The Dreamcloth of Ellarell
By Paul Koontz
Long ago, in a valley hidden between the roots of the oldest mountains, there lived a people who gathered dreams.
They were small people, no taller than a child's hand, with wings like moths and voices like bells heard from very far away. They lived among the silver roots of ancient trees, where mushrooms grew like umbrellas and moonlight rested upon the moss.
The fairies called their valley Wissia.
And beneath the oldest tree in Wissia stood the Dream Hall. It was there that the dream weavers worked.
Every night, while the people of the waking world slept, dreams drifted through the air like invisible birds. The fairies gathered them carefully in silver bowls.
A happy dream was golden. A memory was silver. Hope was green. Courage was blue. Love was warm and red. But nightmares were black.
They were not thrown away. The fairies gathered those too. For even nightmares could be woven into something useful.
The dream weavers took the colored threads and passed them through the great Dream Loom. From them they made Dreamcloth.
Dreamcloth was the most precious thing the fairies possessed. A small piece placed beneath a frightened child's pillow could quiet a nightmare. A strip wrapped around a wounded wing helped the body heal. A shawl woven from memories could comfort someone who had lost a loved one. A cloak woven with courage could give strength to someone who had none left.
The fairies did not weave Dreamcloth for themselves. They wove it for those who needed it. And because the waking world was always full of people who needed healing, the Dream Hall was never quiet.
Among the young fairies learning to weave was one named Ellarell. Everyone called her Ella.
Ella loved the colors of dreams. She could see shades that other fairies could not. She could tell the difference between the blue of courage and the blue of loneliness. She could see the faint gold hidden inside a happy dream and the tiny threads of silver that ran through memories.
Her eyes were extraordinary. Her hands were not.
Ella was a terrible weaver.
The first time she tried to weave a piece of Dreamcloth, she pulled the thread too tightly and broke it. The second time, she pulled it too loosely and the entire pattern sagged in the middle. The third time, she mixed two colors that should never have touched. The fourth time, she tied the thread into a knot so complicated that even her teacher could not untangle it.
Her classmates laughed. Ella pretended not to hear them.
She tried again. And failed again.
One afternoon, her teacher, Master Weaver Meriel, watched Ella struggle with a simple pattern.
"Slowly," Meriel said.
"I am going slowly."
"Slower."
Ella slowed her hands. The thread tangled. She sighed.
"Perhaps slower still."
Ella tried. The shuttle slipped from her fingers and landed in her lap.
Meriel picked it up. "Again."
Ella stared at the loom. "I don't think I can."
Meriel smiled. "Then try."
So Ella tried. She failed. She tried again. She failed differently.
And that was how her apprenticeship began.
Ella learned one thing at a time.
First, she learned how to hold the shuttle without dropping it. It took her three weeks. When she finally managed it, Meriel smiled and clapped her hands. Ella smiled too. She was very proud.
The next morning, she dropped it eleven times.
She learned how to keep a thread from breaking. She was proud of that then. Then she forgot and broke six threads before breakfast.
She learned how to untangle a knot. Then she made a knot so terrible that she had to cut the cloth apart.
She learned how to follow a pattern. Then she followed one backward.
She learned how to recognize when a thread was too tight. Then she pulled another one too loose.
Every small success lasted only a little while. Ella would accomplish something that had once seemed impossible, and for one shining moment she would feel as though she had finally become a weaver. Then something else would go wrong.
It was like climbing a hill whose top moved farther away every time she approached it. Other apprentices seemed to climb easily. They watched a master demonstrate a pattern once and could reproduce it by afternoon. Ella watched it ten times. Then twenty. Then tried it. The pattern became a tangle.
Sometimes she hated the loom. Sometimes she hated the thread. Sometimes she hated herself.
But most of all, she hated the Dream Hall on the days when someone came looking for Dreamcloth she could not make.
One winter morning, a little fairy boy was brought into the Hall. He had been caught in a terrible nightmare, dreaming he was alone in a dark forest and could not find his mother. He had not slept properly in three nights.
His mother held him close while the healers searched for a piece of blue Dreamcloth.
Ella was working nearby. She watched as the healers searched through the shelves. There was none.
The boy began to cry.
Ella looked at the blue threads beside her loom. She knew exactly which blue he needed. She could see it. She could almost feel it. She picked up her shuttle.
"I can make it."
