The Fisherman's Tears and the Sea King's Daughter

By Ché Monro

Once upon a time a fisherman and his wife lived by the side of the wide blue ocean in a little wooden shack. They were young, and they had one child, a little baby girl. Every day the fisherman went out in his boat and fished, and every night he came home and they ate together, and they were very happy.

Then one day while the fisherman's wife was working in her garden, somehow the hut caught fire. She had left the baby sleeping in her crib and when she looked up and saw the smoke and flames pouring from the little wooden house. She leaped to her feet and rushed into the hut to save her daughter. Unfortunately the roof fell in and they were both killed.

When the fisherman got home that evening all that was left was a black place on the sand and a few charred, smoking timbers. He fell to his knees and wept and wept.

The next day the fisherman went out onto the ocean and sat staring down into the water for a long time, uncertain whether to drop his nets, or instead to jump into the waves and drown himself. Finally he stood and cast his nets into the water and sat once more, crying salt tears into the salty water.

After a time he noticed that his nets were thrashing about in the water so he pulled them up to his numb amazement he found caught in his net a beautiful naked woman with eyes as green as the sea.

She said "I am the Sea-King's daughter and because you have caught me I will grant you three wishes. Tell me now, what do you wish?"

"I have only one wish." he replied. "Return my wife and baby daughter to me."

"It shall be as you wish. Return home and you will find them waiting for you." With that she jumped over the side, and with a splash she disappeared beneath the waves.

So the fisherman sailed home. The night was coming in by the time he reached the beach and walked up to his home beneath the trees. Then he fell to his knees, mouth wide with horror because coming up from the black place in the sand was the sound of his wife and daughter, crying.

"Why?" came his wife's ghostly voice. "Why have you summoned us back from death to linger here, cold and alone?"

Tears steaming from his eyes, the fisherman climbed a tree and hung himself from it's branches and now the three of them haunt that lonely place together.

Moral: Be very careful what you wish for because you might just get it.

Or Perhaps:

She said "I am the Sea-King's daughter and because you have caught me I will grant you three wishes. Tell me now, what do you wish?"

"I have only one wish." he replied. "Return my wife and baby daughter to me."

She shook her head sadly. "I have power, but I am not the Queen of Life and Death. Pick another wish. Won't you choose great wealth, or power?"

"No." the fisherman replied. "If you cannot help me then I must seek the Queen of Life and Death. Tell me where I can find her."

"Just cast yourself into the water and you will meet her soon enough." the sea-sprite replied and with that she leaped overboard and was gone beneath the waves.

After thinking on it for a long time the fisherman did as she had suggested and threw himself into the sea. Soon he drowned and he came before the Queen of Life and Death.

"Oh Great Queen." he said. "Please, return my wife and daughter to me." be begged.

"That is not to be." the Queen replied. "They have gone to their destiny, and you must go to yours. You will suffer a thousand years punishment for killing yourself before you will see them again. Now, begone."

Moral: Two wrongs don't make a right.

Or perhaps:

"No." the fisherman replied. "If you cannot help me then I must seek the Queen of Life and Death. Tell me where I can find her."

"Just cast yourself into the water and you will meet her soon enough." the sea-sprite replied and with that she leaped overboard and was gone beneath the waves.

The fisherman shook his head. "I do not wish to die." he explained. "I simply want my wife and child back again, sharing the life and happiness that we knew before. Is this too much to ask?"

Then the Sea-King's daughter sighed and salt tears leaked from her eyes, because it was too much to ask, but how could he, a mortal man, understand that? Finally, she admitted "Many times I have lain on the bottom and watched your boat sail overhead and I have dreamed what it would be like to lie in your arms. Sometimes I have rested on the sea-waves and watched you pull up the fish in your nets and wondered what it would be like to kiss you. I have turned aside storms and waves from your path, and in my cave on the sea floor I have longed for you at night, wondering what it would be like to be able to leave the water and come to you because I love you. Then when I felt your tears fall into the waves I knew I had to come to you, so I climbed into your nets and here I am. Tell me, what do you tritely wish?"

But the fisherman only shook his head once more. "It is no use. I cannot help you. I love only my wife and my poor, lost daughter, and I wish for them back or my life must end." He picked up his fishing knife and held it to his chest to show that he meant it.

The sea-maid sighed and lowered her eyes. "For what you ask a price must be paid. Plunge your knife into my chest, and end my life, and what you want can be."

So the fisherman thrust his knife into her heart, and then her body was consumed with invisible flames and became smoke which flew up into the air and races away towards the shore, to the place beneath the trees where it came down to earth in a rush.

The fisherman put out his oars and rowed frantically for the shore. He pulled his little boat up onto the sand and ran up the path to the place beneath the trees, and there he found his hut with the door standing open and inside his wife and child waited to greet him, as if nothing had ever happened.

So he went inside to his dinner and his family.

Moral: Even happy endings have a price.

Or yet, perhaps...

The sea-maid sighed and lowered her eyes. "For what you ask a price must be paid. Plunge your knife into my chest, and end my life, and what you want can be."

The fisherman raised his knife, fully prepared to end her life, but then he looked into her deep green eyes and found that he could not. He lowered the knife and covered his face with his hands and wept.

When he done his weeping he found that the Sea King's daughter was still in his boat, and they embraced and comforted each other. Then he wished that they might be together forever, so she transformed herself into a mortal woman and went back to the shore with him.

The fisherman gave up the sea and became a farmer and he and the former Sea-King's daughter had many children together and they raised them in a little hut not far from where the first shack had stood, and they shared good times and bad times and happy times and angry times together. And when, in the fullness of time they went down to meet the Queen of Life and Death together, and there with her was his lost wife and daughter and they embraced and cried and made many complicated explanations and then they went on to their destinies together.

Moral: Stories begin and stories end, but life goes on.