The Maiden in the Lighthouse – Revised June 2009
Once upon a time there was a maiden who lived alone in a lighthouse at the edge of the sea. She had lived there for many years with hardly another soul to commune with and her sole purpose in life seemed to revolve around her commitment to tending the burning light inside the tower. Day after day and night after night she spent polishing the large glass windows, keeping the lamps filled with oil and tending to the fire. It was a lonely life but she had reached a place of contentment in her solitude and only her nightly dreams betrayed the real longing of her soul.
The most poignant dream, amidst all the nightmares of storms and raging seas, is one where she sees a
small child all alone in a leaky, battered boat. It is a dark cold night and the child is crying piteously for help as
if her heart were breaking. What the child does not see, but the maiden does, is that hovering not far off are four lifeboats setting off from a giant sailing ship. They are coming, these brave strong men, to her rescue but the child knows it not. When the maiden wakes all that she can remember is the pain of that child’s aloneness and not that rescue and safety are at hand. This pain touches something deep inside her that feels vaguely familiar but there is a sense of danger as well. She does not want to remember this scary place and even though her heart is drawn to the child in the dream she firmly pushes away those old memories. Instead, she forges ahead and vows once again to do all that she can to be a beacon of light to others in distress.
It was a strange twist of fate that led the maiden to this life of living alone in the lighthouse, for as a child she lived far away in a small bustling fishing village. The lives of all the villagers were connected in one way or the other with gaining their livelihood from the sea and there was happiness and contentment in their shared endeavors. They would work side by side all day and in the evenings there would be singing and laughter as they mended nets and baited hooks. The child was well loved by this little community and the only thing to mar her perfect life was her fear that one day her father would disappear in some disaster at sea. Every evening as the dusk descended and the sun slipped below the horizon, the child would steel from the cottage and stand by the jetty to look for her father’s boat coming in to the cove. In those waiting moments she would imagine all manner of frightening catastrophes - gigantic whales capsizing the boat, the jaws of evil sharks, octopi with hundreds of wriggling tentacles - and the eventual death of her father and brothers. Her heart would be pounding with terror and her breath coming in gasps as these images overwhelmed her….but then there it was...a tiny speck at first but then the familiar boat coming closer and closer. Rushing into her father’s arms as he steps from the boat and being held by his strong arms lays her fears to rest for another day and all is well in her little world.
Alas, one day while her father and brothers were far out to sea fishing for the giant cod, a storm came up unexpectedly. There was no lighthouse in this remote village to guide the fishermen homeward so the maiden and her mother kept vigil at the shoreline with the small lanterns that they used to light their cottage. As the wind howled and the rain lashed down they were both soon drenched to the bone and it was all that they could do to stand upright so fierce was the wind. The child fell down on the sand and her lantern was soon washed away by a wave from the sea. With her small light extinguished, her mother was lost to her in the darkness. She cries out for her over and over but the only answer is the wind In the morning when she awoke huddled by a rock near the jetty, the sea was calm, the wind silent and everything that she held dear was gone. The remains of her father’s boat lay upturned on the sand—beaten and battered the storm. The little cottage was in ruins and all of her family had perished. She crawls inside the wreck of her father’s boat and finding a scrap of his favorite gansey she huddles in the prow holding close the weathered wool that still holds his scent.
The scent of salt, sweat, his pipe tobacco and, of course, the ever present smell of fish.. Breathing deep of these soothing memories she dissolves into tears and eventually falls into a deep sleep. While she lay in her exhausted slumber the tide has started to come back in and gradually the boat is nudged free of the sand and back into the open water. The sea had spent itself in the fury of the storm and there is now just a gentle rocking of the waves that pulls the boat out farther and farther into the open water. All day the child sleeps but as the sun begins to dip below the horizon the air begins to lose its warmth and the sudden drop in temperature causes the child to wake. The chill of approaching dusk and the hunger in her belly erase all traces of her peaceful sleep to be replaced by fear and panic. She cries out piteously for her father and mother before remembering that they are gone from her forever. The pain of this loss is too much for her to bear so in this fateful moment she closes up her heart and throws away the key.

