The Little Lake Without a Name II- The Fair Maiden

Beauty and magic are in all things.
To see them takes a pure heart
and a willingness to look at life as we wish it to be.

Once upon a time, in a land far, far away, there lived a beautiful Princess named Anna.

Princess Anna was also unhappy.

“But, Mother! They came to see ME!” she said. “I have to be there. They came so far!”

“Hush, dear,” Queen Hasmik said softly and she had so many times before, “You know you must stay inside for a while longer. They will understand.”

”But..”

“No, Dear, Not yet.”

It was the same argument and it ended the same way as the dozens of others before it, just as the young Princess knew it would. Still, she had to try as she did every day. The Princess knew the outcome because the Queen never, never changed her mind once it was made up.

“The Queen is always right,” the people said.

In fact, those words were carved in the large stone above the main gate to Castle Aramy so that all would remember. Even school children in the far corners of the Kingdom of Hasmik and Roland knew that the Queen was always right.

“Now, what would the Queen say?” their teachers would ask them to be sure they gave a thoughtful answer to a question. To give a wrong answer to such a question brought laughter from their classmates because everyone knew the Queen would have answered correctly.

Even the Princess knew the Queen was always right.

There were rumors that even the King himself was heard to occasionally say, “The Queen is always right. The Queen is always right,” softly to himself and slowly shake his head from side to side after a discussion with Her Majesty.

So Princess Anna did not expect to be able to attend the special Olympic Fair games later in the day. She knew she would get tired before the hours-long event was over and secretly didn’t feel like going for the whole event but she still wanted to see the pageantry and costumes up close. She loved celebrations and dancing and singing.

From her sixth story window in the north tower of Castle Aramy, the Princess could see the clearing two kilometers away where the participants were gathering. It was the place nearest to the castle that was large enough for them to gather and the place was chosen so the Princess could see them from the castle’s north tower. The colorful tents and banners could be seen in the bright morning sunlight and the sight filled the Princess with joy to think that it was all done for her.

They had come from all over the world to compete in her honor. From over 60 cities in more than 20 countries they had come. Once word of the competition spread, citizens of the Kingdom stopped what they were doing and returned to their ancestral land of Hasmik and Roland. Winning would be wonderful and would bring great fame, but he best reward was that after the competition, the winner would be able to visit Castle Aramy and meet the Princess!

Only the most fair could win. She would be the envy of the diaspora for actually being in the presence of the Fair Maiden in the Castle! What a wonderful experience that would be!

Who would be the Most Fair?

Princess Anna’s room was on the north side of the castle tower and the direct sunlight never shined in her window. So - even though the Kingdom of Hasmik and Roland has more than its share of sunlight - the Princess never could feel the warm rays on her face. After the weeks of rest in her very comfortable room she became very pale as the days passed.

Princess Anna had not left the north tower for days and days and days. It seemed to her that her whole life had been spent locked up in the tower. Well, she was not exactly locked up but with the Queen saying that she had to stay, that was even better than a lock. Even visitors to the castle told her she must stay and they would not help her go outdoors.

“The Queen said you have to stay indoors and rest,” they told her gently. “Run along now.” And that was that.

Over time, the princess had become pale from lack of sunlight and her skin became very fair indeed.
Her beautiful, smooth skin was very, very pale. Almost as if by magic, she became even more beautiful as the color left by the sunlight faded. No one had seen a maiden more fair than the Princess. Stories about the fair maiden in the tower began to be heard outside the castle and were respectfully repeated and told to young girls as bedtime stories.

“Once upon a time, there was a very beautiful fair maiden who lived in a castle tower...” they all began. Everyone in the Kingdom loved their Princess.

Recovering from her illness had been long and hard for the Princess. She had been feeling very healthy and then her health had suddenly declined and she became weaker and weaker as time passed. Everyone was puzzled by her strange weakness. The Princess was no longer happy and could not move from her bed. Her laughter stopped and everyone began to worry because they knew the Princess had always been happy and laughed easily.

Finally, a trusted physician of the royal court was called to examine the Princess. He looked at the Princess and then at the Queen and declared that he would make the Princess better.

