out of the clearing, the first rawhead and bloody bones said, “She was kind. I wish she’d be ten times kinder—so kind that everyone will even see the kindness oozing off her.”
“She smelled good too,” said the second rawhead and bloody bones. “I wish by the time she reaches home, she smells ten times better.”
The third rawhead and bloody bones said, “Her clothes looked sort of ragged. I don’t think she has much. I wish that when she combs her hair silver and gold coins will fall from her head.”
The girl walked back through the woods. As she walked, she smelled so good the animals came to find out what the wonderful smell was. Butterflies landed on her, and birds flew in close just to enjoy the wonderful fragrance.
By the time she reached the village, the smell coming from her was so wonderful all the villagers opened their doors and windows. And when they saw the kindness oozing from her, the parents called their children from play, woke up toddlers from their naps, and lifted the babies from their cribs and held them up so no one would miss seeing her walk by.
By the time she reached home, her head felt so heavy she wanted to just lay her head down. But first she gave her mother the bottle of water. She noticed her stepsister wasn’t sick in bed anymore, but was up playing. “Oh,” said her mother, “I guess my friend was wrong. She started feeling better just as soon as you left.”
The girl felt tired out from her journey, and her head was even starting to itch, “Mama,” she asked, “could I lay my head in your lap while you comb my hair?”
“No! I don’t want your filthy head near me. Comb it yourself!”
So the girl sat down and began combing her hair. When she did, gold and silver coins began falling out. The stepmother noticed right away. “Oh, sugar,” she said, “I must be tired to talk so hateful to you like that. I am so sorry. Here, lay your head in my lap, and I’ll comb your hair for you.” So the stepmother combed the girl’s hair until she had all the coins she wanted. Then she pushed the girl away.
The next day the stepmother said to her daughter, “You need to go to that well at the end of the world and come home with gold and silver in your hair like she did.” The girl didn’t want to go, but the mother gave her a bottle to fill with water, fixed her wonderful sandwiches to eat, and sent her on her way. Her sister even gave her the walking stick and told her how to use it if she encountered trouble.
The girl trudged off through the village and into the forest. She hadn’t walked far into the woods when she sat down to eat. An old man came along. His clothes were ragged. He moved slowly. He saw the girl had his old walking stick, so he spoke to her. “I see you have my old walking stick. You must be the sister of the girl I gave it to.”
The girl looked at him and frowned, “You say this is your stick. Well, I’ll give you your stick!” and she hit him with it. The old man moved away from her as fast as he could. The girl called after him, “And I don’t have a sister.” To herself she mumbled, “I have a stepsister, and there is a difference.” Then she sat back down and ate her sandwiches.
After eating she walked on through the woods. No wild animals bothered her because no spells had been cast to send them after her, so she had no trouble reaching the clearing. But when she started through the gate that guarded the well, it nearly pinched her in two. She kicked at it, yelling, “Stop! Stop!” and in the midst of her yelling and kicking and hitting the gate with the stick, she also managed to strike the stick on the ground, so the gate let her through.
She dropped the bucket in the well, and hauled it up. Inside the bucket was a rawhead and bloody bones. It pleaded, “Wash me and dry me, and lay me down easy.”
The girl took one look, “You nasty thing. What are you doing in my bucket? I’m not going to wash and dry you,” and she threw it out of the bucket. It rolled over into a ditch.
Again she lowered the bucket, and again she hauled up a rawhead and bloody bones. “Wash me and dry me, and lay me down easy.” The girl threw it into the ditch too.
Again she lowered the bucket, and again she hauled up a rawhead and bloody bones. She yelled, “Again! I’ll teach you to bother my bucket.” She emptied the bucket onto the ground and kicked the rawhead and bloody bones over into the ditch with the others.
Then she lowered the bucket, brought up water, filled her bottle, and started walking home. As she left the clearing, the first rawhead and bloody bones said, “Oh, she acted ugly! I wish her inside ugliness would just ooze all over her outside.”
“Yes,” said the second rawhead and bloody bones, “and she smelled bad too. By the time she gets home, I wish she’d smell ten times as bad.”
The third one added, “When she gets home and combs her hair, I wish all kinds of snails, slugs, lizards, snakes, and awful creatures would come spilling out.”
The girl walked back through the woods. She smelled so bad, the animals ran away and the birds flew as high as they could up into the sky, except the buzzards. They flew in close, trying find whatever it was that smelled so dead. Flies began hovering around her looking for a good place to lay their eggs.
When she walked into the village, she smelled so bad, people went to close their windows to shut out the smell. But when they saw the inner ugliness oozing all over her, all the grownups rushed outside, gathered up any nearby children—not just their own children, but any nearby children—and hurried them inside to keep them safe. So she walked through a village with every door and every window shut tight against her smell and all the window shades and curtains pulled tight against her ugliness.
