Setting Sail for the New World

the Moon, flew high and swift (by deeper magic still) the Fairy spirits of Africa. The shy in-dwellers of every ashorin, baobab, and mahogany, winged-friend of each river, of ev- ery bird, beast and insect, were wafted away on the Southern Trades, and fluttered down, like a windfall of butterflies, far from the tribal warfare and slave traders, upon the islands of the Carribees and the New World’s eastern shore. And from Hellas itself, then vanished at last the few surviving Centaurs, Satyrs, and Nymphs, sad scattered remnants of the glory that was Greece. They were transported, willed away to the Islands of the Blest-the Hesperides-by the final act of their dying patron, Pan. Thus, we are told, did the First Age of the Old World come to its end: with the departure of Twelve Nations of Fairy. (The Hill Folk of Scotland and Ireland were, in fact, near cousins and of a single nation). And no sooner had the Twelve established them- selves in the New World, than they were joined there by a Thirteenth. On the first morning of the first spring day, appeared, shining in the air, slender, golden people. Their garments were of richest silk, filigreed with serpents and flowering vines of silver. A tall, laugh- ing archer was among them-Prince Yi, the