“I have but just brought hither, Pyrrha. And the queen would speak with thee, dear Prince.”
When aboard, the prince with Æole, hastened beneath the awning where sat the queen and Pyrrha. Then talked lovingly, consolingly, these two women who had known so much of sorrow. Long, with Æole’s hand in his, sat the prince—to watch the gruesome hills, the floating timbers. And finally he said:
“Deucalion, on the morrow, will we go where my father and mother are laid. Then for my duty to Pelasgia.”
After King Pelasgus had knelt beside the tomb of his parents, he repaired with Deucalion to Thessaly, which had been undisturbed by the flood. In his beloved Larissa, Deucalion was joyously welcomed; and the king was hailed with loving fealty. Though, only for a little, could King Pelasgus tarry with Æole, as for a brief season, he must return to the port, which was already rebuilding.
Deucalion’s Thessalian compatriots would have accorded him godlike honors upon learning of his adventures, his successes; and hard he found it to convince them he was but mortal. As to Pyrrha, they had always adored her. She was their goddess, indeed.
Here, in Thessaly, the ardent Hellen speedily married Electra. Here, in Thessaly, King Pelasgus won his bride. Here continued Queen Atlana and Pyrrha in sisterly devotion, death parting them but a brief spell when advanced in years, Atlana going first. Here, the polished Atlanteans introduced their language, arts, and ancient purity of religion—a few generations later finding the two races merged in the cultured Hellenes, and speaking a tongue, the Æolic, very different from either Atlantean or Pelasgian. Indeed, this Æolic may be said to bear the same relation to the Pelasgian that English does to the Anglo-Saxon; and it, in turn, has colored the various dialects of Greece since existing.
Here, in Thessaly, Deucalion continued chief among his countrymen; and finally became their king at behest of King Pelasgus. Here to himself and Pyrrha was born another son, the hero Amphictyon and the originator of the famous Amphictyonic Council that so long held the Greek tribes together in a bond surviving even their independence. Here, Hellen succeeded his father; and from him sprang that great race of the Hellenes that gave Greece its ancient name of Hellas.
Here were born Hellen’s sons, Æolus, Doris, and Xuthus; and Xuthus’ sons, Ion and Achæus. Here, Æolus was king after Hellen; and from here spread his descendants over Central Greece as far as the Isthmus of Corinth, even occupying the western coast of the Peloponnesus. From this central region branched the great divisions of the Hellenic race, the Dorians, the Æolians, the Ionians, and the Achæans.
King Pelasgus missed not the portion of his kingdom given over to Deucalion—for his also, was the mighty spiritual kingdom of love; and Æole was its queen as well as queen of the natural kingdom. The mighty kingdom was theirs for eternity. Over the natural, they reigned long and well, ever furthering the progress of the Atlantean industries.