Once upon a time there was a beautiful, silent young peasant girl. She had a basket of delicious big beets which she had grown herself, carefully tending them and protecting them from the harsh elements. She had tended these beets as though they were babies she was giving birth to.

Her brothers had teased her at her deep attachment to these beets as they worked alongside her in the fields. They taunted her when she visited her beet patch in the still of the night to pray and enact rituals and to tell magical silent stories to her growing beets. She smiled her silent enigmatic smile at her brothers, knowing and not judging. Knowing and not judging.

When her brother's parsnips and potatoes were ready they packed them up and set off to market. Upon their return they had fine new wares: stronger tools and new boots. But the peasant girl did not take her beets to market, much to her brothers mockery. Instead, she placed them carefully in a strong basket and set off with her beets as offerings on her long journey.

So off she set in the direction of her heart. She walked, smiling her enigmatic smile, and carrying her precious beets. After walking for some time, and as the sky darkened, the young peasant girl felt hungry. The bugs whispered to her to eat her beets, but she knew that all she had to do was to imagine the beets warm inside of her and she was no longer hungry.

On she walked, most peaceful and happy with the company she kept: that of the forest trees and the owls keeping watch over the night. When the young peasant girl came to a village she would offer her precious beets in exchange for a place to sleep. Sometimes a villager would take only one beet from the peasant girl and sometimes someone would take all of the young peasant girl's beets. The peasant girl was gracious and generous and would gladly give away her last precious beet. For she knew that the more of her beets she gave away, the more they seemed to magically reproduce as she slept.

The peasant girl was so grateful to meet and learn from and share with the villagers. The villagers were always astonished at the magical beets the peasant girl gave them. For the beet would multiply, providing not only more than enough for their family, but for the entire village, also.

So the young peasant girl walked on and on for many moons, over which time her hunger arose and the bugs whispered to her to munch on her beets. The young peasant girl would smile her enigmatic smile and imagine the delicious beets in her tummy and would no longer be hungry. Occasionally on her journey the young peasant girl would nibble on berries and seeds she found in the thickets. She would watch the light disappear and then reappear. She would see the snow fall and the buds blossom and she was happy. She smiled. On she walked.

As the moons passed, her precious beets became lighter to carry. The beets began to turn gold, until each and every beet was entirely gold and weightless. The peasant girl continued to walk and to smile her peaceful smile.

Through villages and towns, over rivers and mountains, through big cities and wide deserts, the young peasant girl peacefully traveled. Until one day, in a very deep dark forest, she met a wounded prince.

The young peasant girl nourished the wounded prince with her, by now, golden beets. The prince grew strong from the young peasant girl's sharing and magic and was soon strong enough to return to his kingdom far away.

The prince gathered up the kind peasant girl on his horse and they set off to his distant kingdom. After many cycles of light and darkness and many dusty trails, they finally arrived at the prince's kingdom.

The kingdom of the prince was sweet smelling and exotic and quite unlike anything the young peasant girl had ever seen. The prince returned to his life and his tasks and the young peasant girl tried to create her new life in this new and strange kingdom.

The young peasant girl was unlike the members of this new and strange kingdom and the members of this new and strange kingdom were unlike the young peasant girl. Still, the young peasant girl smiled her enigmatic smile.

After some time, the young peasant girl was unable to imagine her delicious beets inside of her and she began to feel a deep hunger that she could not nourish. Her peaceful smile began to drop and she would leave puddles of blue, blue tears after her wherever she went. For no-one needed her beets in this kingdom, for it was a most affluent kingdom and although the peasant girl would offer her beets, no-one would taste them.

The prince loved the young peasant girl very much, yet he no longer had any want for her beets now that he had his own kingdom. He had devoured her magical beets and had become strong, and he felt he no longer needed the young peasant girls beets.

Indeed, he had forgotten the deliciousness of her beets. The golden aura of the precious beets began to fade, and then the goldness of the beets faded. Finally, after many, many cycles of light and dark, and many cycles of snow falling and buds blossoming, the beets themselves started to shrivel and dry up.

As her beets shriveled, the young peasant girl remembered the prayers and blessings and rituals she had bestowed upon her baby beets. She found herself smiling her peaceful smile yet again. But her beets were shriveling at an alarming rate and the young girl was becoming desperate. She knew that she needed to be able to freely offer her beets: to learn and share and journey so that she would have an abundance of beets to offer and share and could nourish and be nourished.

The young peasant girl did not know what to do. All she could do was paint images of her beets, dance her beets, sing her beets, write her beets and drum her beets, for this was all she knew.

As she danced and sang her beets, sparks would fly. These sparks would catch the attention of the prince and before long he and others would join with her in dancing and singing and painting. The young peasant girl would reach out to them and they would join hands, each time creating a larger and larger circle. The circle grew larger and larger until it burst out of the kingdom and through the forests, over the mountains and deserts until it linked all the way back to her mother village and all around the world.

The girl smiled and each hand smiled and smiles were passed from face to face and from dancing body to singing soul. The girl was so full of joy that she almost forgot her precious beets. When she set eyes upon her beets she was amazed: not only had her beets grown back and had become dazzling gold once more, but they had grown very strong, solid roots. Most heartwarming of all for the young girl was that there was an abundance of beets so that every dancing soul, linked by loving, supportive hands around the world had grown their own strong basket of nourishing golden beets with which to nourish themselves and others. The dancing souls knew that if they looked into their beets they could see the entire world. The young girl no longer had to be the carrier of the beets and they all lived happily ever after.

The End.