The Windfairies · Chapter
The Pool and the Tree explained
A tree and a pool share a deep, loving bond in a wilderness.
What happens
A tree and a pool share a deep, loving bond in a wilderness. Travellers uproot the tree to transplant it in a distant garden, causing the pool to mourn. The pool transforms into a cloud, travels across the world, and eventually reunites with the tree by seeping into the earth at its roots, saving it from drought.
Themes in this chapter
Love and Sacrifice
The pool sacrifices its form and travels across the world to reunite with and save the tree.
Transformation and Identity
The pool transforms into a cloud and later into underground water, changing its identity to reunite with the tree.
Greed and Its Downfall
The travellers greedily uproot the tree for its rarity, causing suffering, though the tree is ultimately saved by the pool's love.
Characters to notice
- The Windfairies
The wind blows the cloud across the sky, aiding its journey to find the tree.
Key passages
“The pool looked up at the tree and the tree looked down at the pool, and the two loved each other better than anything else on earth.”
The pool and the tree gazed at each other with deep affection, valuing their bond above all else.
Establishes the central loving relationship between the pool and the tree.
“Then for the first time the pool looked straight up at the sky without seeing the delicate tracery made by the leaves and twigs against the blue, and it called out to all things near it: 'My tree, my tree, where have they taken my tree?'”
For the first time, the pool saw the empty sky where the tree's branches used to be, and it cried out in despair, asking where its tree had been taken.
Highlights the pool's grief and sense of loss after the tree is removed.
“When the sun heard it, he threw down hundreds of tiny golden threads which dropped over the pool, and slowly and gradually it began to change and grow thinner and lighter, and to rise through the air, till at last it had quite left the earth, and where it had lain before, there was nothing but a dry hole, but the pool itself was transformed into a tiny cloud.”
The sun sent golden threads that lifted the pool, transforming it into a small cloud that rose into the sky, leaving only a dry hole behind.
Describes the magical transformation of the pool into a cloud, enabling its journey.
“And there it lies to this day, hidden away in the darkness where no one can see it, but the tree feels it with its roots, and blooms in splendour, and people come from far and near to admire it.”
The pool remains hidden underground at the tree's roots, unseen but sustaining the tree, which flourishes and attracts admirers from everywhere.
Concludes the story with the pool's hidden sacrifice and the tree's continued beauty.