The Wicked Vow

(The Monday Mission will have to make an appearance on Tuesday this week; I have an idea but it's not fleshed out enough to share yet, even in the guise of a writing exercise. In the meantime, enjoy this pointless meandering.)

People ask me sometimes why the hell I ever bothered to marry my first husband since, in retrospect, it is pretty clear I ought not to have even dated him. An excellent question, to which I can only reply that I have the very bad habit of doing exactly what I say I am going to do, even when it becomes clear that it would be disastrous to do so. I said I would marry him, and then I did, even though I knew by then it was a really stupid thing to do.

I am so old-fashioned in this regard (and take a good look at this sentence, Dear Readers, because that's not an adjective you're likely to see me apply to myself again) that I view the words "I promise" as nearly inherently dishonest, or at least indicative of weak character. If you mean what you say, then you don't need to tag some sentences with "I promise," which would seem to indicate that sentences not so tagged you are then free to violate at a later date. If I say I'm going to do something, I'll do it; you won't get any greater commitment from me even if I am standing on top of a stack of bibles, qurans and books of shadows.

There are times when this trait is useful; for instance, I used it just about this time last year when I left Erik by telling friends that I was going to leave him. Having made this commitment to some friends, I was not then free to just forget the whole idea when the time came and I knew it would be painful and hideous. And New Year's Resolutions tend to stick with me, especially when I post them here, because I said I would do them, and dammit, I will.

Then there are the times when I make bad promises, and end up carrying on through on them because, well ... because.

"Rose followed the Old Woman's advice, and when she arrived at the seaside, she found a little hut with twelve narrow beds inside. Sure that she was soon to be reunited with her brothers, Rose waited by the hut. The sun began to set, and in its last rosy light, twelve great swans swooped out of the sky. As their feet touched the earth, the sun set, and before Rose's astonished eyes the swans turned into handsome young men. 'I am your sister!' cried Rose.

"Her brothers stared at her, horrifed. 'What have we done!' they cried. 'We have vowed to kill the first young girl we meet, because our misfortune came to us through a girl!' Rose shrank back from them, but in this moment the Old Woman appeared again. She faced the frightened, angry brothers: 'Break that wicked vow, which you never should have made. Can't you see? This is your own dear sister. Only through her can you be restored.' And she disappeared as quickly as she had come."

That's a section from a fairytale about a queen with twelve sons who makes a wicked vow of her own: I would sacrifice all of my sons to have one daughter. (Let's leave out how tremendously unlikely such a promise is in any patriarchal feudal society.) When her daughter is born, all of her sons turn into swans and fly away. They turn back into men only at night. The daughter Rose, when she is older, learns of what happened and resolves to rescue them. It's used as the metaphor tying together one of my favourite wicca books, The Twelve Wild Swans; and it seems this is something I need to learn over and over again. There is no honour in keeping a wicked vow.

It's identifying the wicked vows that's tricky.

Wicked vows can be anything from trivial ("I'll go on vacation when I lose twenty pounds") to the self-destructive ("I'll become a lawyer even though I hate it because my sister is a waitress and it broke my father's heart") to the truly wicked ("I will never let you see your son again"). Any promise made to self or other that should never have been made, and which you or I keep anyway, out of a misguided sense of integrity.

Some I eventually figured out:

I'll let myself write when I've earned it by doing everything else I'm supposed to do first--professional career and marriage and house and family--even though that leaves no time for it.

I will do everything I can to save the world before I allow myself a moment's frivolous fun.

Others I'm still struggling with, unsure whether they are truly wrong or merely inconvenient.

I will never ask for more than I have, because I already have more than I deserve?

I'm stronger than you, so I will let you break my heart and I will never break yours?

How can I ever be sure?

Have you ever made a wicked vow? I will never make anyone angry or I will never make my mother cry or I will never tell them what you did to me? Others? Did you keep them, or break them?

Posted by Andrea at March 17, 2008 11:47 AM under Me , Witch

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