THE FAIRIES’ SHIP

A SAILORS’ STORY

ONCE upon a time there was, at Saint-Cast, a young captain who had no ship to command. He made application after application. He went to see the ship-owners, and offered his services; but although he was known to be a good sailor, he had no command given him. One day when he had been again at Saint-Malo, without being more successful than at other times, he started out late, and on foot, to return to his village; and when night came on, he was not far from the wood which crossed the main road.

“Ah!” said he, “I should have done better to stay and sleep at Saint-Malo; for I shall have to go through the wood of Pontual; and they say that after nightfall one is apt to encounter strange things there.”

He quickened his pace and entered the wood; when he was in the middle of it, he heard a noise, and having stopped to listen, he heard a voice which cried, “Help! help! save me!”

“Ah!” thought he, “it is perhaps some one whom the robbers are trying to kill; but it shall never be said that I left any creature to die without trying to help him.”

He hastened to the spot from which the cries came, and saw a good woman who was defending herself as well as she could against five men, who were trying to kill her. He took her part, and between them they killed the robbers.

When they had gotten out of the wood, the old woman, who was a fairy, said to him,—

“Captain, you are brave, and you shall be rewarded for it. If I had wished I could easily have killed all five of the robbers, for I have power enough for that; but I wanted to see if you were courageous, and ready to help poor people.”

Then she disappeared; the captain continued his journey, and reached Saint-Cast without accident.

The next day a beautiful lady, whom he did not know, came to his house, and said to him,—

“I am the good woman to whose assistance you came yesterday in the wood of Pontual. I am a fairy, and I know that you were returning from Saint-Malo, where you had vainly applied for the command of a ship. It is needless for you to make any more applications. I will give you the command of a ship—a splendid one; the handsomest that ever was seen.”

The captain thanked the lady with all his heart; then he invited her to dine with him.

When the meal was ended, she said to him,—

“Now, you come with me; I am one of the fairies of the Cavern of Saint-Briac, and near my grotto you will see your ship.”

The captain followed the lady; and when they reached the seashore, she took him by the hand, and they walked together over the waves, as though they were on a high-road; the water did not even wet the soles of their shoes. They arrived at the cavern, and the fairy showed the captain the ship she had designed for him. The hull was all of gold, the masts, also, as well as the yards and the pulleys, and the cordage was of twisted threads of gold. It was not yet quite ready; and the goldsmiths of the cavern were busy finishing it.

It was so dazzling that the captain could scarcely look at it.

“When will it be finished, this beautiful ship?” he asked of the fairy who had brought him there.

“Why do you ask me that question?”

“So as to have time to get up a crew to man the ship when it is finished.”

“Do not be disturbed,” said the fairy; “your crew is ready, and I am going to show it to you.”

She rubbed some salve round his eyes; immediately he saw at least thirty little male fairies of tiny size, who were dressed like admirals; and she said to him, pointing to them with her finger,—

“Captain, these are the little men who will be your sailors. In three days the ship will be ready; you can set out, and they will help you to manage it, for they are good sailors. Meanwhile, come and dine with me and the other inhabitants of the cavern.”

The captain followed the fairy. She led him through a long suite of apartments bright as gold; and at last they came to a great hall, where a handsome table was set. Here the fairy women, with their husbands and sons, and the tiny male fairies, came to take their meals. The captain looked out of the window, and saw in a court-yard some of the male fairies, large and small, drilling with the sword and bayonet.

“Why,” asked he, “are they drilling in this way?”

“They are our soldiers,” answered the fairy, “and they are preparing to go to fight with the fairies of Chêlin, who have declared war against us.”

When the fairy men, large and small, had finished drilling, they made playful music with their swords; then every one went into the hall to dine. That day there was a great feast at the cavern; for the queen of the fairies had just given birth to a boy, and they celebrated his birth.

After the feast was over, the captain proposed to go; the fairy who had brought him, and who was named Gladieuse, conducted him as far as the door of the grotto, and before leaving him, she said to him,—

“Here are some boots which you must put on to cross the sea; as long as you have them on, you will be able to go over land or sea, wherever you wish. To-morrow you must return here to take command of your ship.”

The captain thanked the fairy; then having put on his boots, he walked over the waves of the sea as if on a highway, and arrived at Saint-Cast. But when he went into his house he found nothing there; his parents, who had seen him cross the sea, believed him to be drowned, and they had removed his furniture. He went to ask them for it, but they took him, at first, for a ghost. When he had convinced them that he was a man of flesh and bone, he told them that he had taken command of a ship. He made them a present of his furniture; then after having embraced his father and mother, he went away.