However, the physician did not have the skills he pretended to have and, in so failing his responsibility, the Princess became more gravely ill than she had ever been, and the beautiful young girl lay very quiet and still.

The beautiful Princess was very, very ill indeed.

King Roland asked the best physicians in the kingdom to advise him. Among themselves, the physicians selected the very best to journey to the Castle Aramy to try and heal their Princess.

King Roland’s next decree was to banish from Castle Aramy the physician who had harmed the Princess with his lack of skills and to declare to all that he could no longer be a physician. Instead, it was decreed that the man would cut up fish in the public market and no longer pretend to be a physician. Later, when the story became known throughout the Kingdom, the King’s loyal subjects thought the physician had received a very easy punishment, for they worried about their princess. They went to the market and bought fish from the man and always complained loudly about the poor manner in which the fish were cut.

“A real fish vendor could do a better job,” they would say.

The poor man suffered for many years because he had loved the Princess, too, and felt very badly for the harm he had caused. No one would listen to him so he suffered in silence as he cut up fish.

In later years, when school children gave a particularly poor explanation to a question, the teacher would ask, “Well, I wonder who cut up that fish?” The other students would laugh hard because they all knew the story of The Physician with Ten Thumbs.

In Castle Aramy, it had been a very difficult and very dark time.

Everyone throughout the Kingdom had been worried about the Princess although none but the physicians and the King and Queen knew how ill she was, and none knew what was wrong.

“Have you seen the Princess?” People would ask one another. “She has not been seen for weeks.” they would say.

“I heard she was very ill” someone else said.

“Surely that cannot be true,” came the reply. “She is far too beautiful to ever be ill. You must be mistaken.” The Princess was indeed beautiful and so very few believed the rumors.

“Perhaps she has secretly gone to visit her lake in the far, far-away land.” they said.

Of course! That must be why she was not seen. She was away visiting her lake in the far, far away land.

And the rumors about the princess being ill stopped because no one believed them. Hasmik and Roland was a good kingdom and the people cared about the King and his family.

But the Princess was indeed very, very ill and it took the skill of the kingdom’s best physicians to cure her. Queen Hasmik had quickly returned from a voyage and had remained at the bedside of her youngest daughter, barely leaving to eat and even sleeping as she sat next to the Princess.

The physicians did all they could. They were good men who could not bear seeing the young Princess so ill and they used all their skill to make her better.

The Princess lay in a very deep sleep.

King Roland was worried, too. After all, everyone said the Princess looked like him and he loved her just as much as the Queen did. The King helped as he could but running the kingdom was important and he could not let his subjects know how worried he and the Queen were because that would upset the population and he could not allow that. Instead, he had to pretend that all was well and that was very, very hard for him.

Being a King is not easy at all sometimes. Especially being a really good King, as was Roland.

Only one other person was allowed to attend the Princess when she was ill: the young and very handsome sorcerer, Varouj, Master of Herbs.

Varouj was a young man but already was a master chemist who had a special understanding of the uses of plants and magic potions and was skilled far beyond his years. He had recently been made a member of The Guild of Sorcerers and had joined them to discover a new medicine that would cure millions of people all over the world. When it was perfected, they would name the wonder medicine Rolandium, after their King.

The Queen had asked Varouj to come and attend to the Princess. Queens have a special insight that kings often do not.

And, of course, the first time Varouj saw the beautiful Princess, he fell in love with her. It could not have been any other way.

Varouj came to see the Princess and visited her every day. As a sorcerer, holding her hand was the most powerful medicine he had, and through that he worked his healing magic. As he held her hand he used a magic spell to extend a path through his hand into her consciousness to make connection to her. As she lay in her deep sleep and with his help and constant attention, the Princess became focused and understood that she must help herself get better.

Very deep in the dark world of the deep sleep where the Princess’ awareness had fallen, she heard voices calling her and giving her something to focus on and to keep her from drifting any farther into the dark abyss.

The strongest voices were of the King and Queen. Their voices made her comfortable and filled with the peace she needed to listen, although she was not aware that she was listening.

The princess also heard two other voices: one very close and appearing to the Princess as a long, white rope that descended into the blackness as if to lead her somewhere. How curious it was that the long rope also felt like a voice and a touch at the same time!

