I
FISHERMAN PLUNK was sick and tired of his miserable life. He lived alone by the desolate sea-shore, and every day he caught fish with a bone hook, because they didn’t know about nets in those parts at that time. And how much fish can you catch with a hook, anyhow?
“What a dog’s life it is, to be sure!” cried Plunk to himself. “What I catch in the morning I eat up at night, and there’s no joy for me in this world at all, at all.”
And then Plunk heard that there were also rich sheriffs in the land, and men of great power and might, who lived in luxury and comfort, lapped in gold and fed on truffles. Then Plunk fell a-thinking how he too might come to look upon such riches and live in the midst of them. So he made up his mind that for three whole days he would sit still in his boat on the sea and not take any fish at all, but see if that spell would help him.
So Plunk sat for three days and nights in his boat on the face of the sea—three days he sat there, three days he fasted, for three days he caught no fish. When the third day began to dawn, lo and behold, a silver boat arose from the sea—a silver boat with golden oars—and in the boat, fair as a king’s daughter, stood the Pale Dawn-Maiden.
“For three days you have spared my little fishes’ lives,” said the Dawn-Maiden, “and now tell me what you would like me to do for you?”
“Help me out of this miserable and dreary life. Here am I all day long slaving away in this desolate place. What I catch during the day I eat up at night, and there is no joy for me in the world at all, at all,” said Plunk.
“Go home,” said the Dawn-Maiden, “and you will find what you need.” And as she spoke, she sank in the sea, silver boat and all.
Plunk hurried back to the shore and then home. When he came to the house, a poor orphan girl came out to meet him, all weary with the long tramp across the hills. The girl said: “My mother is dead, and I am all alone in the world. Take me for your wife, Plunk.”
Plunk hardly knew what to do. “Is this the good fortune which the Dawn-Maiden has sent me?” Plunk could see that the girl was just a poor body like himself; on the other hand, he was afraid of making a mistake and turning away his luck. So he consented, and took the poor girl to be his wife; and she, being very tired, lay down and slept till the morning.
Plunk could scarcely await the next day for wondering how his good fortune would show itself. But nothing happened that day except that Plunk took his hook and went out fishing, and the Woman went up the hill to gather wild spinach. Plunk came home at night, and so did the Woman, and they supped upon fish and wild spinach. “Eh, if that is all the good luck there is to it, I could just as well have done without,” thought Plunk.
As the evening wore on, the Woman sat down beside Plunk to tell him stories, to wile away the time for him. She told him about nabobs and kings’ castles, about dragons that watch treasure-hoards, and kings’ daughters who sow their gardens with pearls and reap gems. Plunk listened, and his heart within him began to sing for joy. Plunk forgot that he was poor; he could have sat and listened to her for three years together. But Plunk was still better pleased when he considered: “She is a fairy wife. She can show me the way to the dragons’ hoards or the kings’ gardens. I need only be patient and not make her angry.”
So Plunk waited; and day after day went by, a year went by, two years passed. A little son was born to them; they called him little Winpeace. Yet all went on as usual. Plunk caught fish, and his wife gathered wild spinach in the mountains. In the evening she cooked the supper, and after supper she rocked the baby and told Plunk stories. Her stories grew prettier and prettier, and Plunk found it harder and harder to wait, till at last, one evening, he had had enough of it; and just as his wife was telling him about the immense treasures of the Sea King, Plunk jumped up in a rage, shook her by the arm and cried:
“I tell you I’ll wait no longer. To-morrow in the morning you shall take me down to the Sea King’s Castle!”
The Woman was quite frightened when Plunk jumped up like that. She told him that she did not know where the Sea King had his Castle; but Plunk began to beat his poor wife most unmercifully, and threatened to kill her unless she told him her fairy secret.
Then the poor girl understood that Plunk had taken her for a fairy. She burst into tears and cried:
“Truly I am no fairy, but a poor orphan girl who knows no spells nor magic. And for the tales I have told you, I had them from my own heart to beguile your weariness.”
Now this only put Plunk all the more in a rage, because he had lived in a fool’s paradise for over two years; and he angrily bade the Woman go away next morning ere dawn with the child, along the sea-shore to the right-hand side, and he, Plunk, would go to the left, and she was not to come back again till she had found the way to the Sea King’s Castle.
When the dawn came, the Woman wept and begged Plunk not to send her away. “Who knows where one of us may be destroyed on this desolate sea-shore?” said she. But Plunk fell upon her again, so that she took up her child and went away crying whither her husband had bidden her. And Plunk went off in the opposite direction.
So the Woman went on with her baby, little Winpeace. She went on for a week; she went on for a fortnight, and nowhere did she find the way to the Sea King. She grew so terribly tired that one day she fell asleep on a stone beside the sea. When she woke up, her baby was gone—her little Winpeace.
