Folksburywoods Story Blog

Tekla was returning home from the war to a home where she was unwelcome. The memories of the villagers calling her “warrior girl” and then spitting at her came flooding back.

The fault was not her’s. She had not chosen this path. It was thrust upon her and even ran through her blood. Tekla’s mother had met a dying Gwelf’en soldier while collecting herbs for the wise woman.

She used her training in the healing arts to save his life and, in the process, fell deeply in love.

Village tradition demanded she marry in the cast of the healers, but the couple performed the binding ritual at the village altar, and what was done could not be undone.

At first, many were glad to have a hunter amount them to provide extra meat when harvests were bad. Trouble started when the child was born, and instead of following her mother, she took after her father.

When the time of joining came, Tekla walked away from her mother’s clan and learned to hunt, fish, and wage war with her father. They had become outcasts in their own home.

When news of the war came, many wanted to flee into the deep woods, leaving the old to perish at the hands of the enemy. Tekla and her father refused to allow this and drove off the raiding party, saving countless lives.

Father and daughter did not stop. The duo pursued the raiders and engaged them with other clans on the battlefield. After weeks of blood, death, and suffering, the Gwelf’en defeated the outsiders and again secured their future.

Sadly, Tekla’s aging father was overwhelmed and died on the battlefield in her arms. “Know that I am a happy child, and you have honored the ancients in my clan. Go back home and help them see that,” said her father, then his breath failed and life with it.

As she draws near her home, the warrior wonders if it is worth returning. If not for her promise, she would just as well live as an outcast in the nearby foothills.

Rounding the last turn, the battered woman catches a glimpse of villagers waiting at the forest’s edge. “I guess I have the answer to my fate, shunned or worst, bound and burnt,” said Tekla.

As she broke the forest edge, the villages rushed upon her. Closing her eyes, Telka waited for the sticks to come crashing down, waiting for the screams of rage or the pelting of stones. Tekla waited to die.

Moments went by. Instead of pain, the warrior felt love as arm after arm wrapped around her, drawing her closer to them for a kiss or a prayer of thanks.

Tekla opened her eyes to a village of people who bent low as she walked by, laid flowers before her, and whose smiles and tears of joy had no end.

“We have waited for you, my child, and I want to be the first to lower my knee and ask for your forgiveness for the way we acted,” said her mother, whose tear-stained face now beamed with pride.

Tekla rushed to her mother and hugged her long and hard. “Daddy’s gone. He died protecting all of you,” wept Tekla.

The council of elders approached, bowed low, and spoke, “We have been fools, selfish, arrogant, and prideful. Please accept our apology and be welcomed home as the daughter of our clan you always have been.

The council explained that after Tekla and her father drove the raiders away, the village’s old ones shamed them and all who ran, reminding them that the greatest duty of the clan was to protect all life at any cost.

When the clan heard that the war was over, they knew it was their responsibility to right their wrongs and beg forgiveness from her.

Wiping her tears away, Tekla addressed the village, “Let my father’s life and all who died not be forgotten. On this day, each year, we will offer new life. A sapling shall be planted for all who died on the forest’s edge, and the young will care for it until it matures.”

The council bowed, and then Artak, the elder, said, “As it is spoken, so it shall be done.”

Today, the forest has grown so vast that it reaches the base of the foothills, and Telka—well, she still teaches the young how to weld a staff just in case the raiders ever return.