The Opal Story

                          

The opal was the last of the precious stones to be made. And this was how it happened.

Long, long ago—so long ago that no one had ever seen a ruby or a sapphire or an emerald—there was a princess who had a great many friends among the fairies. It was the delight of the fairies to do her bidding, to fly and fly over hill and dale to fetch her anything she wished to have. Sometimes she wished to have very curious things, and if she wanted things that no one had ever heard of before, the fairies would set to work to make them for her. One day she said—

"Oh, Fairies dear, I am going to be married. I am going to marry the Prince of the Far Land over the Hill, and the wedding is to be the grandest ever seen. My dress is lovely: it was cut out of a rainbow on purpose for me, and trimmed with the edge of a sunset cloud. But what am I to wear in my hair?" Now, the Princess's hair hung over her in dark waves, like a long cloak.

"Flowers!" cried the fairies. "Quick—quick—let us fly for flowers to twist in the Dear Princess's hair!"

So they all flew away, some in one direction and some in another, while the Dear Princess of the Crystal Mountain sat and waited, with her cloud of hair hanging round her.

Very soon she saw them flying back, some from gardens and some from orchards, and some from the hills where the heather grew, and some from country lanes where the flowers were very sweet, and some from hothouses where the flowers were very rare. Wherever they came from they were all laden with flowers. Some brought roses, red and white and yellow; some brought heavy white lilies; some brought long trails of honeysuckle. Some were carrying great bundles of forget-me-nots; others had strange flowers from distant countries; others had bunches of golden daffodils. They crowded round the Dear Princess, and laid the flowers in great heaps beside her.

"Wear my roses!" cried one. "See how the crimson of them glows in your dark hair!"
"Wear my daffodils!" cried another. "See how they shine like gold!"
"Wear my lilies!" cried a third, "for they match your lily-face!"

Then they all held up the flowers against the Princess's dark hair, to see which looked the best; red, or yellow, or white. The Princess herself found it very hard to make up her mind, because they were all so beautiful that she would have liked to wear them all. First she chose one, and then another, and then she thought that, after all, a third would look the best.

This went on for so long that at last the flowers died. The Princess sat down among the dead flowers, and thought.  "I must have something that will not die," she said at last, "something stronger than flowers. I must have colour that will not fade, a dewdrop that will not melt, a spark of fire that will not go out."

The fairies said no more for some time, for they were thinking that the Dear Princess wanted a good deal. After a time three of them began talking together all at once, as if a very good idea had suddenly come into their heads.

Then they spread their wings and flew away. They flew far away from the Princess and her palace, far from the other fairies, up and up to the heights of the Crystal Mountain. Then each of them chipped off a little piece of the rock at the top of the mountain, and each, as he did it, laughed aloud gleefully. Then each little fairy tucked his chip of rock under his arm; and they all nodded to each other, still laughing, and spread their wings again, and flew off in different directions.

Well to make a long story short, then one flew to the woods and somehow transformed his chip into an emerald. You can read about it in the post about emeralds. You can guess how the sapphire came into being- when one of the fairies flew with his rock into the sea and the one who flew into the deep cavern of fire gnomes brought back a ruby.

They all flew back together and laid their treasures at her feet. Our Dear Princess was still not used to making choices and was puzzled. "What am I to do?" she said, puckering up her forehead. "How can I choose when they are all so beautiful?"
All this time a very small fairy had been sitting quietly in the corner, saying nothing, but thinking a great deal. He came forward now and spoke. "Give the stones to me," he said, "and I will settle the question."

So he took the three stones and flew away, far up into the sky, above the Princess's dark head, above the houses and the trees, above the Crystal Mountain even, into the misty sunshine behind the clouds. Then he called to the sun-fairies—

"Sun-fairies, sun-fairies, melt me these stones in your furnace. Melt them, and mix them, and make them into one stone. And soften their colours with mist of sunshine, so that my Princess may wear them all together in her hair."

So the sun-fairies carried the three stones away, and melted them all into one, and mixed them with mist of sunshine, and it lay over the colours like a cloud. And then there was only one stone, but it was a great big one, and as beautiful as all the others put together. For, you see, that was just what it was. The small fairy took it carefully into his tiny arms and flew down again through the clouds, past the Crystal Mountain and past the tops of the trees, to the feet of the Dear Princess.

He held up the great gleaming stone to her, and she thought she had never seen anything so beautiful. For the blue of the sea was in it, and the green shade of the forest, and the red heart of fire. And over the colours the mist of sunshine lay like a veil.

And that was the first opal. Of course the Princess of the Crystal Mountain wore the great opal on the day that she was married to the Prince of the Far Land over the Hill. After that she often showed the opal to her visitors and told them how it was made of blue sea, and green shadows, and fire, melted all together by the fairies and mixed with mist of sunshine.

From The Project Gutenberg eBook of Fairies I Have Met, by Mrs. Rodolph Stawell. I have edited it to shorten it. 
Illustrations: 1st, Top, by Warwick Goble from Folk Tales of Bengal by Lal Behari Day; 2nd illus. Fairy's Album, by Anonymous

Photo: Saved from Pinterest without attribution; I think it is https://www.flickr.com/photos/jimthompson/2669949612