Berlinda Weaver was taken to wife at the advanced age of fifteen, not because she was a beauty, for she was far from conventional standards, but because she had developed her talents to an art and because she was wide of hip and strong of arm. She was the youngest in a family of five. The only girl. The only one of the lot that was proficient at the family trade. Weaver was more than the name they bore. It was a talent handed down from father to son, father to son, until Berlinda's brothers were found to be clumsy and unable to manipulate strands of wool into masterpieces of cloth. Gustafus Weaver, literally wept with grief as each son, one after the other, tangled the wool into such that looked like rags. Disgusted and sorrowful, he sweated blood trying to train them. "They are good for only herding the sheep, not creating the patterns." he shouted to Gerta, his wife. "It is your fault. I should have known better than trust that you, who knows only how to slop hogs, could give me sons to carry on the tradition." Ducking her head and believing his harsh words, she tried time and again to bring forth just one boy child that would satisfy her husband. Four times she tried and four times she failed. Her fifth and last pregnancy not only turned Gustafus into a raving demon of a man, but gave Gerta chills of horror because it was a girl child and crippled. A iii club foot twisted a swollen leg and drove the unhappy mother to abandon the child in the woods.