TO

EDGAR WILSON RIDDELL

JANUARY 31, 1892—­JULY 2, 1912

IN MEMORY OF

A LIFE’S SUPREME FRIENDSHIP

THE ETERNAL MAIDEN

PRELUDE

Long ages ago, darkness brooded over the frozen world and held in its thrall the unreleased waters of the glacial seas.  There was no animal life upon the land, and in the depth of the waters no living thing stirred.  Kokoyah, the water god, breathed not; Tornahhuchsuah, the earth spirit, who rules above the spirits of the wind and air, was veiled in slumber.  Men had risen like willows from the frozen earth; but, although they lived, they were as the dead.  They spake not, neither did they hunt, nor eat, nor did they die.  Then the Great Spirit, whose name is not known, placed upon earth a man, in his arms the strength to kill, in his heart the primal urge of love.  And in that flowerless arctic Eden, out of its bounteous compassion, the Great Spirit placed also a maiden, her face beautiful with the young virginity of the world, in her bosom implanted a yearning, not unmixed with fear, for love.  Gazing upon her, the youth’s heart stirred, with desire, the maiden’s with virginal terror.  The maiden fled, the youth followed.  Over the desolate icy mountains the fleet feet of the youth sped with the swiftness of the wind gods, over the silent white seas the maiden with the elusiveness of the air spirits.  In the heart of the youth throbbed the passion of love, indomitable, eternal, which the blasting breath of time should never kill.  In the maiden’s bosom quaked a reasonless shame, an unconquerable terror.  Surrounded by her whirling cloud of hair, the maiden sprang, untiring, across the wild white world.  His strength failing, the youth pantingly followed.  Thousands of years passed; the breathless pursuit continued; the maiden’s nebulous hair became shot with streaks of golden fire, from her eyes beams of light streamed across the expanses over which she exultantly, fearfully bounded; the tremulous faltering youth’s face paled until it shone silvery in the darkness, and the beads of perspiration on his forehead glowed with a strange lustre.  Reaching, in their mad race, the very edge of the earth, the maiden leaped, fiery, into space, and her hair becoming suddenly molten, she became the sun—­the eternal maiden Sukh-eh-nukh, the beautiful, the all-desired.  Utterly exhausted, his wan arms yearningly outstretched, the youth swooned after her into the heavens, and was transformed into the moon—­the ever-desiring, ever-sorrowing moon.  In the smile of Sukh-eh-nukh the seas melted.  Walrus and narwhals, seals and whales came into being on the bosom of Kokoyah; on the earth the snows disappeared, and the brow of Tornahhuchsuah