The other voice was far, far away and was like the echo of a voice from the past. The voice seemed to say to her “Please! You must stop going lower. There is no reason now and you have to stop going lower. We cannot live without you.”

The princess began remembering fish and turtles and the sound ducks made when eating. Those memories were not connected to anything in her dream but were like echoes of voices in her past. Then, she remembered blue and white birds and even imagined they were talking among themselves.

And then she remembered sunlight on smooth water and on her face and how wonderful those things were. It was a magic time she was remembering because the birds did talk among themselves and the turtles thought she was interesting. She remembered that the ripples on a little lake sounded as if the lake were whispering to her. As she lay, deeply asleep, she began to think about the little lake and how special being there had been.

The Princess heard the remembered voices and her energy suddenly stopped draining from her and she imagined that she was reaching out to grasp the white rope that seemed to appear from nowhere, although it was hanging there in front of her. She held on to the magic rope and was surrounded by peace and could feel a change inside; a change that made her stop feeling weak and afraid. She suddenly realized how badly she had felt and now that she held the rope tightly, she could regain her energy and would get well.

Varouj and the four physicians in the north tower room were very skilled and could tell that there had been a sudden change in the princess and that she would get well. Still in secret and unknown to the subjects throughout the kingdom, the Princess began to heal.

The Princess felt very much better the next day, but was still weak. Even a beautiful princess must recover after being in a deep, dark, scary place

“Dear, you must stay indoors and regain your strength,” the Queen told her. “I will tell the people of Hasmik and Roland that you are in the north tower and are learning the language of a far, far-away country. That will be true and they will not worry.”

“But, my friends...”

“...Will understand that you are busy. The magic Web machine in your room has millions of books and is a window to other worlds. You are better now, so begin learning,” the wise Queen told her. “You can fill your time with learning new things while you regain your strength,” Queen Hasmik said as she motioned and held up her hand slightly, out of the princess’ vision. Two village women came in, one with a bowl of very large, beautiful strawberries from her small farm, and the other with a basket of home-made honey cakes.

Varouj visited every day. His powerful natural, herbs made the Princess quickly regain her strength. The Princess came to love him, too. It could not have been any other way.

King Roland let the people know that Princess Anna had recovered and was now a student.

Passers-by could often see the Princess looking down from her window. They would wave to her and she would wave to them, making them very happy that the Princess saw them and took the trouble to wave. That made them feel special and their friends envied them.

“Have you seen how pale the Princess is?” they would ask.

“I have never seen a princess as fair or as beautiful.” they added.

“I want to be fair, too.” One pretty milk maid said.

“I do, too.” said a young shopkeeper. “I will stay out of the sun until I am very fair and then I will be beautiful.”

“My skin is already fair.” said a student who was suddenly very proud of herself for being fair and a student.

Throughout the kingdom, everyone wanted to be fair of skin. Women began wearing hats and covered their faces and using cremes and potions and magic spells to make themselves fair.

Not to be outdone, men began studying the language of the far, far away land. However - as men are known to do - they learned the more colorful words first. Imagine the prestige of being able to shout “slagnabbit!” when something went wrong! They did not know what it meant but it sounded appropriate and made them happy. Everyone tried to use words the others did not know.

People began to visit Castle Aramy in hopes of seeing the fair Princess.

Hundreds of people came. Even more on Sundays after church. They brought picnic lunches and sat on the grass across from the north tower to see her.

Princess Anna would hear the respectful murmurs from her subjects and would go to the window and wave to them.

“Hello, Princess!” they shouted in return. “We love you!”

Because everyone did.

Days passed.

Princess Anna was unhappy. She stood looking out the tower window and looking at the long shadow cast by the tower in which she lived.

“But, Mother! They came to see ME!” she said. “I have to go outdoors. They came so far and I feel much better!”

“No, Dear. Just wave to them. That will be enough for now,” Queen Hasmik said.

“Yuck!” the Princess said, using her favorite word from her new language of the far, far-away country. “I'm not only pale, but soon I'll start decaying! I WANT TO GO OUTSIDE!!!!!!! NO MATTER WHERE.... JUST OUTSIDE!!”

