PRINCE WILLIAM AND THE
BLUEBERRY QUEEN
Prince William Sound is the body of water in Alaska where I used to live. It was named for the second son of King George III of
 |
| The was the theater. |
--Tim
A sound is a noise like waves crashing on a beach. A sound also can be a large, protected body of water, a place where waves don't crash against a beach. This is a story about the second kind of sound, only one so long ago and so far away, you can't hear it any more.
In its beginning, this sound was not protected. It presented a wide-open mouth to an expanse of northern ocean whose weather drove storm after storm over the water against the mountains that rimmed the sound. Darks clouds stopped by the mountains always hung over the sound and precipitated a constant shower of rain into the bays and coves. The mountains around the sound always stood dark, black with trees that were bent by the constant winds that failed to blow away the clouds that delivered the rain. No one ever saw the tops of those mountains because they were always hidden by the clouds. As a matter of fact no one ever saw much of the sound at all for it was a dark and cold forbidding place. How cold and how dark no one knew for even the bravest of mariners avoided the sound. The sailors who plied the northern waters stayed away from it for it was said an evil giant inhabited the sound and those unfortunate ships that entered seeking shelter from a storm were never heard from again. Few did enter, for besides the stories of the giant, the sound offered little in the way of shelter without some land mass to cover the opening as a buffer to the weather.
To the east and west of this sound lay two small kingdoms. These kingdoms existed peacefully with each other, but the sailors from each competed in the ocean for the same fish and there were occasions when one king would send an angry reprimand to the other over conflicts on the fishing grounds. With no shelter between the kingdoms when the great northern storms blew, often the fishermen from one kingdom would seek safe anchorage in the harbors of the other. Although the harboring would be allowed, the outland mariners would be made to feel they were unwanted and their welcome ended with the storm they were hiding from. There were too many arguments over the fishing for the fishermen to be welcomed into the other's port.
The kings, seeing the conflicts growing and fearing their subjects would make more trouble, began sending emissaries back and forth with suggestions for resolving the issue. Eventually, as they neared agreement, the court of the Eastern king made plans to journey to the west to complete the accord and celebrate with a feast.
The Eastern king took with him many of his advisors and in an attempt to broaden the world of his son, William, took him as well. In three ships they sailed for the Western kingdom. It was an easy voyage for no storms blew and their passage was a safe one. As they crossed the mouth of the dark sound, Prince William asked his father about the forbidding wilderness. His father told him about the sound and when he'd finished, as if to prove what the king had said, way off deep within the sound they heard roars and loud splashes.
"They say the rain drives the giant insane," said old king Hinchinbrook, "and he goes into a bay and rips massive boulders from the cliffs and hurls them far out into the water or, sometimes, back into the mountains."