The Fairy Who Lived in a Shell.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XXXVIII, Issue 8, 23 February 1907, Page 40

The Fairy Who Lived in a Shell.

There was once a fairy who lived on the beach in a shell. When it rained she used to go in and shut the doors and windows. One day there came a terrible storm. It lightened and it rained; it thundered and it hailed, and the poor fairy inside her shell was so dreadfully frightened. Then the sea came up. The shell tumbled and it shook, and it turned upside down and all the other ways that it could turn. At last it was quite quiet. The fairy found herself at the bottom of the sea when she eame out. It was all dim, green, still twilight, and there was a waving forest of brown seaweed. Fishes swam all round her, sharks and dogfish and herrings and plaice came and looked at her, and crabs scuttled about all over the bottom of the sea.

The fairy walked and walked till she

came to a white coral ellff, and In ttbl cliff there was a cave. It was all lit up by sea-jewels and anemones and shoal* of shining little fish. In the centre of it was a shining white stone, and on the stone sat a mermaid, who was combing her hair with a golden comb. Then the fairy said:— “Oh, mermaid; please, please, plea** take me to the upper air again.” The mermaid said:— “No, it’s so damp down here that I have a bad sore throat. If I went up to the upper air I must sing, and the gulls would all laugh, I’m so hoarse.” She went on combing her hair. Then the fairy said:—• “I have something that I think will cure you.” So she put her hand in her pocket, and found the little pot of honey, which, is what the fairies all live on. The mermaid swallowed the honey, and after a little time she said: — “Now I think I shall be able to sing quite nicely.” Then the fairy went into her shell again. The mermaid took shell and fairy and all into her hand and flashed up, up through the green water, till she came to a broad white rock in the mid* die of the sea. She put the shell down in the sunlight, and began to comb her hair and sing very sweetly. All the porpoises and dolphins, and. all the sun and star-fishes swam about in the blue sea; and all the gulls and sea-swallows, and all the albatrosses flew about in the blue sky to listen to her singing. Then the mermaid said to the largest of the gulls:— “Now you must take this shell and the fairy in it back to the beach it belongs to.” So the gullj took the shell in its beak and flew with it up, up, up through the blue air till it came to the beach. Then the fairy was very glad to be back home.

But all the other shell fairies were so astonished that they began to whisper about this. They are still whispering, and if you take a shell and hold it to your ear, you can hear the fairy inside talking about this very thing.