Her grief was so great that the tears froze fast in her heart, and not a word could she speak for sorrow, but became dumb from that hour.
So the poor dumb creature wandered back along the sea-shore and home. And next day Plunk came home, too. He had not found the way to the Sea King, and he came back disappointed and cross.
When he got home, there was no baby Winpeace, and his wife had gone dumb. She could not tell him what had happened, but was all haggard with the great trouble.
And so it was with them from that day forward. The Woman neither wept nor complained, but did her housework and waited upon Plunk in silence; and the house was still and quiet as the grave. For some time Plunk stood it, but in the end he got thoroughly weary. He had just felt almost sure of the Sea King’s treasure, and lo! all this trouble and worry had come upon him.
So Plunk made up his mind to try his sea-spell once more. Again for three whole days he sat in his boat on the sea, for three days he fasted, for three days he caught no fish. At the third day, at daybreak, the Dawn-Maiden arose before him.
Plunk told her what had happened, and complained bitterly.
“I’m worse off than ever before. The baby is gone, the wife is dumb, and my house dreary as the grave, and I’m just about bursting with trouble.”
To this the Dawn-Maiden said never a word, but just asked Plunk a question:
“What do you want? I will help you just this once more.”
But Plunk was such a zany that he couldn’t think of anything else but just this, that he was set on seeing and enjoying the Sea King’s treasure; and so he didn’t wish for his child back again, or that his wife should regain the power of speech, but he begged the Dawn-Maiden:
“Fair Dawn-Maiden,” said he, “show me the way to the Sea King.”
And again the Dawn-Maiden said nothing, but very kindly set Plunk on his way:
“When day dawns at the next New Moon, get into your boat, wait for the wind, and then drift eastward with the wind. The wind will carry you to the Isle Bountiful, to the stone Gold-a-Fire. And there I shall be waiting for you to show you the way to the Sea King.”
Plunk went joyfully home.
When it was about the New Moon (but he never told his wife anything) he went out at the streak of dawn, got into his boat, waited for the wind, and let the wind carry him away toward the east.
The wind caught the boat and carried it along to the Unknown Sea, to the Isle Bountiful. Like a green garden the fruitful island floats upon the sea. The grass grows rank, and the meadows lush, the vines are full of grapes and the almondtrees pink with blossom. In the midst of the island there is precious stone, the white blazing stone Gold-a-Fire. One half of the stone sheds its glow upon the island, and the other half lights up the sea under the island. And there on the Isle Bountiful, on the stone Gold-a-Fire, sits the Dawn-Maiden.
Very kindly did the Dawn-Maiden receive Plunk, very kindly she set him on his way. She showed him a mill-wheel drifting on the sea towards the island, and the mermaids dancing in a ring around the wheel. Then she told him—always very kindly—how he must ask the mill-wheel politely to take him down to the Sea King and not let the Dark Deeps of the Sea swallow him.
Last of all the Dawn-Maiden said:
“Great store of gold and treasure will you enjoy in the Sea King’s domain. But mark—to earth you cannot return, for three terrible watchers bar the way. One troubles the waves, the second raises the storm, and the third wields the lightning.”
But Plunk was happy as a grig in his boat as he paddled towards the mill-wheel, and thought to himself:
“It’s easy to see, fair Dawn-Maiden, that you’ve never known want in this world. I shan’t hanker back after this earth, where I’m leaving nothing but ill-luck behind!”
So he paddled up to the mill-wheel, where round the mill-wheel the mermaids were playing their foolish games. They dived and chased each other through the water; their long hair floated on the waves, their silver fins glittered, and their red lips smiled. And they sat on the mill-wheel and made the sea all foamy around it.
The boat reached the mill-wheel, and Plunk did as the Dawn-Maiden had told him. He held his paddle aloft so that the Dark Deeps should not swallow him, and he politely asked the mill-wheel:
“Round wheel giddy-go-round, please take me down, either to the Dead Dark Deep or to the Sea King’s Palace.”
As Plunk said this, the mermaids came swishing along like so many silver fish, swarmed round the mill-wheel, seized the spokes in their snowy hands, and began to turn the wheel—swiftly, giddily.
An eddy formed in the sea—a fierce eddy, a terrible whirlpool. The whirlpool caught Plunk; it swept him round like a twig, and sucked him down to the Sea King’s fastness.
Plunk’s ears were still ringing with the swirl of the sea and the mermaids’ silly laughter when he suddenly found himself sitting on beautiful sand—fine sand of pure gold.
Plunk looked round and cried out: “Ho, there’s a wonder for you! A whole field of golden sand.”
