The father meets the Devil in the woods. The Devil says give me what is behind your barn and I will make you wealthy and privileged for life. The father thinks, there's only an old apple tree behind the barn, and agrees to the bargain. Yet, since time out of mind, the fruiting tree has also represented the talent, sexuality, life-giving force of women: the maiden, the mother and the old woman, all in one.
Outside the father's awareness, who is also ‘out back' behind the storing place for the harvest, is his daughter.... She who is fertile, she who brings forth, she who - even when having gathered many years - still brings forth sweetest fruits imaginable ... and in abundance rather than only vaguely.
As he is rushing home to tell his wife, his rough clothes are magically replaced by rich velvets and silks. As his wife comes running to meet him, her plain scarf is replaced by a diamond tiara and her rags turn into a gown befitting a queen.
The man explains what a good bargain he has made. But the wife shrieks a death cry, "No! Behind the barn today stood our daughter. You have consigned our daughter to hell!"
And, in a few days' time, the devil shows up to claim the girl. The devil knew all along the father wasn't paying attention and did not register or cherish his daughter's true worth.
The girl's purity of heart continually repels the devil so he cannot take her: He says her hands are too clean. That she must not bathe and she must allow herself to become dirty. But even then, she cries tears and her arms are made clean again. Thus she repels the Devil again as though a force field surrounds her.
So, the devil tells the father that he has to cut off his daughter's arms so that the devil can take her.
The father is horrified, but he follows through, for the devil threatens to take the father's life if he will not sacrifice his daughter. And thus, in one of the most horrendous episodes in ancient tales, the father hoists his sharp axe and severs his daughter's arms.
Still and yet, the devil is unable to take the girl. Her innate feminine depth repels him for the final time.
In the tale, the girl, who has just burst into fruiting with her many talents in life, is disparaged and offered up for lucre, ease of life and material gain. She and the apple tree behind the father's barn are not protected even though each is fully filled with gifts.
They are instead seen as nothings, present only to serve. It can be said, her gifts, not appreciated or seen, are thereby forfeited. She is not allowed to grasp or live her own deep and pure reality as a force of the feminine. The daughter's gifts are left to spoil on the ground
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To murder a woman by cutting is a theme of many tales. But this Devil is more than a murderer, he is a mutilator. He requires mutilation, not decorative or simple initiatory scarification, but the kind that intends to disable a woman forever. When we say a woman's hands are cut off, we mean she is bound away from self-comfort, from immediate self-healing, so very helpless to do anything accept follow the age-old path. So it is proper that we continue to weep during this time. It is our simple and powerful protection against a demon so hurtful that none of us can fully comprehend its motive or reason d'etre.
[ Women Who Run With the Wolves by Clarissa Pinkola Estes……… From the tale "The Handless Maiden"]