“Not yet,” said the Queen softly.

Over the days and weeks more and more people heard about the fair skin of the beautiful Princess and someone had the idea of convening a special Olympics to select the Most Fair among them. People would come from far and wide to show their respect for the young Princess and to join others of their kind in selecting the most fashionable and fair among them. It would be great fun.

The pageant was a good idea because parents were tired of having their daughters underfoot all the time and wanted them to go outdoors and stop growing like mushrooms in a dark cave. “You are fair enough! Now go out and milk the cows,” the milkmaid was told yet again by her father.

“Being fair is fine for the Princess, but you are NOT a princess and you must go to your job in the shop.”

“...and wash that flour from your face!” another young girl heard as she left home that morning.

And so it went all over the kingdom and in at least 20 other countries. Suddenly, being fair was what everyone wanted. Some went to extremes but most just stayed indoors as much as possible. Almost no one went to the seashore and outdoor events were attended by males only.

The most popular name for newborn girls was - of course – “Fair.”

Young girls who were once considered sickly and pale were now the most popular and were in great demand to attend parties and they now felt much better about themselves. There were many marriages for those girls who were suddenly in great demand.

And the special Olympic was a great success! The diaspora returned to the Kingdom of Hasmik and Roland and the celebration was held to honor the Princess. The pageantry of color with the horses and jugglers and acrobats and feats of great strength lasted all day. Later - after the orange sun went down behind the great mountains in the west, the contests to select the Fair Maiden began. Hundreds of the most fair young women in the world competed and the very first gold medal for fairness was given to a previously obscure young girl from New South Wales in the land of Australia.

The Fair Maiden’s name was Zara and she spent the next day in Castle Aramy, talking with the beautiful Princess Anna.

During the day while Zara met with the Princess, over two hundred baby girls were born all over the Earth and were named Zara. Over the next few weeks, most girl babies were named Anna, Zara or Fair, leading to much confusion in the schools seven years later.

Then the new babies were named Annafair and Zarafair. It was a wonderful time and everyone in the Kingdom was happy.

Princess Anna enjoyed the visit with Zara and loved Zara’s strange accent and stories of kangaroos and wallabies. They talked for hours. Later, the Queen allowed Princess Anna to walk through Castle Aramy! That evening at sunset Anna and Zara were allowed to feed the royal bunnies in the large courtyard.

Queen Hasmik watched the Princess carefully to be certain she did not do too much at once. Satisfied that the Princess was doing much better, she called Varouj to her side.

“I think it is time for the Princess to walk in the park and enjoy the sunshine, don’t you?”

Varouj’s heart was filled with happiness. “I shall take care of it tomorrow,” he said with a broad smile. “There is much for us to do in the world.”

The Queen smiled and nodded her head.

She knew something of the future, too.

All things are connected
All are separate
and all are part of the same.

---

In another far-away land a few weeks earlier, the old man sat next to the little Lake Anna in the early morning light as he had done for years, collecting his thoughts and giving quiet thanks to Nature in the one peaceful moment he allowed himself during the day. He watched the ducks and fish and turtles and thought of the time long ago when the beautiful Princess visited his humble farm. She had brought him such happiness by staying in his lowly home with him and his wife of many, many years.

He smiled when he remembered that he had a pair of boots older than the Princess.

That had been a magic time and it was when he had named the little lake after her. Since then, the lake had been a truly magic place and he could hear her laughter in the ripples of water along the lake’s edge.

The morning respite near the lake had always been his connection with that visit and with the Princess. She always seemed to be present, especially on mornings when fog blanketed the surface of the lake. The Princess had loved the fog and the way the ducks made sounds as they ate, and way the fish flipped their tails when they ate the food the man threw to them.

This was his time of reflection and to remember the past. There were so few really pleasant things to remember and many of them slowly slipped from his consciousness as time passed.

Early morning before sunrise was his time for personal reflection.

This morning, though, something was wrong.

The sound the lake made was different. The little lake made rippling sounds like always but this morning it seemed to be making a very low, almost moaning sound!

The strange sound made the old man nervous but he went about his duties of caring for the animals and herding his animals to graze in weeds near his corn. He carried buckets of water to the animals from the lake and each time he neared the water he heard the faint, strange sound.

