When Sorrow was a little child and the Sea yet nursed pale Grief on her
breast, there lived in a distant country a great and wise King. Renowned
for justice, he was both loved and revered by his subjects, and if God
had blessed him with a child to inherit his lands he could have died
without a regret. However, time passed, and it seemed that his wish was
to remain ungratified. Being a noble and sagacious man, he reconciled
himself to the will of his Creator; but his Queen still hoped against
hope. The King's time was fully occupied. Each day brought its
different tasks. There was much state business to be discussed in
council, and the administration of justice made great demands on the
monarch's leisure. His spouse, on the other hand, had little to do,
excepting to tend her flowers and to ply her needle. She took to
brooding and wishing impiously for what God evidently did not intend she
should have. Unknown to the King, she visited all the magicians in his
realm, and sought their help to aid her in the fulfilment of her wish;
but in vain.
When very much depressed, it was the Queen's habit to wander by the sea
and speak her thoughts aloud. One day, feeling more wretched than she
had ever done before, she left the palace secretly, and walked some
miles along the coast, unburdening her mind as she went.
It was late autumn. The approaching death of the year struck her majesty
painfully. The ocean was a dull green under the heavy sky. She turned,
and looked at the silver spires of the palace which lay in the distance.
"Ah! what a difference it would have made in our dear home," she said,
"had we been blessed with a child." She clasped her hands in a frenzy of
desire. It seemed to her agitated mind that the sea too was perturbed,
that its rippling waves kissed her sandalled feet lovingly. At
length, tired with her walk, she lay down and wept herself to sleep.
[Illustration]
When she awoke it was evening. The woodlands and mountains lay in deep
shadow.
The Queen started up, scarcely remembering where she was. When she quite
realised her position she drew her hooded cloak more tightly around her,
and prepared to return home. She had scarcely made any progress, when
suddenly, a few feet from her, she observed in the sea a face of
surpassing beauty. The hair lay floating on the waves like red weed; the
eyes were as green as emeralds, with a fierce tenderness in them. The
Queen stood transfixed with amazement, gazing at the woman's face. She
was uncertain what to do, whether to remain where she was, or whether to
fly homewards along the shore. The royal lady had been reared in the
simplest manner; she had been taught to distrust her imagination, so she
rubbed her eyes, expecting that when she looked again the vision would
have vanished. But she was mistaken; moreover, the apparition began to
address her in throbbing bursts of song.
"Mortal, I am here to grant thy desire. I have heard thy plaints and
caught thy tears, and I have sorrowed for thee and tried to soothe thy
woe, for I too have known bitterness and despair. I was once the love
of the North Wind. He wooed me amidst the ice-plains, in a world of
crystal glaciers. He chased me through space, until we lay panting on
the shores of Africa. But he has left me for the South Wind, with her
golden hair and her hot breath. They have made their home on a
mountain-top, where the snow-flowers bloom in profusion, where the sea
can never go. Four years since he came, bearing a child in his arms. He
laid it on my breast, saying that I was to keep it and rear it for his
sake. That child I will give to thee. She knows nothing of her
parentage, and it would be best that thou shouldst never tell her to
whom she owes her being."
"But when the North Wind finds that thou hast parted with thy precious
charge what will he do?" panted the Queen.
"He will storm and tear and lash my waves into mountains, and moan round
continent and island, and search my ocean from the North to the South
Pole. His spouse will scorch me with her breath till I am forced to dive
down to cool crystal caverns, where, upon a bed of seaweed, I shall
laugh loud and long, a conqueror."
The Queen held her breath in terror. She would have liked to escape from
the fierce Sea, whose face wore a look of wild triumph; but her anxiety
to see the Child of the Winds overcame her fear, and she waited
patiently, her hands clasped tightly together to quell her rising
agitation.
By this time it was quite dark; the sky was starless, there was not a
breath of air. In her imagination the Queen seemed to see the Winds in
their mountain home, unconscious of the peril of their daughter. The Sea
had disappeared, and was so long absent that the Queen began to think
she had been dreaming, when suddenly, by invisible hands, a child was
placed in her arms.
"Thou must call her Myra," said a voice, "for she hath known only
bitterness on the breast of her foster-mother."
The Queen looked around, but saw no one. Pressing the burden to her
heart, she started homewards. She dared not look at the little one; but
she felt the tiny arms clasped confidingly round her neck, and the sweet
mouth pressed against her cheek gave her more happiness than she had
ever known.
The Sea followed her, washing the shore with phosphorescent waves to
light her steps homewards. The royal lady flew along with the agility of
early youth, and the burden in her arms was made light by love.
At length the marble steps were reached. She hurried up them and through
the golden gates--along winding passages and across alabaster halls,
until at length, breathless and trembling with excitement, she burst
into the King's apartments, where she placed Myra in the arms of her
amazed and happy husband.
Cognisant of his just and upright nature, she did not tell him of the
child's parentage, knowing that he would have been the first to restore
it to its rightful owners. She said that she had found the little
creature on the shore, and that fearing it would be drowned by the
incoming tide, she had borne it to the palace, hoping that, should it be
unclaimed, her royal lord would, in pity of her loneliness, and in
consideration of their desire for a daughter, allow her to keep and rear
it as their own.
Long into the night they sat, admiring the lovely waif.
"She must be royally born, my love," said the King. "Washed overboard,
perhaps, from some regal ship. Be sure she will be claimed of thee."
Suddenly Myra awoke, and the Queen set her on her feet, that they might
the better observe her.
[Illustration]
She was about four years old. Heavy black hair fell around her face,
which was lit with wild, pale eyes. Her small seamless garment was
embroidered with pearls and shells, and through its transparent folds
the little body looked like a blush rose with the dew upon it. The
Queen, in an ecstasy of happiness, drew Myra's hands within her own
and kissed them; her heart went out in motherly tenderness to the poor
babe, hitherto unkissed by mortal lips, though born of the Winds and
rocked by the Sea. Yet, as she gazed into the child's sorrowful face, a
strange fear smote her, and she almost wished that she had left the
eerie creature in its salt sea home, or that she had told her husband
the story of its birth. Still, she could not go back now.
In the night a great storm arose. The Queen lay trembling in her
chamber. Myra's powerful father had learned of the loss of his daughter.
He lashed the Sea from Pole to Pole; it thundered on the shore, and
burst into wild shrieks of triumph. The night was long and tempestuous;
whole towns were destroyed, and many ships were sunk; but towards
morning the North Wind subsided into low wails of pain, which were
answered by the languorous sighs of the South, as they returned to their
mountain home sad and desolate, while in a marble palace a Queen awoke
pressing their child to her breast. She had taken the weird sea-tossed
thing to her heart, for weal or woe.