Now, she could smell an awful smell, but no matter how hard she tried, she just couldn’t seem to get away from it. She brushed her hands in front of her nose. She tried walking faster, but she just could not get away from the awful smell. When she reached her home, her mother smelled an odor that almost took her breath away, and when she went to look, there was her daughter oozing ugliness. Well, you know that woman rather liked acting ugly, so she didn’t mind ugliness, and she figured one good bath would wash that smell right off her girl, so she called, “Come over here, honey. You must be tired. Just lay your head in my lap and let me comb your hair for you.”
When that woman began combing her daughter’s hair, all kinds of creatures came tumbling out—snakes, snails, slugs, lizards—they all tumbled out by the dozens. Then this huge monster fish-like thing came out, swallowed the mother and her daughter, and they were never heard from again.
As for the kind girl? She lived happily ever after.
I tend to think of this type of story as an equal opportunity tale in which two characters go on the same journey and meet with the same situations, but because of their actions they end up with different results. I can’t even recall when I first encountered a version of this story. I’ve been familiar with versions from a variety of cultures for years.1 Leonard Roberts collected several versions of the story in Kentucky, both stand-alone versions and stories where this tale is part of a longer tale.2 This tale was also in the repertoire of Nora Morgan Lewis.3
Having the opportunity to listen to multiple versions of this tale through the Appalachian Sound Archives Fellowship I received in 2010 influenced my telling decisions. By listening to “Rawhead and Bloody Bones,” not just reading it, I noticed that the “heads”—whether described as skeletons, or foxes, or rawhead and bloody bones—never sounded threatening when they asked the main characters to wash and dry them and lay them down easy. In some instances they even came very close to sounding kind. If I had encountered the tale in print only, it would have been easy to imagine that the heads should sound threatening, or needy, or eerie, or even evil. But after hearing teller after teller make a nonthreatening choice, I accepted that the heads, strange as they may be, are essentially not threatening. The vocal characterization I use when they speak during my telling is in keeping with what I heard from teller after teller in the Leonard Roberts–collected field recordings.4
In my first few tellings of the story, I simply said one girl was kind and the other was mean; however, the persistent voice of a young child (first grade or kindergarten) in South Bend, Indiana, led me to rethink that approach. While I was telling the story during a Grades K–5 school assembly, he kept asking, “Why is she so mean?” Contemplating that child’s question led me to showing how the girl began to enjoy the unearned privileges she received from her mother, and how receiving praise whenever she acted ugly reinforced her behavior. I imagine she has simply not lived long enough to gain the understanding that what a parent teaches is not necessarily right, nor has she been fortunate enough to encounter anyone who took time enough to help her develop empathy. Of course, if she had developed empathy there would be no story!
Every version characterized the two girls as outwardly pretty and ugly, with the heads wishing that the girls would grow more pretty or more ugly. However, since I am more interested in inner beauty and ugliness than outer beauty and ugliness, I retell the tale with the emphasis on kindness and inner ugliness that is so extreme it can be seen. Acting ugly is a phrase I first encountered years ago when I heard my sister-in-law Jackie King Hamilton say, “Stop acting ugly” to a misbehaving child. Even though we had both grown up in Meade County, Kentucky, the phrase “acting ugly” was not one I had heard growing up. The similar “Stop acting up” phrase was familiar to me, but not “Stop acting ugly.” “Acting ugly” clearly works better in this tale.
All versions, except the version from Dave Couch, included the difference in the smell of the two girls. When I was telling my husband about the Nora Morgan Lewis details of the birds flying down from the trees and the butterflies coming in close to the pretty girl and the birds flying away from the ugly girl, he quickly suggested buzzards could begin circling and flies could swarm in, looking for a place to lay their eggs. I tried it, and it worked well.
The fish at the end of the story comes from Patricia McCoy’s retelling.5 Most versions have awful things coming from the second girl’s hair—snakes, frogs, snails, lice—but only McCoy’s version has the fish that swallows the girl and her mother. I chose not to mention lice because head lice infestations are simply way too common in schools. I would never want a child in my audience to mistakenly think of head lice as a punishment for acting ugly.
I also deliberately inserted the descriptions of folks waking up toddlers from their naps and lifting babies from cradles to show the importance of exposing children to kindness. In contrast, I chose to include adults grabbing all children from the streets and taking them to shelter, not just their own children, when confronted with the need to spare children from the horror of inner ugliness made manifest. I believe keeping children safe from harm is not a responsibility that lies solely with a child’s parents, but rests with the greater society as well. Like most storytellers, my beliefs creep into my storytelling. Sometimes I deliberately include details that reflect a particular stance, blatantly in “The Princess Who Could Not Cry” and more subtly in this story. Other times, I might tell a tale for years, unaware that particular details I’ve imagined reflect my deeply held ideas.