Reading Notes: The Dead Mother

In a village, there lived a husband and a wife. They lived happily and peacefully, and all of their neighbors envied them. The mistress bore a bon but died after it was born. The moujik was devastated. How was he to take care of it and raise it without its mother? He decided to hire an old woman to look after it. But the baby wouldn't take any food throughout the day and would do nothing but cry. However, it slept peacefully at night. "What is the meaning of this?" said the old woman. "If I stay awake all night, I might find out!"

The next night, the same thing happened and the night after that. She held a council with the kinsfolk and determined to stay awake one night to see who was taking care of the baby. So they lay on the floor next to the baby to see. At midnight, the cottage door opened and someone stepped to the cradle. The kinsfolk turned on the light and saw the dead mother in the same clothes she was buried in suckling the baby with her dead breast.

The moment the light shone in the cottage, she stood up, gazed over the baby and left the room without a sound. Those who saw her were terrified and next thing they knew, the baby was dead.

The Dead Mother by W. R. S. Ralston.

Death and the Child. Source: Wikimedia Commons