Begin with a Lively Maid
There once was a Lively beggar-girl, dirty and heedless and gay in the face of misfortune. She traveled the North Country with her sister and brother. A Golden Bird watched over them.
The day came when beggars and bird arrived at a harvest festival — a fine place for canny vagrants.
Spread before them the children saw a hotchpotch of tents, awnings, banners and carts, flags and wagons, long tables, short stalls, open fire pits where meat roasted and closed booths for fortune telling.
What a mingle-mangle of misrule: muddy peasants and stout townspeople, ladies and milkmaids, wandering knights, itinerant peddlers, nuns selling vials of Virgin tears, wives selling pies and hunters fresh game, trades-folk dealing the goods they’d made of leather, wool, wood, or iron. There were ruffians, merchants, musicians, and a band of traveling players who had with them a dancing bear.
Ale and good cheer filled the crowd. People stood ready with a coin or an apple for whatever might make them laugh. Lively was just the laugh-maker for it, and she spirited into the hubbub before her Clever big sister could catch her.
—You are to keep Jack with you!— Clever called out too late. He was their small brother who needed keeping.