It is out of reality that the most peculiar tale of all is born ... Some call me the Elder Granny, others - the Dryad, but my real name is Memory. It is I who sits on a tree that keeps on growing, and growing, it is I who reminisces and tells stories.

At first she was overjoyed that he would be with her, but then she recalled that human people could not live under the water, and he could only visit her father's palace as a dead man.

My life is a lovely story, happy and full of incident.

Far out in the ocean, where the water is as blue as the prettiest cornflower, and as clear as crystal, it is very, very deep; so deep, indeed, that no cable could fathom it: many church steeples, piled one upon another, would not reach from the ground beneath to the surface of the water above. There dwell the Sea King and his subjects.

Then he rustled his feathers, curved his slender neck, and cried joyfully, from the depths of his heart, 'I never dreamed of such happiness as this, while I was an ugly duckling.

It was clear to me, as I glanced back over my earlier life, that a loving Providence watched over me, that all was directed for me by a higher power.

How little do the wisest among us know of that which is so important to us all.