Very curious, he thought.

But...life went on and there was food to be grown and chores to be done.

This had been a very bad year for the corn and grain. The rain had not fallen as it had before and the ground was very dry. With each passing day the earth became more dry and dusty and his corn and grain and hay stopped growing. Many trees were losing their leaves and the man had begun to carry buckets of water to his corn, carefully tending each plant to keep it healthy. Between caring for his animals and tending the corn, the old man was not aware of the passing of the world or of what went on in it. Nor did he care because his life was full with his chores and raising food for himself and his wife of many years and his animals was a consuming task for him. It was hard, demanding work that he neither liked or disliked. The work just was.

The work was his life and it filled his hours, giving him satisfaction knowing that he was filling a need and that his animals depended on him. That was enough for him and he did not aspire to greater things. He did not care about the outside world, nor it about him. To the old man, It was enough to be needed and to be able to work.

He was content and happy with his life.

Even so, the lack of rain was worrisome and bothered the old man more as time passed. The summer was very hot and dry and he carried bucket after bucket of water to his corn and then - increasingly - to his grain. He worked steadily, carrying bucket after bucket of water up the small, tree-covered hill to his garden and carefully poured it on the plants. He was careful to avoid spilling any because each drop was filled with his sweat and energy and he was not as young as he once was.

Up to the garden and back to the lake for more water; three hundred and five steps each way. Over and over again.

Each trip to the lake that summer was slowly more disturbing than the day before. Slowly over the first two weeks he was certain the moaning sound was getting louder and it seemed to come from the ground near the little lake. He was also certain the level of the water in the lake was falling much faster than he could have carried away in his buckets. It was lower this morning when he fed the fish and the turtles and the ducks., and that was odd.

“Hummmm...” the lake seemed to be saying. “Hummmmmm...”

The man worried. About his crops. About making it through the coming winter, and about the strange sound coming from the lake that had never before been there in all his lifetime.

He could not sleep off his tiredness for the worry caused by it all.

Then, at five o’clock one morning some time later, the man’s heart chilled when he began his early morning routine that took him to the lake to fetch water for his animals. The soft moan from the lake had changed into a louder, more serious sucking sound.

“Ssssssssss...” went the lake as the entire surface seemed restless with tiny ripples.

Lake Anna was losing water!

At the same instant he also knew an equally chilling thing: “The Princess is very ill, or this would never happen” he said aloud to himself. He knew that with great certainty.

The man’s next thought was “What happens if we run out of water? What will we do? We cannot live without water!”
But, there was nothing he could do about the lake. The rock around the lake had held the water since early history and he had neither the knowledge nor the tools to begin any repairs.

So, with a feeling of despair the old man went back to his routine and grazed his animals and carried water to his crops. Each day, he could tell that the water level was slightly lower and then much lower as the surface of the lake moved down the sloping sides of the lake’s bottom.

And the man began to really worry.

“SSSSSSSSS...” went the lake.

“What if it goes dry?” he asked. “We cannot live without water,” he said aloud, almost as if wanting to hear himself say that it would be all right.

And he became sick with worry about the Princess. “I know she is very ill,” he told his wife of many years because she loved the Princess too. “First, the water and then the Princess. I know she is ill. This would not happen if she were well,” he said simply.

The old man slept less and spent less time with his animals. He made more trips carrying water to his garden because the rain still had not come. His wife of many, many years worked in the garden, pulling weeds from the ground and worms from the corn. She made small circles in the dusty earth around each of the plants so the man could pour in the water from the little lake.

But all the while, the Lake continued to drain and the surface was lower with each passing day. The old man sat on the shore that was now many meters away from the water’s edge and thought of the time the Princess was there and the ducks and fish and turtles were around and the grass was green. The grass was now brown and the turtles rarely came.

The man told his wife that he believed that the water in the lake was going to drain away and they would have no water.
“I’m worried about the Princess, too,” he said.

Suddenly, the worry about the lake and the worry about the Princess seemed to be one worry in the man’s head. It suddenly became clear to him that he had to take action.