Meriel looked at her.
Ella began to weave. The thread slipped. She tried again. It tangled.
The boy cried harder. Ella's hands trembled. She pulled the thread. It snapped. She tried another. That one tangled with the first.
Ella stared at the ruined cloth. She could hear the child crying.
"I can't."
Meriel gently placed a hand upon her shoulder. "Not yet."
But Ella heard something else. She heard herself saying: I can't help him.
That night, Ella sat alone beneath the oldest tree in the valley. She cried until there were no tears left. She had always known she was a poor weaver. But until that day, she had not understood what it meant.
People needed Dreamcloth. And she could not make enough. Perhaps she never would.
The next morning, Ella returned to the Dream Hall. She did not know why. She simply did.
She picked up the shuttle. Her first attempt failed. She tried again. It failed differently. She tried a third time. It was worse.
Ella stared at the cloth. Then she noticed something.
The third attempt had not been entirely wrong. The thread was tangled, but the color was right. She carefully pulled the knot apart. It broke.
She tried again. The knot loosened. Ella blinked.
She tried again. The knot came free.
It was a very small thing. So small that no one would have noticed. But Ella smiled. For the first time, she had untangled a knot without destroying the thread.
She was proud. Very proud.
Then she picked up another thread. And tangled it immediately.
Ella groaned. "Of course."
Meriel laughed softly. "What?"
"Nothing."
"You are laughing at me."
"No."
"Yes, you are."
Meriel shook her head. "I am laughing because you have just discovered something."
"What?"
"That learning one thing does not prevent you from getting the next thing wrong."
Ella frowned. "That doesn't sound very encouraging."
"It is not meant to be." Meriel returned to her loom. "It is simply true."
Years passed. Ella did not become a great weaver. She became better at some things. Worse at others.
She learned how different threads behaved. She learned how to repair small breaks. She learned when to loosen a thread instead of tightening it. She learned how to undo a day's work when the first few rows were wrong. She learned which knots could be saved, and which had to be cut. She learned that some colors looked beautiful together until they were woven, and some colors that seemed dull became wonderful when placed beside the right thread.
She learned many things. But she did not feel as though she had learned them. She only knew that she had made those mistakes before.
And because Ella made so many mistakes, she began keeping them.
At first, she kept the failed pieces because she was ashamed to throw them away. She hid them beneath her bed. Then she filled a cupboard. Then a chest. Eventually she filled an entire little room.
There were crooked pieces. Broken pieces. Knotted pieces. Pieces where the colors had bled together. Pieces where she began again and again until the cloth looked more like a nest than anything useful.
Ella called it her room of failures. She never showed it to anyone.
Until one day, Master Meriel found her there.
Ella froze. "I can explain."
Meriel looked around. "Can you?"
"I was going to throw them away."
"Why?"
"Because they're no good."
Meriel picked up a small piece of cloth. "What did this one teach you?"
Ella frowned. "That I pull too hard."
Meriel picked up another. "And this?"
"That red dream-thread bleeds into yellow if the tension is wrong."
Another. "That I don't know how to make a seven-point star."
Another. "That I shouldn't weave while angry."
Meriel smiled. "And this one?"
Ella looked at the piece for a long time. "I don't remember."
"Then perhaps you have not finished learning from it."
Ella looked at the room. "You think these are useful?"
"I think you made every one of them." Meriel placed the cloth back on the shelf. "That makes them valuable."
Ella did not understand. Not completely. But she kept the pieces.
Then came the Night of Broken Dreams.
It began with a storm. Not a storm of wind or rain, but a storm in the sleeping world. Across the kingdom, nightmares erupted. Dreams that had once been gentle became tangled and wild. Memories became confused with fears. Courage became panic. Hope became sorrow.
The fairies gathered the dream threads as quickly as they could. But the threads came in snarls. They poured into the Dream Hall in great black, silver, blue, red, and green knots.
The Dream Loom groaned. The master weavers rushed to it.
"Stop the shuttle!"
"Cut the black threads!"
"No, don't cut those!"
"Hold the tension!"
"Release it!"
The loom shuddered. A string snapped. Then another. A great section of the pattern twisted upon itself.
The weavers froze. They had never seen anything like it. They knew how to weave Dreamcloth. They knew how to mend the loom. They knew every pattern in the oldest books. But none of their lessons had prepared them for this.
