Legend CXL – The Flowing Glass Woman

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In the olden days, when the forest breathed more deeply than people and the rivers bore names that could only be spoken in dreams, tales were told of a figure who was neither all water nor all memory, but something in between, a wandering soul of flowing glass. She appeared only in the morning light, where the mist lay like a thin veil over the still stream and the carp with golden backs glide through the mirrors of its surface. The fishermen swore they had heard her footsteps, though water knows no footsteps, a soft singing like pebbles rubbing against one another. She was called Maris, but no one knew if this was her true name or merely a word people invented to feel less afraid. Her body was made of currents in which small fish swam like thoughts that cannot be held onto, and when she raised her arm, drops dripped from her, becoming tiny suns before disappearing back into the river. The old folks said she was born from the first rain that fell after a great fire, when the world was still young and wounded, and ever since she had watched over all that flows. Those who saw her were forbidden to speak, for every spoken word made her a little paler, as if language robbed her of her weight. A young miller named Corvin encountered her one autumn while repairing the weir. At first, he heard only the soft gliding of the carp and thought the mist had eyes, but then she emerged from among the roots, so gently as if the river itself had taken shape. Corvin forgot the hammer in his hand, and even his mother's name, so deeply did her image sear itself into his heart. She placed a finger of water on his forehead, and for a breath he saw all the rivers of the world, cutting through mountains, embracing cities, and finally plunging into the sea like tired children. After that, he was no longer an ordinary man, for from then on he heard the murmuring in every puddle and the weeping in every dried-up ditch. The villagers realized something had happened to him and begged him to summon the figure so they could pray for rain for their fields. But Maris wouldn't come running like a dog; she only appeared when the balance was threatened. Years later, when a greedy prince tried to force the river into canals, she reappeared, larger and colder than before. The fish inside her seemed like tiny fires, and her face was the color of a polished moon. She touched the dams, and the wood began to dream, the nails wept rust, and in one night the river reclaimed what had been stolen from it. In the morning, no bodies were found, only wet shoes on the bank and the feeling that someone very patient had been angry. Corvin, however, followed her into the mist, and some say he still lives today as the guardian of the springs, half man, half echo. Since that time, people have thrown a coin into the water before every bridge, not out of superstition, but out of courtesy to the woman of flowing glass.