The Wind Cap
The Wind
Cap
- Jane Yolen
There was
once a lad who wanted to be a sailor but his mother would not let him to go the
sea, “Child, what do know of sailing? “She would say. “You’re a farmer’s son
you know the turn of the seasons and the smell of the soil but you do not know
the sea.”
Now the boy
whose name was Jon, had always obeyed his mother. So he went about his farm
work heavy heart but did not again mention the sea.
One day, he
had been walking behind the plough. He all but ran over a tiny green turtle on
clod of dirt. He picked the turtle up and set it on his head where he knew it
would be safe. When he was done with ploughing, Jon plucked the turtle from his
head. To his utter surprise he found that it had turned into a tiny green fairy
man that stood upon his palm and bowed.
“I thank
your kindness, tell me your heart’s desire and I’ll grant it to you for saving
my life,” said the fairy. Jon bowed back but said nothing. Although his heart
yearned to go out to the sea, he did not express his wish.
The green
fairy man could read a heart easily so he said, “I see you wish to go sailing”.
Jon’s face answered for him.
“Since you
put me on your head like a hat to keep me safe, I shall give you a different
kind of cap in return, the kind sailor most desire. A cap full wind. But
there‘s one warning, no human hand will ever be able to take it off.”
Then with
blink, the fairy man disappeared leaving a striped cap behind. Young Jon put
the cap on his head and ran home to tell his mother.
“NO good
will come of the wind cap,” she said. But the lad would have none of her
cautions. The very next putting on the sailor’s cap, he ran off to the sea. On
seeing a ship anchored near the shore, he requested the captain to take him
along. Thus begun his first ever sea voyage!
Well, the
wind cap worked as the fairy had said but one condition prevailed!
Now that
was both bad and good. It was bad because Jon could neither take his cap off
before his captain nor at bed time. And it was good because neither could he lose
cap nor could it be stolen from him.
Since it
was wind that sailor called for, and wind that Jon could supply he soon became
very popular. When he twisted the cap he could summon the east wind and the west
wind. He could also turn it to call both the north as well as the south wind.
The captain would therefore never part with his prized sailor and let him
ashore.
For a year
and a day, young Jon did not set foot on the land. He saw nothing but the
churning of the waves. Soon there grew in his heart a strong desire to see the
land.
“Oh let me
ashore for just one day,” he begged the captain when they had sighted land. He
promised he would return but the captain was unmoved. However, Jon could not
dreaming of the land.
One quit
afternoon, he lay fast asleep and fell to dreaming again. Unknown to him, the
ship stood offshore from his old farm. In Jon’s dream seasons turned rapidly
and as each turned, so did Jon in his bed. Consequently, the cap on his head
twisted round and about. It called up a squall from the clear sky that hit ship
without a warning.
The wind
had been whiling about the boat tearing the sails and snapping the spars. “It’s
his fault, “the sailor cried. They shouted in anger and fear and tried to rip
the cap off his head.
Well, they
were unsuccessful, for it was fairy cap they pulled it and twisted it and so
the squall became a storm, the mightiest they had ever seen. The captain
ordered his men to bring Jon before him. In anger, he grabbed the tail of his
stripped cap, twisted him thrice and flung him out of the sea. But the winds
called up by the cap spun the ship three times around.
As Jon went
under the waves, the cap came of his head. Soon the storm stopped, and Jon swam
ashore. The cap followed him. When got to the land, Jon picked up the cap and
ran home to his mother and farm.
Again in
the winter, when the snow lay heavy on the fields, he began to dream of the
sea. Jon went to the wardrobe, got out the fairy cap and stared at it for a
long moment. Tucking it in his shirt, he ran out to the field. He placed the
wind cap under a stone where he knew the fairy man would find it. The he left
again for the seas.
For the
rest of his life, Jon spent half the year on the ship and half on the shore
till at last he owned his own boat and a hundred acre farm land. From then on
he came to be known as Captain Turtle for he was as much at home on the water
as he was on the land.
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