Book: The Eternal Maiden

T >> T. Everett Harre >> The Eternal Maiden




Gazing at the low-lying sun, veiled as in a vapor of tears, remote, and
sadly golden in its self-destined isolation, an instinctive
wild-world-understanding of that tragedy of all life, of all the
universe perchance--of that unselfish love that is too often denied and
the unhappy love that accents only too late--vaguely filled her
primitive heart.

Sinking to her knees, convulsed sobs shaking her, she wrung her hands
toward the sun, the eternal maiden _Sukh-eh-nukh_, the beautiful, the
all-desired.

"_I-o-h-h-h_!" she moaned, and her voice sobbed its pathos over the
seas. "_I-o-h-h-h! I-o-h-h-h! I-o-h-h-h, Sukh-eh-nukh! I-o-o-h-h,
Sukh-eh-nukh_! Unhappy sun--unhappy sun! _I-o-o-h-h-h-h_, Annadoah!
_I-o-o-o-h-h-h-h_, Annadoah! Unhappy, unhappy Annadoah!"

Annadoah's head sank lower and lower. Her weeping voice melted in the
melancholy sobbing of the aureate sea. One by one the natives
departed. She was left alone. To the north the sky darkened with one
of those sudden arctic storms which come, as in a moment's space, and
blast the tender flowers of spring. A cold wind moaned a pitiless
lament from the interior mountains. Yellow vapors gathered about the
dimming sun. Ominous shadows took form on the shimmering sea.

"_I-o-h-h-h--iooh_! Unhappy sun--unhappy, unhappy Annadoah!"

Taking fire in the subdued sunlight--and descending from heaven like a
gentle benediction of feathery flakes of gold--over and about the dark,
crouched figure, softly . . . very softly . . . the snow began to fall.



[1] Annadoah's flight, extraordinary as it is, is not without even more
remarkable precedents. In one case a woman who had been rejected by
her husband made a forty-mile journey during winter to a spot south of
her village where a child, some years before, had been buried. There
the woman wept and thus consoled herself. Having exhausted her grief,
she returned to her people. On the trip she had no food whatever.

[2] _Nerrvik_, a beautiful maiden, according to the legend, married a
storm-petrel who had disguised himself as a man. When she discovered
the deception she was filled with horror, so that later, when her
relatives visited her, she determined to escape with them. When the
petrel returned from a hunting trip and discovered that his wife had
gone, he followed, and flapping his great wings raised a terrible storm
at sea. Water filled the boat in which _Nerrvik_ was escaping. When
they realized that _Nerrvik_ was the cause of the storm her brothers
cast her into the sea. With one hand she clung to the boat; her
grandfather lifted his knife and struck. _Nerrvik_ descended into the
ocean and became the queen of the fishes. Possessing only one hand she
cannot plait her hair. A magician who can go to _Nerrvik_ in a trance
and arrange her tresses wins her gratitude and can secure from her for
the hunters quantities of fish. It is interesting to note the
similarity of the legend of _Nerrvik_ to that of Jonah. But just as
the Eskimos have changed the masculine sun of southern mythologies to
the feminine, so the victim of the mythological sea storm in the arctic
becomes a woman.



FINALE

_According to the legends of the tribes, not for many long and aching
ages shall the melancholy moon win the radiant but desolate
Sukh-eh-nukh. For having refused love she is compelled to flee in her
elected lot from the love she now desires but which she once denied,
and this by a fate more relentless than the power of Perdlugssuaq, a
fate which they do not comprehend, but which is, perchance, the Will of
Him Whose Voice sometimes comes as a strange whistling singing in the
boreal lights, and Who, to the creatures of His making, teaches the
lessons of life through the sorrows which result from the acts of their
own choosing . . . Sometime--when, they do not know--the sun and moon
will meet. They will then, having endured loneliness and long
yearning, be immeasurably happy, and in the consummation of their
desire all mankind will share . . . For as ultimate darkness closes,
all who have been true to the highest ideals of the chase will be
lifted into celestial hunting grounds, where no one is ever hungry nor
where is it ever cold; all who have done noble deeds will be hailed as
celestial heroes. He who died to save another will attain immortal
life; he who gave of his substance to feed the starving will find
ineffable food and in abundance; he who loved greatly, who suffered
rejection uncomplainingly, and who sought untiringly--even as the moon
pursued Sukh-eh-nukh for ages--will, in that land where the heart never
aches and where there are no tears, see the very fair face of his
beloved smiling a divine welcome, and her eyes filled with a radiant
response, gazing into his own. The end of the world will come, and
with it will cease the suffering struggles of all the world's races.
And then all the highest hopes of men will find their realisation in an
undreamed-of heaven to which all who have lived without cowardice,
ingratitude or taint of selfishness in their hearts, will be translated
as the world's last aurora closes its mystic veils in the northern
skies._

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