Wonderwings and other Fairy Stories | Page 4

fear, she sank down among the rocks to rest, and waited there for what might come to her.
Strange rustlings sounded round the rocks, strange forms loomed close beside her, strange voices asked her: "What are you? Why come you to our haunts?" Though her heart was sick with dread she answered boldly in a firm clear voice. "Give me a magic mirror for my son, that he may learn to rule."
There was a flash, and the pool and all the rocks were lit by a light brighter and softer than that of moon or stars. All round her stood the beings who had loomed so strangely in the darkness. They were fairies, exquisite in shape and fineness, robed in flowing gossamer of many colours. They smiled at her, and touched her with their gentle hands, and immediately she was well. "Your love has brought you nobly through much fear and hurt," they said. "You shall have your due reward. Look into the Deeps."
[Illustration: She rose into the air a shining queen of fairies, holding in her hands a tiny gleaming mirror.]
One took her hand and led her to the edge, and the Queen-mother, fearless and smiling now, looked down into the fathomless water of the pool. As she gazed, ripples came upon its surface. They broke away into shining cascades of diamonds and pearls, and between them appeared the face and shoulders of the old woman of the road. "I have your magic mirror," she cried. "It is formed of the lowest teardrops of the Deeps."
She sprang out and trod the water to the shore, and as she went her rags fell from her and she rose into the air a shining queen of fairies, more beautiful than any other there, holding in her hand a tiny gleaming mirror. "Come," she said, "let us set it in its place."
She touched the Queen-mother's hand, and in a flash they were all at the palace, within the young king's sleeping chamber of turquoise and gold. There as he lay asleep the fairies set the mirror in its place with magic words, and as it touched the wall it lengthened out and widened till it stood as large as that of the young queen across the border line. Over the polished glass began to float the pictures of the country's life. "How can I show my gratitude?" the Queen-mother asked; but the fairies were gone.
Next morning when the little king awoke he ran to see the fine new mirror in his room. He gazed and gazed upon the strange entrancing pictures that came on it, and every day he spent long hours at the mirror. And as he learned to recognise the hardships and the sufferings of his people his heart grew hot to give relief, and he was no more haughty, but used his power to ease their woes. So in Eastroyal as in Westroyal there was content, and the people loved their king and praised him through all his days until the end. And all the kings who followed after him ruled wisely and were loved.
[Illustration]
[Illustration: "Look closely at my flowers," she said, "and tell me which you think most beautiful."]

Fairy Tenderheart.
Little Fairy Tenderheart was weeping. She sat on a ledge that overlooked the world, and her tears fell fast. In twos and threes her sisters flew from Fairyland to put their arms about her, but none could comfort her. "Come, dance and sing with us and forget your grief," they said. She shook her head. "The terrible fighting!" she said. "See where far below men rage, killing each other. Rivers run red with blood, and the sorrow of weeping women rises through the air to where I sit. How can I dance and sing?"
"It is the world at war," said an older fairy sadly. "I too have wept in earlier days when men have fought. But our tears are wasted, little sister. Come away."
Fairy Tenderheart looked eagerly at her. "You who have watched the world so many years," she said, "tell me why such dreadful deeds are done down there."
The older fairy bent her eyes on the blackened plains of earth. "I cannot tell you that," she slowly said. "We watch and pity, but we cannot know what works in the hearts of men that they should gather in their millions to destroy their brothers and themselves. No other creature turns on its own kind and kills so terribly as man."
[Illustration: In twos and threes her sisters flew from Fairyland to put their arms about her, but none could comfort her.]
"What can we do? It must be stopped. What can we do?"
"We can do nothing, little sister. See where the women of the world stretch out their hands, imploring men to live in peace. They beg the lives of fathers,