"I'll marry you, my prince," she answered, "for I do love you truly. Our feather mantles which have so nobly served us in the past shall be our wedding robes; the birds our royal choristers; the birches tall our stately chapel walls, and the blue sky above all, glowing with the Golden Sun, shall be our ceiling. Your good eagle and my good Reynard shall stand beside us and let all folk both high and low be bidden to our feast to wish us joy and happiness."
All things were done as Maiden Matanuska ordered, and they were married on that very day. A royal feast was made, and sports and games were set; indeed there was a holiday that lasted forty days. The Sun was bidden to attend, and so well pleased was he that he stayed in the sky above the Northland Kingdom and set not once until the forty days had passed, and all that time was burning daylight.
Then, when the holiday was done at last, the Sun took leave. "Farewell, all folk, and you good king and queen," said he. "And though night come when I have turned my face from you, fear not. For in the morning I will come again and bring with me the light of day." Which thing he did.
And from that time the Northland Kingdom was no more a land of darkness and of gloom. The overhanging mists returned no more, and when 't was night, the Moon and Stars shone softly down. The Sun his face turned toward there every day, and though his beams were pale and wan when he was in the Southland, he stayed each summer forty days and nights and set not once; which custom he continues to this very day.
Prince Kenai and the Maiden Matanuska reigned many years and were beloved by all their subjects. Though scores of years passed, by virtue of their feather mantles they were always young and fair as on the day they wore them first. Indeed, 'tis said they never died, though folk who dwell still in the Northland Kingdom differ as to what became of them. Some say that when Prince Kenai and Maiden Matanuska grew weary of this life at last, they wrapped their feather mantles round them, and borne upon the eagle's wings, set off to visit at the mansion of the Sun. But other folk declare that on dark misty nights a pair resembling them are often seen to wander through the dim aisles of a certain birchen forest where the silver foxes are found.
CHAPTER III
THE LITTLE TREE THAT NEVER GREW UP
Long, long ago, when the world was very young, so young that the flowers and trees and grasses had voices and talked with each other, or sang with the breezes that blew softly around them, there lived in the midst of a forest a very little tree.