For the shortest day

Once there was a man who loved a woman of the islands. When they quarrelled, he turned his back on her and went to a monastery. There he carved for the brethren everything and anything from great stones to wooden beams and even tiny adornments of silver and gold and gems. And the woman he once loved turned into a bird and flew away East.

Many years later, when the abbey was built high with his carvings and the altars were laden with beautiful things from his hands, and all men called him 'Father Abbot,' a small sailboat headed towards the promontory and a bird flew high and steady above it. When he saw it land on the shore empty of crew he understood, and called to one of the boys of the isle.

'Gather servants from the land around our holy abode, and fill that boat with everything I have made. This day I go to sea.'
The child stared at him for a moment, and pointed out that if such an instruction were followed, the boat would capsize very quickly.
The abbot replied, 'I ask only your obedience, my son, not your understanding.'
The boy lifted his head. 'Father, I cannot separate one from the other. And alas, to my understanding, you seem to be on the edge of a great sin.'

The abbot thought better than to continue, and instead, went away from the monastery to where the rocks grew sharp along the shore. There sat one as cruel as they; long and red was her hair as she combed it, turquoise the scales that glittered below her torso, and his heart quailed at the never human merriment in her eyes.

'How can I help you Father Abbot?' she said.

He told her and she laughed.

'This very night I can have your boat loaded and ready to sail at high tide, so nicely balanced that you will not capsize for a while at least.'
He agreed to this, but when he saw them rise from the water, men shaped creatures with monstrous heads and jagged teeth, he trembled.

'Will you make me one of these?' He cried, 'are you here to take my soul?'

The mermaid laughed again. 'If God or the Devil want your soul I can't take it,' she said, 'and if neither of them want it, tis of no use to me. I even save you from perdition by ending your voyage, leaving your hands free of your own blood. But if this does not please you...' she made to gesture her slaves back to the waters.

'Wait, wait.' the abbot thought on it. 'Will it hurt?'

'Yes,' she nodded, 'but it will be very quick.'

'Well then,' he said, and she lowered her hand. Her servants moved out onto the land, and by cover of moon and dark, took everything he had ever made out of the monastery and loaded it onto the little boat. Sure enough, by tide rise all was ready. The servants even pushed the boat out of the shallows, and there he was, perfectly level though the bark sat low in the water. He began to row, and never noticed the mermaid slip down into the foam beyond the rocks. Great waves rose before him, one swelling into a roof of water, but before he could be afraid he heard the hull rip. In and over rushed the sea, the boat shattering and all his stones and jewels tumbling down through the brine while a red haired figure pulled him down, squeezing her tail wrapped around his body so tight he gasped...

It was as she promised. Something like a bubble escaped to the surface, where a bird clasped it and flew away, but everything else the mermaid fed to her servants. When his bones were stripped bare, she covered him in his jewels, made of his grand stones a throne and sat him upon them like a king.

When she returned to the surface, she found some uncounted summer smiling over the islands. She sat on the rocks and sang, while the last boy to whom the abbot had spoken fished nearby; but he was grown now, sturdy and strong, and when he turned his eyes to her they were those of a man.

'That's a fine noise you make,' he told her, 'of riches and kings beneath the sea!'

'No mere noise,' she smiled, combing her hair. 'I can take you to treasure if you like, and you shall be a prince as rich as you are handsome to the maidens.'

He paused a moment, then chuckled, shaking his head.

'Only a fool listens to a creature like you. Away with your chatter! What care I for money?'

By way of answer, the mermaid looked at his oft-mended net, then across to the shacks of stone and straw around the ruined abbey, and curled her lip.

'Do you have a wife and children yet, boy?'

'Not yet.' He looked less certain. 'That is, I...'

She put down her comb among the shells and seaweed dotting the sand. 'The world is young and so are you. But my people live a long time. Take my comb now, and if you change your mind, throw it into the sea here, and I will find you.'

He gave no answer. She turned away to sing, of mornings and evenings and all the bright hopes men hold between earth and sky.

And when she looked back, the comb was gone.