The sad bird fluttered through the spray straight to the body that was tossed upon the surf.  As her wings touched the wet shoulders, and as her horny beak sought the dumb lips in an attempt to kiss what was once so dear, the body of Ceyx began to receive new life.  The limbs stirred, a faint color returned to the cheeks.  At the same moment a change like that which had transformed Halcyone began to pass over her husband.  He too was becoming a Kingfisher.  He too felt the thrill of wings upon his shoulders, wings which were to bear him up and away out of the sea which had been his death.  He too was clad in soft plumage with a kingly crest upon his kingly head.  With a faint cry, half of sorrow for what had happened, half of joy for the future in which these two loving ones were at least to be together, Ceyx rose from the surf-swept sand where his lifeless limbs had lain and went skimming over the waves beside Halcyone his wife.

So those unhappy mortals became the first kingfishers, happy at last in being reunited.  So we see them still, flying up and down over the waters of the world, royal forms with royal crests upon their heads.

They built their nest of the bones of fish, a stout and well-joined basket which floated on the waves as safely as any little boat.  And while their children, the baby Halcyons, lay in this rocking cradle, for seven days in the heart of winter, no storms ever troubled the ocean and mariners could set out upon their voyages without fear.

For while his little grandchildren rocked in their basket, the good King AEolus, pitying the sorrows of his daughter Halcyone, was always especially careful to chain up in prison those wicked brothers the Winds, so that they could do no mischief of any kind.

And that is why a halcyon time has come to mean a season of peace and safety.

THE FORGETFUL KINGFISHER

In these days the Kingfisher is a sad and solitary bird, caring not to venture far from the water where she finds her food.  Up and down the river banks she goes, uttering a peculiar plaintive cry.  What is she saying, and why is she so restless?  The American Kingfisher is gray, but her cousin of Europe is a bird of brilliant azure with a breast of rusty red.  Therefore it must have been the foreign Kingfisher who was forgetful, as you shall hear.

Long, long after the sorrows of Halcyone, the first Kingfisher, were ended, came the great storm which lasted forty days and forty nights, causing the worst flood which the world has ever known.  That was a terrible time.  When Father Noah hastened to build his ark, inviting the animals and birds to take refuge with him, the Kingfisher herself was glad to go aboard.  For even she, protected by AEolus from the fury of winds and waters, was not safe while there was no place in all the world for her to rest foot and weary wing.  So the Kingfisher fluttered in with the other birds and animals, a strange company!  And there they lived all together, Noah and his arkful of pets, for many weary days, while the waters raged and the winds howled outside, and all the earth was covered fathoms deep out of sight below the waves.