There was once an old woman called Dympna who lived alone in the middle of a forest. Dympna had not always lived alone and had not always been old. In fact it is probably better to start this story a little earlier in her life and in the traditional manner.
Once upon a time a fair and beautiful baby with a pure soul was born to a peasant couple. They named the baby Dympna and she grew into a clever and generous child then eventually into a beautiful maiden. Dympna had a smile for everyone and was courted by many suitors yet Dympna was chaste and wanted to save her heart for her one true love so that when she did meet him their love would be pure.
Most girls would let the attention of so many suitors go to their head and become vain and unbearable but not Dympna. For as beautiful and enchanting as Dympna was she was also equally kind and loving. It was this side of Dympna’s personality which led her to train as a midwife and helper of the elderly. Dympna soon became an important part of her village community and delivered a new baby almost every month. When not delivering babies Dympna spent her time making medicines and ointments for her neighbours to help them with their minor illnesses and ailments.
One day, as Dympna was visiting the elderly residents of the village to take them her home made biscuits, she saw a man watching her. The man was not as handsome as some of Dympna’s suitors nor as richly dressed, but he had kind eyes and a genuine smile. It was perhaps this which made Dympna, for the first time in her life, accept an offer to venture out for an evening walk.
Dympna and the man, whose name was Sebastian, married and had three children. The eldest was a beautiful and inquisitive girl named Elspeth. The middle child was a quiet and intelligent boy named Francis. The youngest was a gentle and loving girl called Lydia. As the children grew up and had children of their own Dympna and Sebastian grew old together.
As Dympna and Sebastian reached the age of five score years and ten their love grew stronger each day but neither their love nor Dympna’s medicines were enough to save Sebastian when he succumbed to pneumonia. Dympna and her children wept as they sat by Sebastian’s bed but, just as they knew that their love could not save Sebastian, they also knew that their love for each other would help them to grow happy again. Dympna was wrong in this belief.
Once Sebastian had died Dympna soon began to hate living in the village. There was no street, no tree, no dip in the road that did not remind her of Sebastian and make her heart ache all over again. Though she was much loved in the village and her neighbours begged her to stay, Dympna felt that she could no longer bear the pain and so decided to leave the very next day.
Dympna left the village on a sunny autumn day. She walked for several hours until she reached the next village where her sister lived. She had only been in the village for three days when her heart began to ache again. Thinking that this was because she had visited the village on several occasions with her husband Sebastian, Dympna decided to set up home in a village to which she had never been. Yet here her heart began to ache again. Dympna travelled from village to village selling her medicine to earn money and trying to heal her heart but no sooner had she settled than her heart would begin to ache again. It finally ached so acutely that she thought it would shatter into a thousand pieces.
It was then that Dympna realized that the ache was caused, not only by her loss, but also by the love she saw around her. In every village that she had visited in the three years since Sebastian’s death she had seen young couples courting and falling in love, older couples celebrating anniversaries and couples rejoicing at the birth of their first baby. Although Dympna had a soul and spirit too pure and kind to begrudge anyone this happiness, each moment of love made her heart shatter a little bit more until she felt that she could no longer bear the pain. Dympna decided that the only way to heal her heart would to be to become a recluse.
Dympna spent some of her money on supplies and wandered into the forest with just a chicken, a cow and a sack of flour. After wandering for two weeks and two days Dympna had seen not a single person and felt that she was far enough from humanity to allow her heart a chance to heal.
Dympna had been sleeping under the canopy of the trees for two weeks and two days but knew that this was not a home and her heart needed a home to heal. Dympna had no bricks and had no axe with which to cut logs but she did have her cow, her chicken and her flour and so Dympna began to cook the biscuits which she used to cook for the elderly people of her village. Dympna made each biscuit as large as her head and as thick as her arm and used them to build a cottage.
Over time Dympna’s heart began to heal but every night, as she went to bed, she thought of Sebastian and wished that she was with him. In the years that Dympna lived in the forest she saw very few people other than a woodcutter and his wife. They wore shabby clothes and looked unhappy a lot of the time but were happy to buy supplies from the nearest village in exchange for gold coins from Dympna’s savings. Over the years Dympna bought furniture, a stove and more cooking ingredients which she used to make chocolate and sugar decorations for her house. She then made small tiles of gingerbread to lay across the window sills and to build a fence around her garden. This she did to make sure that, even in the dead of winter, there was something for the birds and small animals of the forest to eat as Dympna could not bear to see anyone or anything suffer. Not even the smallest creature of the forest.
One day Dympna was tending to the broken leg of a squirrel which she had found by her door that morning. This was not unusual as many of the animals of the forest came to Dympna when they needed help. As she finished putting a splint on the squirrel’s leg Dympna heard a scritch, scritch, scratch. It was coming from outside the cottage.
Dympna looked out of her window and saw two of the dirtiest most bedraggled children she had ever seen. There stood a boy and a girl who were nothing but skin and bone and they were nibbling at Dympna’s window sills. Well this cannot do thought Dympna. Those poor children look like they haven’t eaten in days and they look so sad. I will invite them in and feed them back to health then give them money and food to continue their journey. Who could do such a thing as to let children wander the forest uncared for?
Little did Dympna know that the children were actually the children of the woodcutter and his wife. The woodcutter was a weak and easily led man and his wife, who was actually the children’s step-mother, was cruel and greedy. The woodcutter’s wife had finally grown tired of having no food and no money and had convinced her husband that they would have a much better and more comfortable life without children to clothe and feed. The woodcutter was as good as husband as he was a poor father and so agreed with his wife’s plan to abandon the children deep in the forest in the hope that a kind stranger would take them in (or a wild beast would eat them).
After a failed attempt to find their way home and several days without food the children, whose names were Hansel and Gretel, came upon Dympna’s cottage. As they took small but desperate bites out of the window sills Dympna came out of her cottage.
“Poor children” said Dympna with tears welling in her eyes and her shattered heart just about bursting with pity “How did you come to be in such a state? How far from home you must be”. The children looked at Dympna with wild, wide eyes and did not speak. They must be traumatized thought Dympna they have been struck dumb by a lack of food and a lack of love. I will take care of them and help them to recover. Maybe they will even help my broken heart to love again.
“Come in children” said Dympna “Come sit by the fire and let me make you some food”. The children entered the cottage looking scared and huddled close together. They remained this way throughout the meal of rich
, warming, vegetable stew which Dympna made using potatoes, onions, carrots and the leftover bone and marrow from her meal of lamb the day before. As the days passed the children grew fatter and began to look more healthy. As they grew healthier Dympna began to feel her heart warm and swell at the forgotten joy of raising children. She began to hug the children when they looked sad and pinch their cheeks at the happiness that their increasing girth and health made her feel. A picture of joy in a pretty little gingerbread house in the middle of the forest!