I Love You More Than Salt

A fairy tale for Saturn

This is a traditional fairy tale, as told by me from memory

^{[Read on from the story for a discussion of Saturn].}

In a far and distant kingdom, much like our own, there was a king who had three daughters. He was a fair man and decided that he would apportion his kingdom between his daughters according to how much each loved him. One day he called his daughters before him and said to them “I want each of you to tell me how much you love me”.

The eldest answered first “I love you more than gold or silver”. And she was very pleased with her answer.

The king thought, “Oh, she loves me very much to love me more than gold or silver”.

The second daughter found it hard to follow such a claim, but after a few moments of thought she said to him “I love you more than diamonds, rubies, emeralds”. And she was pleased with her answer.

“Oh”. Thought the king. “That is a great thing to be loved more than precious stones. She must love me very much.”

The youngest daughter felt despair and wondered how she would follow her sisters in this task. She thought long and hard, but nothing came to mind. The king saw her silence and said to her “Do you love me, daughter?”

“I do love you”. she replied. “But I cannot think of such marvellous things as my sisters to love you by.”

The king sent them all away and required them to return tomorrow, and for his youngest to have an answer ready.

When the day came, they stood before the king. “Are you ready now to tell me how much you love me?” said the king.

“Father,” said the youngest daughter. “I love you more than salt”.

The King was astounded. How could his daughter, and his favourite daughter too, love him and compare him to common salt? He was heartbroken by her words and filled with anger. “You must love me not at all!” he cried.

“I will give my eldest daughter and my second daughter half of my kingdom each when I die. But you, my youngest will get nothing, and I banish you from my sight and my kingdom forever!”

She wept bitterly and packed some clothes and went to the kitchen to get some bread. With a second thought, she took the salt in its salt box, put it in her pack and left.

She travelled all day and all night to the next kingdom, going door to door looking for a bed to sleep in and work for her board. Soon she found service as a cook at an in. There she learned from the head cook to make the most wonderful, tasty, delicious food. Her food was so good that she soon became the head cook and word got around. People came from near and far to taste her cooking.

But in her father’s kingdom, all the salt disappeared and there was none to season the food. Everything became tasteless for the people. At his castle, the king would call for dish after dish to be served at his table, and he would send them back bemoaning “Why can you not cook me something with flavour?! I taste nothing, I long for rich and sweet, but everything is bitter or bland.”

Then he began to hear of a famous cook in the next kingdom, who made the most flavoursome foods. He sent word and invited her to cook for his table.

The daughter came, disguising herself and keeping to the kitchen. When the king asked to meet the visitor who was to restore his palette, she sent word to him “the cook is very busy with much to prepare and wishes to start at once.” The king was not pleased with this and sent word that if she should fail to please his palette she would lose her life. But the servant returned “the cook assures you that she will delight you with everything you eat.” And so, to the table came every delicacy that the king loved, for the daughter knew him well. Plate after plate of delicious, wonderously flavoured and fragrant dish was put before him and he marvelled at their taste, the like of which he felt he had never had, or at least for a very long time.

The king was keen to meet the cook to thank her and praise her skill, so he summoned her from the kitchen. Covered with a low cap she stood before him, and he waxed lyrical at her skill. Then he began to weep. “I have not tasted food so good since I cruelly sent my daughter away, all for the love of salt. Now nothing in life tastes good, and I take enjoyment in nothing. I wish only that she were here to dine with me. All would be forgiven. But tell me, what is your secret that makes you cook so well?”

And the cook pulled back her cap and put out her hand in which lay a small box; “Salt” said the princess. With that, her father realised how much his daughter really loved him. For all of life is without flavour when it is without salt.

Saturns Story

Saturn is not just the taskmaster or the limiter or the bringer of despair. He is also a lover of simplicity. What would you put on an altar to Saturn? Very little is the answer, because he loves less, sparsity. The natural ascetic, the monk in isolation. Parsing life down to essentials, to need rather than desire.

Saturn requires effort and demands that you find how much you can do with little. Every poor boy who sets out from his mother’s house with “only a crust of bread” which he must then share with strangers along the road is living the lesson that Saturn has to teach. Those strangers serve him as helping spirits in whatever tasks he undertakes. Saturn is exalted in Libra, sharing a love of fairness and proportion. Saturn’s work is an investment for the long term, for the unforeseeable, for another Time, which is his also domain.

Just as Saturn is lord of the manifest world, all matter and time, the king in the story is Saturian; the measure of wealth each daughter will receive will be comparable to her love for him. Material wealth, inheritance, is given in receipt for an immutable, ineffable quality of being in relation.

Both older daughters give gold and silver and jewels fit for a king; fit for the Sun, but not for Saturn; gold and jewels are too elevating for Saturn’s tastes. Still, a show of material love is a good love to show a material lord. The youngest picks the humblest matter of which she can conceive. Salt; a provider of neither the sustenance nor the taste, it adds nothing but to enjoy what you already have, however much or little, and a culinary disaster when too much is used in a dish. Saturn insists “only a little, only as much as you need”. Saturn is the gift and wealth of enough.

At times in history, salt was scarce but demand for it held, pushing its price higher than gold. Who knows, perhaps the tale was written at such a time. Historically it has been used for cleaning household items as a natural sanitizer, for preserving meat, fish, eggs, and vegetables, and to ward off evil spirits. Saturn’s influence as a preserver in time, and to create boundaries is evident here.

In myths, Saturn is the obstacles and labours that our heroes must perform to earn their prize. The imprisonments, banishments, mountains that must be climbed, giants that must be fought, impossible tasks, and the last match to light the way going out. He is the stony confusion of the labyrinth and every locked door, the dragon guarding a rock-bound maiden.

As much as marrying a beautiful prince must be a delight, or becoming a king a boon, if this is easy it is only as valuable as the cost of losing it. Our heroes and heroines must earn their successes, and those successes will only taste good when leavened with a little Saturian effort.

Another Saturny, salty tale is stone soup, a trickster dish for tricky Mercury. The soup begins with a rock and all manner of foodstuffs are added but it only becomes ‘right’ when finally, a pinch of salt makes it ready to eat. This thing I assure you I will be inflicting upon my unsuspecting son when he is old enough to help with cooking. A saturnian fellow himself (a stellium in Capricorn) he absolutely loves stones and plays with them like toys wherever we find them. I know he will be a fan of stone soup. And salt.