He had noticed that the fish and turtles did not go near the opposite side of the lake where the shore was rocky and rose more steeply. “That must be where there is a hole in the rock and the water is being sucked out,” he said with a flash of logic normally beyond him. “I must find the hole and repair it,” he said aloud, although he did not know how it could be done.

He put his small boat in the water and carefully began moving along the sides of the lake, searching for the source of the loud sucking sound that seemed to come from everywhere.

Once, twice and three times he went around the lake but nothing could be found. If the lake kept going lower, they would have no water by the time the corn and winter wheat were ready to harvest.

Searching the lake revealed nothing. The sound seemed to come from everywhere at once. It was as if the lake were trying to breathe and was sobbing with pain and regret. In desperation, the man got out of his small boat to see if he could feel anything with his feet but the water was deep and the man could not swim well at all and he knew he was risking everything by being in the water as he was. Still, he tried very, very hard. He tried until he was almost too weak to hold on to his boat and until he barely had enough strength to pull along the rope back to shore.

Very tired and wet, the man stood up on the shore and wanted to curse the little lake although he knew it was not the lake’s fault, just as it was not his fault that his strength failed. In frustration, the man put his foot against a large rock and pushed it into the lake as if to punish it for being in pain.

The rock rolled down the steeply-sloping bank and disappeared beneath the water's surface some distance away.

Feeling foolish and filled with despair himself, the man sat on the brown grass and put his head on his hands. He was certain he had been punished for some unknown sin but he had always been a good man and could not understand why this was happening. He was not a religious man but he believed that Gaia, the Earth Mother, punished those who abused her.

But why him? He cared for the earth and was as much a shepherd for his tiny piece of it as he was of his animals. He farmed only what he needed and left the rest for the wild animals. Why would Gaia punish him?

And as much as for the lake, he was worried about the Princess. It was only a feeling, but deep inside, he knew she was very, very ill. Thinking of her laughter being silent was almost too much for him to bear.

The man remembered the beautiful Princess standing near the lake the morning long, long ago when he decided to name it Lake Anna. She would be disappointed if she saw it now or if she saw him filled with worry and unable to do anything at all to save the beautiful lake.

He knew that a great change was taking place. Why else would Lake Anna be moaning and getting lower and lower each day?

The little farm must have water but the man’s attempt to repair the leak had failed and he hurt in his failure. He thought that if he could just talk to the Princess, she could heal the lake that carried her name. If he could just talk to her, just once, maybe she could use her magic again.

Since he could not talk to the Princess, he could talk to the Little Lake named after her. “Please! You must stop going lower. There is no reason now and you have to stop going lower. We cannot live without you,” the man cried to the spirit of the lake. Hot tears filled his eyes and pain filled his heart.

Sitting alone by the little lake, all those worried ran through his mind and, for the first time since he was a child, the man put his head on his knees and cried.

Meters below, the slowly moving rock fell over a ledge of hard clay and upon landing, caused a much larger rock fall over yet another ledge. The larger rock fell the final three meters to the bottom, exactly fitting itself into the funnel-shaped hole that had appeared in the lakes’ bottom weeks earlier. Originally filled with dead water plants and leaves, the hole had slowly...and then suddenly come unplugged and had begun draining the little lake into a giant underground river deep below. Now - as if by some magic - the hole was permanently plugged.

The turtles came over to see what had happened. They had been afraid of the swift currents and had stayed at the far end of the lake. They were not afraid to be there now that the hole was filled and the strong current had stopped. They were not certain how they had managed the great feat but they all knew they had somehow made the lake feel better. Turtles always take credit for everything.

A rainbow colored lake trout swam by to see what the turtles found interesting.

The only sound was of a man crying. He thought of the beautiful Princess and how much he needed her magic to make the little lake live again.

And then - almost as if a magic spell had been cast upon the little lake - the only sound to be heard was the soft rippling of water along the edge. Suddenly, the surface of the little lake was serene and calm. The strange sound had suddenly stopped!

If you listened with a pure heart, the sound of the ripples was like the echo of a young girl laughing.

The residents of the lake - the ducks and the fish and turtles - already knew that the little lake had stopped crying.

As always, the old man would be the last to know.

..-. --- .- -. -. .-

^{Copyright © 2018 by William Hopkins}