The Story of St Eve and her Tower

Written by Krista Fullerton, December 1999

Every evening as the villagers toiled homewards, they would pass the fields where, at the top of the rise, stood a great stone castle; and on the right wing a tower with slits of windows through which could be seen a girl.

The girl wore the gown of a maiden, and nightly she lit her oil lamp, the lamp emitting a dull reddish glow.  The villagers glanced only cursorily now at this prisoner of stone, the reason for her constraint an accepted mystery.  This was Eve, and Eve had never seen the peoples' faces closer than a strong man could toss a stone.

One day Eve looked out of the high windows of her tower and saw flowers begin to push up through the ground near the tower where had been barren soil before.  One flower was close enough near her windows for her to see each petal, colour and stamen opening and smiling up at the sun.  She thought it may be a daisy.  The flower opened and a faith was newborn in the girl.

Eve began to grow.  She grew into a flower - bread was her prayer and her song was water that flowed out of the tower and down to where the flowers grew.

The world moved around the tower, but Eve in the tower was still - watching each day travel past until the sun set.  She wondered what it was like down there where the people moved past in the fields and lanes.

The sun rose and set and years turned around.

One morning when Eve rose early to look out her window, a wooden door grew in the stone wall, and a ladder down the side of the tower.

Eve took her bread and her song, climbed down to where the flowers grew and walked through the fields into the village.  Strangely, the world no longer moved past the tower.  Eve wondered if she had stepped through a band and time was slower here.  In the village she saw many new things and was astounded.

Every day now Eve visited the village and returned at the sun's setting, weary and dirtied.   Each day she spent with the sick, or sick of soul, and gave out her bread and her song.

And sun rise and set, Eve would kneel in her tower, take bread and pray, and her song flowed out until it covered the village like clean water.  She prayed until the darkness and dirt fell from her.

Eve would again climb down the ladder with clean heart and gown to hand out what she had.

Sometimes she wished for there to be no door in the stone wall, and just the world to be turning around her for her to look upon.

Now her prison was her place of rest, and her freedom her burden.

But her prayers were bread

her song was water

and her life was flowers to be given.