by Sarah Earlene Shere, ©2024
(Aug. 24, 2024) — Once upon a time, when the world was still young, there lived a king and his queen, who were very much in love. Tragically, one night, when the queen was sailing home to her husband after a good-will voyage, the ship on which she was traveling was beaten down by a storm, drowning all who were on board, including the queen. Devastated with the loss, the king locked himself away in his castle for a time of mourning.
Now, the king and queen were loved by their entire kingdom, including the creatures of the sea. Several of these inhabitants had seen the queen sink beneath the waves. While they were unable to save her, they wanted to preserve her and return her to the king. Thus, a giant oyster offered itself as a casket for the journey. Lovingly, the sea creatures laid their queen inside the oyster; gently it closed around her. With ropes of seaweed, the dolphins then pulled the oyster to the king’s castle.
Being notified by the seagulls of the approaching procession, the king met them at the stairs of his castle that descended into the ocean. But, when the oyster opened, the only thing there was a large pearl. With astonishment from every eye watching, the pearl cracked and disintegrated, revealing a secret that had been kept inside. There lay a beautiful little creature, like a girl-child, with her lower half in the form of a fish. The king smiled at the large, other-worldly eyes that looked at him as he gently picked her up and declared, “What a lovely little mere-maid!”
In the years that followed, the king found comfort from the daily visits of his child who lived in the sea, a gift he felt had been given to him from the love of his wife and his ocean kingdom. And that is the story of how the merfolk came to be, as was told to me by the storks, who are always trustworthy.