The Way of a Virgin/The Maiden Well Guarded
THE MAIDEN WELL GUARDED.[1]
THERE lived a maiden whose mother guarded her with infinite care lest some youth should do her ill; and she was brought up in all innocence. And when she begged to go to gatherings even as other maids of her age, her mother was wont to answer her, saying:
"Nay, my daughter, thou shalt not go, not there thou art like to lose thy maindenhead."
One day, nevertheless, Pierre, the maiden's lover, who was a good lad and quiet, came seeking to conduct her to an assembly, and both lad and maid besought the mother to let them go. In the end she consented, thinking in herself that Pierre was too honest to do her daughter ill, and she enjoined him guard her well.
Behold, then, these two on their way; and as they went, the maiden said:
"My mother hath strictly enjoined me guard my maidenhead. It seemeth that at assemblies one is in case to lose it. How best preserve it?"
"Hath not thy mother shown thee a method of so doing?"
"Yea," answered the maiden, "she hath enjoined me to press my thighs tightly together." Quitting the road, they entered a wood wherein were several streamlets, which one crossed by means of planks. Even as the maid walked upon one of these planks Pierre, who marched behind her, cast a stone into the water hard by the girl.
"Alas!" cried the maiden. "What will my mother say? Behold, my maidenhead hath fallen in the water and is lost!"
"Fear not," answered the lad. "'Tis fortunate I am here. I will restore it thee. Come with me 'neath the trees, and say naught if the business hurteh thee, for 'tis all for thy good."
Then Pierre, in very sooth, 'put back' the maidenhead for her, and shortly afterward they came to the second plank. Even as the girl stood upon it, two or three frogs, slumbering at the streamside, were affrighted and hopped into the water, which spirted up 'neath the maiden.
"Ah! Pierre!" cried she. "'Tis lost again! It seemeth that it was not firm. 'Twas most wrong of thee not to have put it back more firmly."
"Say no more," answered Pierre. "I will again put it back."
And when the maidenhead had been put back for the second time, they went on, reaching the assembly, where they diverted themselves as did the others.
On their return journey, even as the young girl passed over a plank, Pierre cast in the water an apple which he had in his pocket.
"What will my mother say?" cried the girl. "'Tis the third time I have lost it to-day!"
"Fear not," quoth Pierre. "I am about to sew it on again."
When the maidenhead had been resewed, the girl, who was acquiring a taste for this form of embroidery, said to Pierre:
"'Tis not sewen sufficiently firm."
"Indeed it is."
"'Tis not."
"But I have no more thread."
"Miserable deceiver!" cried the girl. "He saith he hath no more thread, yet all the while he possesseth two great balls of it!"[2] VARIANT.
Béroalde de Verville, in Le Moyen de Parvenir, has a similar tale. As it differs in several respects from our Kruptadia version, we give it here. Our extract is from Arthur Machen's text, which is, so far as we know, the only English translation of the old French Canon's much censured work.[3] Donatus, one of the characters in the book, is speaking:...
...That's like the case of my landlady's daughter. ...One day this young wench desired to go to a bride-ale, and asked leave of her mother, who granted it on the condition that she would solemnly, paragraphically, and distinctively promise to keep her maidenhead,[4] to which condition the girl agreed with all her heart.
So she went away to the wedding, and set herself to keep guard o'er her maidenhead. The lasses and lads all danced away, but she not a step, nor did she dare approach the board where the others were engaged in the quintessential operation of making ordure with the teeth. The poor girl stayed all the time in a corner of the room, with her two hands at the bottom of her stomach, just opposite to the diameter (I mean opposite to the centre which so far was cut by no diameter). Coypeau, seeing her thus dung in the mouth (I should say, down in the mouth) came up to her and said:
"What cheer, Coz? shall we fool it awhile?"
"Nay, I dare not, for fear I lose my maidenhead; my mother bade me take great care of it."
"Oh, Oh," says he, "and is that all? Why Coz, sweet Coz, follow to this little closet, and I'll sew it up so tight it shall never fall out."
All this he said in a whisper, but she heard him well enough, for she was fain to be a-dancing; and so she followed him. He then proceeded to show her how the wolf dances with his tail between his legs, and sewed up her maidenhead so securely that he told her it would never fall out by that way.
Thereupon she began to dance, and enjoyed herself to her heart's content; but she liked needlework so well that she asked for some more, and had three stitches. (That was enough in all conscience, though I have threaded the needle[5] for Madeleine forty-five times in forty-four hours; five by night and by day forté.) Coypeau was not quite so strong as that, but he gave the poor girl a great treat. She ate some sweetmeats, and feeling ashamed no longer, bethought her of her maidenhead, and went up to him, and asked him if he would give it another stitch.
"Faith!" said he, "I can't, I haven't any more thread."
"Come, Come," quoth she, "I thought I saw two nice little balls of thread."
- ↑ Kruptadia: Heilbronn, Hennigner Frères, 1884: Breton Folk Lore.
- ↑ Peloton is the word in the text, signifying, literally, a ball made of things (thread, silk or wool) wound round it. The play on words is remarkable apt in the last few lines of the story, peloton exactly connoting, in the mind of the simple girl, the youth's testicles and pubic hair.
- ↑ Frantasic Tales or The Way to Attain: A Book full of Pantagruelism: Now for the first time done into English by Arthur Machen: Privately Printed: Carbonnek, 1890. We shall return to the subject of De Verville's work in a later page of this volume.
- ↑ the word is ours. Machen translates "honour."
- ↑ Enfiler une aiguille, more usually, enfiler. The expression is common to most erotic writers. Vide various erotic lexicographers quoted ante.