The Dream Loom gave a terrible creaking sound.
Ella stood at the edge of the room. She looked at the tangled threads.
A broken blue thread, she knew that break; she had made it hundreds of times. A stubborn knot, she knew that knot, too. A red thread caught beneath a silver one; she knew precisely how that happened. A section of cloth pulled too tightly against another section left too loose.
Ella took one step toward the loom.
"Don't touch it!" someone cried.
Ella stopped. She looked at the loom. She looked at the frightened weavers. Then she looked again at the threads.
"I know that knot," she whispered.
No one answered.
Ella reached out. She loosened the thread. The knot relaxed. The loom shuddered.
Ella moved to another. She did not know how to repair the whole loom. She did not know what the great pattern was supposed to be. She only knew what she had seen before.
A broken thread. A loose thread. A tight thread. A tangled thread.
One mistake at a time.
She worked. Sometimes she made things worse. Once, she pulled a thread and three others snapped. She stared at them. "Oh."
Then she tried again.
The other weavers began to help.
"That one is too tight," Ella said.
"How do you know?"
"I've done it."
"That knot?"
"I've done that too."
"What about this?"
Ella studied it. "I don't know."
So she tried. It failed. She tried again. It failed differently.
Then she understood. Not the loom. Not the pattern. Only the next thing.
"Loosen that thread."
The weaver did.
"Now hold it."
Another weaver held it.
"Cut the broken strand."
They cut it.
"Give me another."
A new thread was placed in her hand. Ella threaded it through.
The Dream Loom began to quiet. One by one, the snarls loosened. The colors separated. The broken strings were replaced.
The great loom shuddered once more. Then it began to move. Slowly. Softly. Beautifully.
Dreamcloth began to emerge. Gold. Silver. Green. Blue. Red. Even the black threads found their places.
The fairies stood silent. Ella stared. She had never seen anything so beautiful.
Someone began to laugh. Someone else began to cry. Then the Dream Hall erupted in cheers.
Ella stepped away from the loom. Her hands were trembling.
Master Meriel came to her. "You saved the Dream Loom."
Ella shook her head. "No."
"You did."
"I didn't know how."
Meriel smiled. She looked at the great loom, and then at Ella. "You knew how not to stop."
Ella frowned. She looked down at her hands. They were still the same hands. They had never become clever. They were still clumsy. She was still a poor weaver. She still did not understand half the patterns in the books. She still made mistakes. She still broke threads. She still tangled things that should have been simple.
Ella looked at the Dreamcloth flowing from the loom. "I still don't think I'm very good at this."
Meriel laughed. "I know."
Many years later, Ella became the oldest weaver in the Dream Hall.
She never became the greatest. There were still fairies who could weave more beautiful patterns. There were still apprentices who learned faster. There were still times when Ella's own work came out crooked. She did not mind as much as she once had.
One morning, a young apprentice came to her carrying a small piece of cloth. She looked miserable.
"I ruined it."
Ella examined the cloth. It was indeed terrible. The pattern was crooked. The colors had bled. One corner was badly knotted.
Ella smiled.
The young fairy looked surprised. "Why are you smiling?"
Ella walked to the door of the little room where she had kept her failures. The room was no longer little. It was filled from floor to ceiling. Hundreds of pieces of cloth hung from the walls. Some were beautiful. Many were not.
Ella took down one of the oldest. It was crooked and badly woven. She placed it beside the apprentice's cloth.
"I made this when I was your age."
The apprentice stared. "It is awful."
"Yes."
"You kept it?"
"Yes."
"Why?"
Ella looked at the old piece of Dreamcloth. She thought for a moment. She could not remember exactly what the piece had taught her. Perhaps that was the strange thing about learning. Some lessons remained as words. Others simply became part of your hands.
Ella smiled. "Because I wasn't finished with it."
The young apprentice looked at her. "What does that mean?"
Ella handed her a shuttle. "I don't know."
She sat beside the loom. "Let's find out."
And together they began again.
(Hello Supporters and Readers, Thanks for making it here! The Dreamcloth story is one of several fairy tales I've written. Like some of the ancient tales we are all used to, I tend write with a lesson in mind. Some of you will find this story about hope, some about perserverance, and some others will see courage. No matter, you are right. I hope you enjoyed The Dreamcloth of Ellarell. Thank you for your support)