Do you like folk tales? Often they come in different versions, each storyteller elaborating it in their own special way. You can find a substantially different version of this folk tale on this website. But recently I came across this version, which is most likely the way it’s usually told.
Moses was known throughout his village as a thrifty, solitary man, living in a shabby cottage on the edge of town. His life took an unexpected turn one day when he came upon a frail girl named Rosemary sitting on the cobblestones, selling little posies. The sadness in her eyes and her delicate appearance stirred something in him. Was it pity – or was it lust?
“Why are you selling flowers here, on the cobblestones?” said he.
“I have no family and no other means of support,” Rosemary said quietly.
Here was someone to keep house for him and darn his socks. Moses proposed to her right there in the square. He offered no words of love, just a practical arrangement for them both. With no better prospects in sight, Rosemary accepted his proposal and they were married in a plain and simple ceremony in the village church. There were no guests at the wedding.
At first Rosemary fulfilled her role just as Moses had envisioned. She cooked, cleaned, darned his socks and tended their little patch of garden. But soon her health began to deteriorate. Her bright eyes grew dim and she struggled to perform her duties. Moses, stubborn and frugal, refused to call a doctor, convincing himself she would recover without costly medical intervention.
But Rosemary did not recover. One morning Moses woke up to find her lying dead beside him. The villagers were outraged, accusing Moses of letting his young wife die, thanks to his stinginess. Their anger twisted the knife of Moses’s guilt and shame. All too late he realised that he had cared for her deeply in his own way.
Unwilling to remain in the village, Moses sold his home and belongings, keeping only a rosemary bush he had bought with his last gold coin. He distributed the rest of his miser’s hoard among the poor of the village and took to the road as a wandering vagrant.
Carrying the rosemary bush, Moses roamed from town to town, village to village. In each marketplace he stood silently holding the bush. When people approached him, curious about his strange behavior, he would give them a sprig from the bush with these words: “Rosemary for remembrance.”
For the rest of his life it was the only thing he ever said.
The years rolled by, and Moses became a well-known figure up and down the land. His beard grew long and his clothes grew ever more tattered. Yet he persisted in his silent penance, the rosemary bush never far from his hand.
One harsh winter’s day, the old man’s wanderings came to an end. He was found chilled to death by the village cross, in a tiny village in a forgotten dale. The rosemary bush, now stripped of its last dark needle, was still clutched in his frozen fingers. The villagers knew the old man – who didn’t? – and collected money for a memorial. But they didn’t know his name, nor his kin, nor even whence he’d come. So they erected a stark monument in the village square where his body had been found. It bore nothing but the words: Rosemary for Remembrance.
It became a place of pilgrimage for people to reflect on a largely wasted life, its near-forgotten lessons and the fading memory of those they’d lost. The story of Moses and his pitiful young wife became an enduring legend, telling of the things love will drive the hardest-hearted man to do.
And reminding us of what mankind neglects at its peril – the towering, bitter, terrible power of Memory.
Whitby Writers Group 