FOUR MAIDSby RS Harding

Four bright and beautiful young girls sat, early one morning, on the top of a hill over looking the village where they lived. A gentle slope, covered with soft green grass, led down to a small stream where an apple tree grew in its own quiet way and water lilies lazed- protected from some of the harsher currents by a fallen log that had been there for years.

The girls had nothing to do until breakfast, so they sat there bathing in the bright sunlight, chattering away like sparrows. Their white dresses were spread out beneath them and their faces shone with a radiance only found when innocence is unaware of itself.

As it so happened there was secret path which ran close by, where a Fairy King would often take his morning exercise.

That day, as he walked along, head down, he heard the gay laughter and looked up. The scene was exquisite and he was deeply moved. So much so that he promptly turned all four into snowdrops so there they stayed dancing in the breeze and nodding to one another as if still in conversation. ‘I have done a good thing,’ he decided, ‘to preserve the beauty of this spot.’ Like most fairies, he prided himself on being a good conservationist if nothing else.

However, that afternoon, there was a sharp summer storm. It washed across the surface of the stream and battered the poor flowers, who were quite helpless against the onslaught.

The next morning, the Fairy King was mortified to find them dead, their stems broken in the downpour. When he realised the terrible mistake he had made he wept bitterly, vowing never to be so meddlesome again.

Some time passed, more lichen grew on the apple tree and the Fairy King grew a little older, more selfish and somewhat forgetful. One morning as he was passing along the same path when he troubled to look up. Before him lay the same scene of four young girls laughing in the sunlight and the same apple tree growing by the stream. Once again the beauty of it filled his heart and chords of admiration hummed in his chest. But mindful of his mistake the last time he paused and thought gravely for a time.

Then he turned them into four pure, white marble stones.

‘Their beauty will be preserved for ever,’ he said out loud, ‘or at least until long after I am gone. The idea was right the last time, but the method was wrong. For after all, there are no perfect ideologies, merely fortuitous situations.’

The stones are still there to this day and if there is a little moss on them, it only serves to soften their rough edges.