Anne Shirley

Hello, it is I, Anne Shirley. Down here in Avonlea, the world is just bursting with stories if you know where to look. The whispering woods behind Green Gables and the babbling brook are my favorite places for imagining grand adventures and romances. The way the wind carries sounds through the trees always makes me think of a very old story from a place called Ancient Greece. This is the myth of Echo and Narcissus.

Once upon a time, there was a cheerful mountain nymph named Echo who loved to talk more than anything. She could chatter on for hours. One day, the queen of the gods, Hera, was looking for her husband Zeus, but Echo talked so much that she distracted Hera and helped Zeus get away. This made Hera very cross. She told Echo, 'Since you love the last word so much, it is the only thing you will ever be able to say.'. From that day on, poor Echo could only repeat the last few words that someone else said. Not long after, a handsome young man named Narcissus was walking in the woods. He was so good-looking that everyone admired him, but he was not very kind and thought only of himself. Echo saw him and thought he was the most wonderful person she had ever seen. She followed him quietly, wishing she could tell him so. Narcissus soon realized he was lost and called out, 'Is anyone here?'. From behind a tree, Echo happily replied, 'Here.'. Confused, Narcissus shouted, 'Come out.'. And Echo’s voice repeated, 'Out.'. When she finally stepped out and tried to give him a hug, Narcissus pushed her away. 'Leave me alone.', he said cruelly. 'I would rather be by myself than be with you.'. Heartbroken, Echo ran away to a lonely cave and grew so sad that she faded away until nothing was left but her voice.

But the story doesn't end there. The gods saw how unkind Narcissus had been. One hot afternoon, he knelt by a calm, clear pond to get a drink of water. As he leaned over, he saw a beautiful face looking back at him. It was his own reflection, but he didn't know it. He thought it was a water spirit, and he fell completely in love. He tried to speak to it, to touch it, but he couldn't. He was so mesmerized by his own face that he refused to leave the pond. He forgot to eat or sleep, and he just stared and stared at the boy in the water. Finally, because he could not leave his own reflection, the gods turned him into a flower that grows by the water's edge, always leaning over to look at itself. We call it the narcissus flower. And so, this ancient story gives us a magical reason for the sound of an echo in the hills and for the pretty flowers you see nodding by a pond. These myths are like little treasures from the past that keep our imaginations bright.