The story of the wrinkly grapes

General introduction

The story of the wrinkly grapes is a pourquoi-story told by the Tarrabaenians describing why the grapes get wrinkly and turn into raisins. The core is a story of an arrogant woman making a bad deal with a goddess. Later the woman repents her wrongdoings and arrogance and finds redemption after being confronted with a tough choice. It is not known where the story originates, but it certainly stems from a time at the beginning of the Era of the Earth, as the Tarrabaenians did not know grapes before arriving in the lands of the Duiniken.

The story

Once there lived a lady, haughty and proud. Her name was Vibilla, she was of noble descent, though of her family we do not speak. Daundering through the streets, lost in herself, she celebrated her splendor. But so it came she walked by a temple of Meana, goddess of the hunt, and did not bow to her effigy. The goddess did not take that lightly, appearing to her in her dream. 'Vibilla, oh lady so noble as to not bow to your goddess, punishment is you! Choose destiny wise, as you can either go to my temple tomorrow and sacrifice your nose on the altar or carry it for all eternity!' Vibilla awoke, shook up by the dream, as sacrifice her nose she would not, but rather keep it, show her beautiful face: Go to the temple she would not. Years went by and even though she aged, her fortune could buy her cosmetics. Fine in the fifties, fair in the sixties, flamboyant in the seventies. Her ointments and unguents filling her failings. In the eighties she still bore her nose up high, already reduced to five feet. And miraculously she did not die, even at one hundred and eight. She shrunk and shrunk, her shriveling body could no longer be coated and powedered. It dawned upon her, what her second choice was: to live eternally wrinkled. Vibilla, afraid, ashamed and abashed, snuck out into the wild. She would not want to be looked upon, be it by neighbour or child. In a cave she found refuge, sat there for ages and ages, until one day a young lady arrived, seeming to take her for one of the sages. But Vibilla, now humbled and coy, bad the young lady to leave: 'Not a sage am I but only an old hag depraved of life, death and joy.' And the young lady revealed herself to Vibilla, the goddess herself it was: 'See you know, lady Vibilla, your pride was to comfortable a bath. But instead of rubbing yourself with the rough sponge, using it as it was meant to be, you bathed until the bath was tool cold, got over and over wrinkly. I see you repent now, feel sorry for you, alas a punishment can never be taken. You may, I allow, transfer it, though, to a being that will not be by it be shaken.' Vibilla, the old, rejoiced upon the goddess' mercy, stretching out her scrawny arm. What was in reach alone, was a bushel of grapes: She touched it and meant it no harm. Vibilla was free now, expired her breath and into the yonder was brought, the grapes now, you see, turn into raisins and why that is you'd never thought.

- one version of the story, partly rhymed.