The windfairies, and other tales

by Mary De Morgan

When the miller came up to her, he was angry with her for being out on the grass instead of warm in bed, but Lucilla dared not tell him what had kept her, or say that she had been playing with windfairies.

Years passed, and Lucilla never saw the windfairies again, though she watched for them every night. She grew up to be a beautiful young woman, and her father was very proud of her. She was as tall and as lithe as a willow wand, and when she ran or danced it seemed as if she were as light as a feather blown in the wind. There were few people to see her, or tell her she was beautiful, for save the fisher folk who lived in little cottages on the beach, scarce anybody came to the downs. But all who saw her admired her beauty, and most of all her wonderful dancing. Sometimes she would go out on the downs, and dance and run there by herself, and her father would look at her and say: “Heaven help the maid! I don’t know whom she has learned it from, but I have never seen a dancer who can come nigh her.” Then sometimes she would go down to the sea-shore, and this she loved to do best of all, and there she would dance with the waves, and move with them as they slid up to her feet and drew back, and to those who watched, it seemed as if she and they were one together.

The time came when her father wished her to be married, and among the young fishermen and the country folk who came to the mill from the farms across the country, she had suitors enough, but always she said when a young man came to woo her, “First let me see how you can dance, for as dancing is the thing I love best in the world, it would be a pity that I and my husband should not be able to dance together,” and as none of them could dance as she did, she sent them all away, saying she would wait for a husband till she could find a man who could dance to her liking.

But one day there was a great storm, and a big ship was blown on to the shore close to the mill, and among the sailors was a young fellow with black curly hair and bright eyes and white teeth, and when he saw Lucilla, he said to himself, “I will wed that girl and take her home for my wife.” So one day as they sat on the downs together he begged her to marry him, and go back with him to his own land; he said he would give up going to sea, and would live with her in a little cottage and make their bread by fishing. Then Lucilla said, as she had said to all her other suitors, “First let me see how you can dance, for I will never marry any man who cannot dance with me.” The sailor swore he could dance as well as any man in the world, for all sailors can dance, he said, and they began to dance together on the downs. The sailor danced well and merrily, but Lucilla danced faster, and seemed as if she were made of feather-down; and then the sailor, seeing that his dancing was as nothing to hers, caught her by the waist, and held her still, crying, “My sweetheart, I cannot dance as you can, but my arms are strong enough to hold you still and keep you from dancing with any man but me.”

So Lucilla married the sailor, and went with him to live in his little cottage by the sea, many miles away from the mill, and as her father was growing old and no longer cared to work, he went with her too.

For some time the sailor and Lucilla lived together very happily, and they had two little children, and her husband fished and sold his fish, and often still, Lucilla would go down to the waves and dance with them as she had done in her old home. She tried to teach her little children to dance as she did, but they could not learn because the windfairies had never touched them. But one winter her husband’s boat was dashed to pieces, and the sea froze so that all the fish died, and they became so poor that they could barely get enough to eat. Then it chanced that a big ship came to the village where they lived, and the captain wanted men for a long journey, and her husband told Lucilla that he had best go with him, and then he would have enough money to buy another boat, and then next year they must hope for better luck. So Lucilla was left alone in the cottage with her father and her two little children, and she felt very lonely and sad without her husband, and often she thought of the mill and the windfairies, and when the wind blew, she would go down to the water’s edge and hold out her arms and pray them to take care of her husband’s ship, and bring it safe home again.

“Oh, kind windfairies,” she cried, “see, I have kept faith with you, so do you now keep faith with me, and do me no hurt.” And often she would dance by the edge of the waves, as she used to do in her old home, and think that the windfairies were dancing with her, and holding up her steps.

Now it chanced that one day, as Lucilla was dancing on the shore, there rode by two horsemen, and they stopped and watched her as she danced, with the waves coming close to her feet. Then they got down from their horses, and asked who she was, and where she had learned such dancing. She told them she was only the wife of a poor fisherman, but she had danced for long years, since she was a little child, when she had lived in a windmill, on the downs far away. They rode away, but next day they came again, and brought others with them, and begged Lucilla that she would go down to the water’s edge and dance with the waves as she had done yesterday. So she ran down the beach, and danced in time to the sea as it moved, and the strangers all applauded, and said to each other, “It is wonderful, it is marvellous.”

They then told her that they came from a country where the King loved nothing so much as beautiful dancing, and that he would give great sums of money to any one who danced well, and if she would go back with them to his court, and dance before the King, she should have a sack of gold to take home with her, and this would make her a rich woman, and her husband would never have need to work any more.

At first she refused, and said her husband was away, and would not know where she was gone, and she did not like to leave her two little children; but still the courtiers persuaded her, and said it would not be for long, and her father persuaded her too, since he said it would make them all rich if she brought home a sack of gold. So at last Lucilla agreed that she would go back with them to the King’s court and dance there, but she made them promise that before the spring came they would send her back to her own little cottage. On hearing this, the strangers were much delighted, and bid Lucilla make ready to start at once, and that night she said good-bye to her little ones, and left them, to go with the travellers. Her eyes were red with crying at leaving her home, and before she started, she went out alone on to the cliffs, and stretched out her arms, and called to the windfairies to go with her and help her, for she feared what she was going to do, and she begged them to be true to her, as she had been true to them.