Now what Plunk had taken to be a big field was only the great Hall of the Sea King. Round the Hall stood the sea like a marble wall, and above the Hall hung the sea, like a glass dome. Down from the stone Gold-a-Fire streamed a bluish glare, livid and pale as moonlight. From the ceiling hung festoons of pearls, and on the floor below stood tables of coral.
And at the end—the far end, where slender pipes were piping and tiny bells tinkling—there lazed and lounged the Sea King himself; he stretched his limbs on the golden sand, raising only his great bullock’s head, beside him a coral table, and behind him a golden hedge.
What with the quick, shrill music of the pipes, the tinkling of the bells, and the sheen and glimmer all around him, Plunk wouldn’t have believed there could be so much pleasure or wealth in the world!
Plunk went clean mad for pure joy—joy went to his head like strong wine; his heart sang; he clapped his hands; he skipped about the golden sand like a frolicsome child; he turned head over heels once, twice, and again—just like a jolly boy.
Now this amused the Sea King vastly. For the Sea King’s feet are heavy—far too heavy—and his great bullock’s head is heavier still. The Sea King guffawed as he lounged on the golden sand; he laughed so heartily that the golden sand blew up all round him.
“You’re fine and light on your feet, my boy,” said the Sea King, and he reached up and pulled down a branch of pearls and gave it to Plunk. And then the Sea King ordered the Under Seas Fairies to bring choice viands and honeyed drink in golden vessels. And Plunk had leave to sit beside the Sea King at the coral table, and surely that was a great honour!
When Plunk had dined, the Sea King asked him:
“Is there anything else you would like, my man?”
Now what should a poor man ask for, who had never known what it is to have a good time? But Plunk was hungry from his long journey, and he had made but a poor meal of it off the choice viands and the honeyed drinks. So he said to the Sea King:
“Just as you were saying that, O King of the Sea, I was wishing that I had a good helping of boiled wild spinach.”
The Sea King was rather surprised, but he recovered himself quickly, laughed and said to Plunk:
“Eh, brother of mine, wild spinach is very dear down here, dearer than pearls and mother-o’-pearl, because it’s a long way from here to the place where it grows. But since you have just asked for it, I will send a Foam Fairy to bring you some from the land where the wild spinach grows. But you must turn three more coach-wheels for me.”
As Plunk was already in the best of humours he didn’t find that hard either. Lightly he leapt to his feet, and quickly they all flocked round him, the mermaids and the tiny folk in the Palace, and all for to see that wonder!
Plunk took a run over the golden sand, turned a beautiful coach-wheel, then a second and a third, light as a squirrel, and the Sea King and all the tiny folk rocked with laughter at such cunning.
But heartiest of all laughed a little baby, and that was the little King whom the mermaids themselves had crowned King for fun and idle sport. The wee baby was sitting up in a golden cradle. His little shirt was of silk, the cradle was hung with tiny bells of pearl, and in his hands the child held a golden apple.
While Plunk was turning coach-wheels and the little King laughed so heartily, Plunk looked round at him. He looked at the little King, and then—Plunk started. It was his own baby boy, little Winpeace.
Well, Plunk was suddenly disgusted. He would never have guessed that he would grow sick of it so soon.
Plunk frowned; he was angry, and when he had got over his shock a bit he thought:
“Look at him, the urchin, how he’s got on, lording it here in idleness and sport, and his mother at home gone dumb with grieving!”
Plunk was vexed; he hated seeing himself or the child in this Palace; yet he dared not say a word, lest they should part him from the boy. So he made himself the servant of his son, of little Winpeace, and thought to himself: “Perhaps I shall be left alone with him sometimes. Then I will remind the boy of his Father and Mother; I will run away with him; I will carry off the little brat and go back with him to his mother.”
So thought Plunk, and one fine day, when he happened to be alone with the little King, he whispered to the child: “Come along, my boy; let’s run away with father.”
But Winpeace was only a baby, and what with living so long under the sea, he had quite forgotten his father. He laughed; the little King laughed. He thought: “Plunk is making fun,” and he kicked Plunk with his little foot.
“You are not my father; you are the silly-billy who turns head over heels before the Sea King.”
That stung Plunk to the heart, so that he well-nigh died with the pain of it. He went out and wept for sheer bitter sorrow. All the Sea King’s attendants gathered round him and said one to the other:
“Well, well, he must have been a great lord on earth, to weep amid such splendours.”
“Upon my soul,” cried Plunk wrathfully, “I was the same as your Sea King here. I had a son who tugged my beard, a wife who showed me marvels, and wild spinach, brothers, as much as you want—and no need to turn coach-wheels before anybody either.”
The sea-folk marvelled at such magnificence, and left Plunk to mourn his lost greatness. But Plunk went on serving the little King. He did all he could to please the boy, thinking: “I shall get him somehow to run away with me.” But the little King grew sillier and more wayward every day; the days passed, and every day the child only thought Plunk more than ever a zany.