He proceeded to the point of the island, and having put on his boots, he crossed the sea without getting wet. His ship was close by the cavern, all rigged and ready to set sail. He stepped on board, and the fairy Gladieuse, who was on the deck, said to him,—

“This ship will sail under the water, as well as on it, in the air as well as in the water, just as you wish.”

Then she went back to the land, and the sailors of the cavern came on board; immediately the wind swelled out the sails, and the ship started off like lightning.

It sailed as fast as the wind, which blew always right aft; they never had to tack about, they never had head winds, and there was no need of holding the helm nor of hauling in the sails; a fairy man, who was unseen, directed everything as he wished. At the end of a fortnight he steered the ship into a port, and the anchor was immediately thrown out.

The port was in an island where fairy men and women lived, and they heartily welcomed the captain and his crew.

The next day after their arrival in the island, while all the sailors were on shore, and the captain was alone on board, the fairy man appeared and said to him,—

“It is I, who by my will, have brought your ship into this port; it is I who guided it here, and you had no trouble in steering it, because the wind was always right aft. Now you are to take on board some fairy men to help us fight the fairies of Chêlin.”

“Very well, Mr. Fairy; I shall go ashore at once and take the passengers aboard according to your orders.”

“As soon as they are on board,” said the fairy man, “you must set sail for Saint-Briac; but I shall leave the ship, which, hereafter, will sail only under your own command. Here is a little whistle which I give you; as soon as you reach the shore, you have only to whistle, and immediately your sailors and the fairy men who are to take part in the war will come on board.”

The captain went ashore on the island, and as soon as he had blown his whistle, five hundred fairy men, and the thirty tiny fairies that he had brought with him, jumped aboard. In less than ten minutes the ship spread her sails and went out of the port. During the whole voyage he had a wind right aft, and in less than three weeks from the time he set sail he arrived at Saint-Briac.

The five-hundred fairy men disembarked, and went into the cavern, where they were well received. Three days after they went to war against the fairies of Chêlin; but they were not the stronger, and they asked for peace.

The war was ended, and there were great rejoicings at the cavern and at Saint-Briac; the captain carried the fairy men back to their island, then he went to Antwerp to take a load of sea-coal for the fairies. They were very much pleased with him, and when he returned, they paid him a hundred thousand francs for his voyage.

Two days after, the ship stood out to sea; for three whole years it sailed over the seas without touching at any land, and sometimes they were left without provisions; but then the captain made use of the ring that the fairy Gladieuse had given him, and he obtained as much of everything as he needed.

At the end of the third year they came in sight of a little island, and the captain and the tiny fairy sailors went ashore. Among the trees there were fruits of every kind; the brooks were of wine, cider, and all sorts of good things to drink, and the ground was covered with precious stones of gold and with diamonds. The tiny fairies tasted everything; then they loaded the ship with diamonds and precious stones of gold. Just as they were ready to leave they saw an old fellow coming, so old that he looked as if his years numbered a thousand. He was the only inhabitant of the island, and he begged them to take him on board so that he could go to Saint-Briac.

He was so very, very ugly that the captain himself was afraid of him; and he was right, for it was a demon. As soon as the old fellow came on board he tried to take command of the ship; but the captain resisted him and forced him to obey.

They set sail again, and when they were on the broad sea they were attacked by pirates, who for a long time had been chasing the golden ship. At least two hundred of them leaped aboard, and the old demon took their side; but the tiny fairies killed them all, and also killed the devil. They threw the dead bodies into the sea; but the pirates who were left on their ship ordered the powder to be set on fire so as to blow themselves up with the golden ship. Then the captain said,—

“By the power of my ring, let my ship sail under the water as it does on top of it.”

Immediately the ship plunged under the sea, and the pirates could not do it any harm.

Since that time the demon, to whom all the race of fairies was subject, and who was coming to Saint-Briac to punish them, having been cut to pieces by the tiny fairies, dare not command them any longer; and since then neither fairy men nor women belong to him any more.

The golden ship continued its voyage and returned to the Cavern of Saint-Briac. The fairy men and women were so pleased with the load that the captain brought them, that they married him to the fairy Gladieuse, and he lived happily with her in the grotto.

I picked up this story at the little port of Saint-Cast (Côtes-du-Nord).

Paul Sebillot.