http://photography.nationalgeographic.com/photography/photo-of-the-day/men-walking-jamaica/

Old Amazon Mariner’s Tale

In the early days of seafaring, after the Amazon warrior women sailed out of their river empire and into the cold depths of the Atlantic, they encountered many new things. Dolphins. Sharks. Whales, which they considered living demigods for nearly a century before they eventually encountered a dead one.

They managed to stay close enough to the coasts of their lands to avoid the sea serpents in the open ocean. So too did they fail to run afoul of the southern waters’ flying fish with their dual-attack strategy, dozens coming from water and air on those strange, leathery wings. But they did not, those early mariners, avoid all the dangers the open ocean has to offer.

On her famous three year trip, Magelena traveled from the Amazonian Delta; first north to the Yucatan peninsula, then east to a number of Caribbean islands before returning back south to trek overland after she wrecked. Upon arrival back at the women’s capital city deep in the jungle, she had many wild tales. Perhaps none were as wild as her tale of the Sirens.

In her account, the expedition lost two vessels in a storm just weeks after hitting the ocean. But the remaining four managed to stay together and in good repair for the bulk of the trip. After her adventures on the Yucatan and in the Caribbean, the ships turned south and made for home.

They passed a few small islands as they neared the mainland. From one such island issued the sweetest music. Sad and lilting, the song told of heartbreak and hope, of trials and errors and some modest redemption. It was rhapsodic. And intoxicating.

Nearly every woman aboard the ships became ensorcelled. They steered toward the music, unable to sail their ships in any other direction. It would prove to be nearly their doom.

They ran aground on long, luscious sand beaches. As the mariners of Magelena’s small fleet disembarked and prepared to seek out the source of the music, two men strode toward them on the beach. Handsome men, loosely dressed, charming and convincing.

These men told the Amazons of the lush interior of their island. Of sweet fruit and plump game, of comfortable huts where they could rest after their ordeals on the sea. The women cheered. They’d finally, after all those famous trials, found a paradise.

Magelena could not say what broke the spell, or why it broke on her alone out of a hundred sailors. But it did. The music rose again, from deeper into the island, and the women were prepared to follow the men. Until their admiral, their leader, saved them.

Magelena asked what that beautiful song might be about. The men told her it was a famous song-poem, about the last woman who had been on their island of men, many years ago. She had fallen in love with one of them, but chose her homeland over her love. She left the man a son, then left the island to never return.

Sirens, of course, are skilled liars. On many other travelers, the story probably would have worked. But not Magelena. She could see through the lies, through the sweetness of the song to its true, rotten core. And she guessed she knew how to make the others, her mariners, her charges, see as well.

With a grand gesture, she called the procession to a halt, just at the edge of the beach. She called attention, and she offered up a thank you. A traditional Amazon song, of love lost, to pair with the local musical tastes. The men demurred, for they knew what was happening, but Megelena was the admiral. Bewitched or not, a sailor follows her captain’s orders.

So the Amazons took up the song. It was a trifle, in truth, a plain song used by midwives to get the nurseries to sleep once the sun set. But it was an old song, one tied to each mariner deeply from her childhood and the childhoods of those that came before.

Magelena brought the song to a roaring conclusion, a hundred women singing in glorious harmony. And the spell from the Sirens broke. The island fell silent, the lure snapped off, the notes blown out to sea on the wind.

The women seized the two men, and threatened death if they did not provide a way out. The men, in their haste to be rid of the fearsome women, showed them how to strip their now-broken, shipwrecked vessels and craft canoes.

One month to the day of the wreck, the Amazon women pushed off on their many canoes. They paddled south, for the mainland and the next part of their long, winding journey. None looked back at the beautiful, alluring island. None listened when the song struck up again as the island shrunk into the horizon. The echo of their own song, of love lost and life regained, echoed still in their ears. And so they paddled, hard and strong, for home.