Dear Arturo,
I have discovered a few new obscure tales concerning Ansyne, in fact. I am sure you would love to hear them but it occurred to me that there are more popular tales in the cycle of which you are still ignorant. In time I will share my more obscure discoveries but for now you should hear this one which every schoolboy knows.
Years after the gods’ war a little boy heard wailing from a cave on his family’s land. It was during a storm but he went out all the same and discovered how the god-fossils glow and hum when lightning strikes. His parents thought they would be rich. They sent him back to watch the cave while they sent for scholars and delvers. When the scholars and delvers arrived they returned to the cave and saw no sign of the boy.
Centuries later in the unwritten years a mighty young champion is said to have pursued Ansyne who was more beautiful than any who lived in her time or after. Others wished for her hand but this man was stronger and lovelier than any other suitor of that season. So the others kept their distance.
He vied every day for her attention. At the market he grabbed her hand and told her what lovely weather it was. After temple gatherings he grabbed her hand and told her how lovely her dress was in the candlelight. At public feasts he grabbed her hand and said, “Sweeter is the smell of your hair than any of these dainties.”
For months he hounded her, ever with a smile on his face. It misliked Ansyne how the champion’s attentions frightened off her friends and cousins. They all agreed to give the two space in hopes of watching their love bloom. But Ansyne felt nothing for the man.
At last she said to him, “My Lord, your perseverance is inspiring.”
He took her hand and said, “My Lady, it is your loveliness that awakens that virtue. And it would awaken many more if only I could spend the rest of my days with you. I would serve you well, for there is nothing I would not do for you.”
“Then do this,” she said. “Go to the Crying Caves. There you will find a flower which grows in the dark. It blooms only when lightning strikes. Find it and bring it to me and I will know your devotion to be true.”
She said this hoping to lose him forever. After all, what flower ever grew in a cave? Nonetheless he ventured out on the next stormy morning to retrieve that flower.
He reached the cave and ventured in. He brought a torch with him but it proved needless as every time thunder came rumbling down from the surface above the god-fossils there pulsed with light.
He searched for that precious flower for hours and hours, fearful that the storm would pass any moment and he would not see the flower bloom. Then the thunder cracked above once more. The fossils glowed and he saw his sought-after flower.
He caught only a glimpse of it. It grew atop a pile of brittle crumbling stone. It stem was oddly thick. It had not a single leaf. And its five outstretched pedals were long and round. It was a strange and ugly flower but nothing in the world could seem lovely to one who had witnessed Ansyne. He reached around in the dark for the flower he had glimpsed and when he found it he grabbed it by its stem.
Unlike the brittle stone around it, the five-petal flower was hard and unyielding. He pulled and pulled and felt the stone around it start to give. Its root was likewise thick and longer than any flower’s root he had ever seen.
Heaven rumbled again and fossils in the cave began to glow. That was when the young champion saw the stone face of a boy staring up at him from below. The young champion was grasping the boy’s arm.
And the stone boy groaned, “It hurts! You dig them, cut them; steal, keep, and prod them and it hurts them! It hurts me!”
The champion let go of the boy at once. As the light around them faded the boy turned stiff once more and collapsed to the ground, silent. The following day the storm had cleared and the champion met Ansyne again. He stood at a distance and with his eyes low said,
That was the last anyone saw of the champion. But for the rest of Ansyne’s life, no one dared take her hand without her invitation. Eventually they would not take her hand even when she offered it. Those who did were visited not long after by a grave champion with arms of stone and he would kill any who dared hurt Ansyne.
The ending is typical for tales in this cycle. As stories of the most beauteous Ansyne proliferated, the endings became more contrived. This is especially true of the obscure ones which I will pass over for now but some of them may still interest you. Look forward to hearing them.
geldorad.ca 
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