Sea dress

There was once a sailor who was too poor to buy his daughter a gown. But the sailor went to sea for three days and, when he came back to the shore, he had made her a dress of sea-water. The dress rippled and flowed and was beautiful. Sometimes it was blue and at other times it was grey or green or no colour at all. The sailor’s daughter loved her sea dress and when she caught it on a nail and the dress tore, she was so sad that she wept. But when her tears fell on the torn part of the dress, the tear was healed and the dress was whole again. Like waters closing over a thrown stone.

The sailor’s daughter has loved her dress for many years now. It is a dress made of sea-water and tears.