TBR's Grimm Tales#10: The Virgin Mary's Child

Hidden with Team Blue Rubicon’s Bubbaraye. Some twisted tales for your enjoyment!

CAUTION! THIS IS A ROUGH ROAD! HIGH-CLEARANCE VEHICLE REQUIRED TO SAFELY LOG THESE CACHES! EACH IS PLACED AT A SAFE TURN-OUT.

!!!!! If you are the first to find these caches, please only take ONE first to find prize and leave the other FTF prizes for others to enjoy!!!!!!!!!!!

The Virgin Mary's Child

· A poor woodcutter and his wife can't take care of their kid. The Virgin Mary shows up and offers to take care of the daughter. Phew, no need to ditch the kid in the woods.

· Living in Heaven is pretty sweet: this girl gets to eat cake and drink sweet milk. Angels play with her. She wears gold clothes. Like ya do.

· One day the Virgin Mary tells the girl she's going on a trip, and gives her the keys to the thirteen doors to the kingdom of heaven to look after. She can look into the first twelve doors but not the final one. We all know how this is going to go, right?

· The girl looks into the first twelve rooms and sees dazzling light and apostles and other cool stuff. She's tempted to open the final door and all the angels tell her not to since it'd be a sin, it's been forbidden, bad things will happen to her, blah blah blah.

· Of course she opens the door. She sees the Holy Trinity sitting there in light and splendor and gets a smudge of golden light on her finger, which won't come off no matter how hard she scrubs it. Hey, it's better than super glue.

· The Virgin Mary comes home and asks whether she opened the door. The girl denies it. She asks again, and a third time, and the girl still refuses to admit that she disobeyed the order.

· So the Virgin Mary boots the girl from heaven, and she has to live in this horrible forest. She basically lives in a tree, eating nuts and berries, and all her clothes shred and fall off until she's only covered in her long golden hair.

· The king of the land is hunting and he sees this beautiful girl covered in golden hair. Which is not creepy or anything. By the way, she's at least fourteen years old, which was probably legal back then? We hope.

· He chats her up, or, well, tries, since the Virgin Mary had caused her mouth to shut when she was cast out of heaven (how did she eat? Maybe juice diets were popular back then?).

· The king asks if she'd like to go back to his castle, and she nods a little, so at least it's not like he kidnaps her.

· And of course, he falls in love with her because she's so beautiful. They get married.

· But wait. The story doesn't end here. No siree.

· The girl (now a queen) gives birth to a child, and the Virgin Mary appears and demands that she tells the truth about opening the forbidden door.

· She offers to open the queen's mouth if she confesses, but threatens to take away the newborn baby if she denies it.

· This girl is one stubborn queen, so she refuses to confess that she opened the door. You can guess what happens next.

· The same thing happens twice more, at which point the people are convinced that the queen is an ogress who eats her own children. The king is persuaded to let her be burned at the stake.

· Finally, looking at the fire surrounding her, the queen wishes she could repent, and magically, she can.

· The Virgin Mary loosens her tongue and restores her three kids to her (they were also living the high life in heaven) and reminds the readers, er, the maiden, that those who confess their sins will be forgiven.