From the Firelight Fairy Book
We read last week that the merchant’s sons offered to go and find the Emerald for the King in order to turn his anger away from their father. The eldest son went first, and an entire year passed with no word from him, so the King took half of the merchant’s possessions. The second son went next and during the year that he was gone, the merchant fell on hard times and lost all of his remaining possessions. At the end of the year, with no word from his son he felt sure the King would kill him and shivered when he heard a knock on the door of the little hut he was reduced to living in. But it was his third son who had heard of his father’s woes and returned home to help. As they were speaking, the King’s soldiers came and threw them both in prison. The youngest son begged to be allowed to find the Emerald and after learning that he was a sailor who had sailed in the royal fleet the King agreed to give him a year. The story continues…
Now the youngest son had a little boat of his own. It was so small that, when the wind no longer filled its sails, it could be rowed along, and in this boat the sailor lad began his voyage. From harbour to harbour, from nation to nation, he sailed, but never a soul he found who could tell him anything of the strange black ship with the fiery sails or the lost Emerald of the Sea. Even the people of the Land of the Dawn could tell him only that the gem had been sold to an unknown prince.
Presently the winter of the year overtook him, and in one of the sudden storms that heralded the coming of the cold, his little boat went ashore on a rocky coast, and was soon pounded to pieces by the breakers. Thrown into the sea during the wreck, the sailor was himself so tossed and trampled by the waves that he reached the shore far more dead than alive. Indeed, had it not been for a poor fisherman and his wife, there would have been no more story to tell. These good people rescued the sailor from the fury of the waters and nursed him back to health and strength.
When his strength was quite restored, the sailor told this good couple the story of how he had gone forth to seek throughout the wide world the Emerald of the Sea.
“But my poor lad,” said the kind fisherman, “the Emerald of the Sea has vanished forever from mortal eyes.” “What! You know of the emerald?” cried the sailor. “Alas, yes,” replied the fisherman. “Two years ago, the Prince of the Unknown Isles sent the finest vessel in his fleet to the Land of the Dawn to buy the jewel. A beautiful ship was she, with a hull as black as night and sails as red as fire. My brother and I sailed in her crew. The jewel was taken aboard. Our brave ship set sail for the Unknown Isles. Hardly were we three days out of the sight of land, when a storm overtook us and sank the vessel. I chanced to be tossed in the water near a great fragment of the mast and clung to this until a passing vessel found me. Of all aboard, I alone survived. Forty fathoms deep lies the Emerald of the Sea, never more to be seen but by the dumb creatures of the waters.”
At these tidings the brave sailor’s heart became like ice; nevertheless, he cried: “Good friend, I know that what you say is true, yet shall I not despair; for, come what will, I must save my father!”
Hearing this, the fisherman’s wife, a quiet, good body, who had had little to say, whispered that it would be well to first consult the Witch of the Sands.
“The Witch of the Sands? Who is she and where can I find her?” cried the sailor.
“The Witch of the Sands lives 100 leagues from here,” replied the fisherman’s wife. “All the mysteries of the waters are in her keeping and she has an answer for them all. You must go to her and ask her to help you.”
So the sailor thanked the good fisherman and his wife and set out to the house of the Witch of the Sands. His path lay along a desolate and lonely shore, on whose rocky beaches the wooden bones of old wrecks lay rotting, half buried in stones and weed. Just as the third day’s sun was sinking in the shining waters, the sailor arrived at the Witch’s home.
The Witch made her home in a deserted old ship, which a storm of long ago had cast far up the sands. As for the Witch herself, she was a woman so old that the sailor thought she surely must have been living when the moon and the stars were made. A fringe of sea-shells circled the crown of her high hat, and round her wrists were bracelets of pearly periwinkles. Just as the sailor approached the Witch’s door, a young fur seal, who had been basking in a little pool left on the beach by the tide, hastened out of his puddle, and running swiftly toward him on his flappers, nuzzled his hand with his sleek, wet head, just like a young dog. “Down, Neptune, down!” cried the witch shrilly. “Good evening, madam,” said the sailor in his politest manner. “You are the third person who has come here to ask me the question you are going to ask,” screamed the Witch of the Sands, whose magic powers had revealed to her the reason for the sailor’s coming. “I know you! You are the youngest son. Your two brothers have been here to ask me the way under the sea, and I told them; but bless me, they haven’t come back yet. Just like young men to forget an old woman’s warning. I’ve a good mind not to tell you the way to the under-waters; indeed, I wouldn’t if you weren’t a sailor and a child of the sea. Yes, I can show you the road to under the sea; but you must not ask me about the emerald, because I don’t know where it is myself. It was in the Land of the Dawn, and that’s the last I heard of it! When you do get to the under-waters, don’t forget that. You’ll have to hurry back like the wind, for the year which the King gave your father is almost gone. Don’t ask me questions! I know you are going to ask one, because I’m not a man; and I know what you are going to ask, because I’m a witch.” To be continued…