Alone in the boat the darkness now surrounds her like a heavy cloak and her mind is suddenly filled with all those terrible images of whales, sharks and octopi. She closes her eyes tight and crawls to the bottom of the boat, past hope that someone will come to rescue her and so full of despair that her will to survive hangs by the merest thread. After some time though she spies in the distance a light ...beaming stronger and stronger as her little boat inches closer on the tide. She jumps up and frantically searches for something to propel the boat and on there on the bottom is a broken oar. For hours she struggles with the oar and gradually the light comes closer but still she cannot spy the land. Heedless of her fear of those ominous creatures of the deep she finally jumps into the water and tries to reach the light by swimming but her little body soon tires and she gives herself up to the sea.
In the morning she wakes to the feel of being carried into a dark room and laid upon a bed. She is thankful to be alive but who is this strange man? All that she remembers is the panic of being alone in the water and then a tall white tower with a blazing light beaming down upon her. She is safe from the cold, dark water but this silent, dour man is almost as scary as being alone.
The lighthouse keeper was a wizened, gnome of a man. He was not unkind but his years of living alone in the lighthouse tower had made him uncomfortable and unused to the presence of others….so unlike her dear, sweet father. At first life was hard as the lighthouse keeper was reluctant to have her stay but in the end he saw that she could be of use to him. He made for her a place to sleep in an outlying shed while he resided in the lighthouse tower himself. He treasured his solitude above all else and rarely permitted her to enter his domain. She would prepare food for them both and leave his on a ledge by the door. It was a terribly lonely life for a spirited child but she was thankful to be alive and soon grew to accept this solitary existence as much as he did.
There was an aged old milk cow and a few scraggly chickens and with a meager garden almost all of their needs were provided for. Occasionally the keeper would row out to one of the passing ships for the rest of their essentials but the maiden was left behind longing for the sight of another face. It was a bleak, quiet life so different from the happy life of her village. There was nothing to remind her of her former life except for the tattered gansey of her dear father that she hugged close to her breast each night as she lay down to sleep. Sometimes she would dream of those happier times and of the cozy cottage fill with the laugher of her parents and brothers. In those dreams she would feel loved and cherished and feel the safety of nestling in her father arms as he sang old sea shanties to lull her to sleep. But then she would awake to the cold bare walls of her little shed and gird herself to face another day.
And so the years passed and she and the lighthouse keeper both grew older but as she grew stronger he began to grow more feeble. On one particular day as a storm began to approach the keeper came and knocked timidly on her shed door. She opened the door to find him pale and gasping for breath. “I need your help” he whispered, and beckoned her to the tower. These were the first words that he had uttered to her in months and she quickly roused herself to his side. They made the slow ascent up the tower steps, he stopping more then once to catch his breath. The storm was gaining in ferocity and the keeper was frantic that the light in the tower be shining brightly but it was beyond his strength to do so. He showed her what to do and then collapsed on his bed breathing heavily. The maiden quickly attended to the lamps and when all was well she went and tended to the keeper. He was sound asleep by this time so she tucked the ragged blankets close about him and kept vigil by his side all through the night.
From that day on the keeper who knew that his end was not far off, instructed the maiden in all of the duties that he had carried out for the past fifty years. The maidens heart softened to the old man during this time and in those last few months a real bond of affection was kindled between them. She would come daily to the room at the top of the tower, make him warm mild and eggs and read to him or even sing some of the long lost ballads that her father used to sing to her. In his lucid moments the keeper would tell her stories of his youth before coming to live in the tower. Of strange lands that he had visited while sailing round the world and all manner of exotic people that he had chanced to meet. They became like father and daughter and it warmed his heart to see her take so willing to the light house tending.

And then one morning when she arrived with the milk and oatcakes she was unable to rouse him and she saw that he was dead. His face in death was serene and content and she broke down and sobbed at the loss of her only, if strange, companion. In the custom of her family she built a large pyre of driftwood and pine branches and sent his spirit onwards in the flames.