GRANNY BLACK-FISH
A LIGHTHOUSE KEEPER AND HIS TWO YOUNG CHILDREN, TWINS WHO WERE BORN MIRACULOUSLY DURING THE TWILIGHT OF HIS YEARS, LIVED together in a small cottage nigh the cliff. He was a widower who raised them, a son and a daughter, alone.
The little daughter was meek and mild. She stayed at home and different women of the town would come visit to teach her their ways. The little son was lively and curious. He ran down to the market everyday to ask vendors questions and see the fishermans' catch of the day.
One morning the son was pestering sailors at the dock. Annoyed by his antics, the first mate shoved him. He hit his head on a moored boat and bled as he fell into the water. They boarded their ship and sailed off. The fishermen pulled him out but it was too late, and the little boy died.
The townspeople brought the body to the lighthouse keeper and told him what had happened.
He received it into his arms and touched the blood still running from the boy's pale head. The keeper was silent and remained so until everyone left. The keeper wept with his teeth clenched for many days. He ate naught, he drank naught, and refused to look at his daughter.
When the keeper finally left his house it was to bury the body at night in the dark. He was thin and sick with grief. By now, the ship that carried his son's murderer was far, far away. He swore to give anything for vengeance. So he called for Granny Black-Fish.
He beheld Granny Black-Fish rising out of the billowing ocean, plodding towards him through the sea smoke with her cane, which was a rusty old harpoon. “Thou willt,” quoth she. “Ask of me and it is thine.”
“Granny Black-Fish! Prithee, help me! How do I catch my son's murderer?” Cried the lighthouse keeper.
“Betimes he will return,” she spake. “In twenty years, yea, he will.”
Granny Black-Fish disappeared and so did his grief.
The lighthouse keeper waited twenty years. In that time, the town's memory of his great tragedy faded and his daughter grew to be a woman. She was quite fair. She had many suitors but turned each one away to work and care for her aging father. He was wont to sit on the beach and watch the ocean stoically.
Twenty years to the day, he saw the ship carrying his son's murderer drop anchor as Granny Black-Fish promised. Feelings of rage stirred up within him and he trembled. He could not stand because he trembled so, and sat there in agony as the day passed until it seemed that the ship was ready to leave again. He fell to his knees on the sand clutching his heart and swore to give anything for vengeance. “Granny Black-Fish! Granny Black-Fish, help me! How do I keep my son's murderer from ever leaving here?”
And he lifted his head and beheld Granny Black-Fish rising out of the billows again, and came to him with raiments dripping with water. “Give him your daughter's hand,” she spake. “Let them marry, yea, he will be thine.”
Granny Black-Fish disappeared and his anger disappeared also.
It happened so that the daughter saw her father lying on the beach and came running from a distance away. The murderer saw her and was smitten by her image. He stayed to woo her and eventually after a romance blossomed, they approached the lighthouse keeper to invite him to their wedding.
The lighthouse keeper accepted it. So his daughter married the man and soon bore a child. Their family was happy.
The lighthouse keeper's heart grew black with hatred and swore to give anything for vengeance. He shouted over the billows once more, “Granny Black-Fish! Granny Black-Fish, help me! How do I kill my son's murderer?”
“Thou mayest take his joy, his time, or his freedom,” quoth Granny Black-Fish. “Which will it be, of the many ways there art?”
“His joy.” As soon as the lighthouse keeper chose, all hatred left him, and he was filled with bitterness instead.
“Give me thy grandchild,” she spake. “Henceforth, thy son-in-law will never have joy.”
The lighthouse keeper bore away the child at dawn.
The mother awoke in alarm, perhaps by some dream, to find the crib empty. Hysterical, she implored her husband to search. He searched everywhere for the whereabouts of their child and only heard the crying. He followed the crying sounds to the cliff.
There he witnessed the lighthouse keeper cast the infant into the ocean and at the bottom, a whale caught it in its mouth and ate it.