WHEN THE DAUGHTER of the King of the Seals was to be married, everyone in the Arctic was invited. The occasion was to be very grand, and the penguins, the eider ducks, the hares, the walruses, the whales, and the caribou made great preparations.
"Alas!" cried the King of the Polar Bears to his wife, "We have
no suitable way of traveling to the wedding, so we can't go." "Can't we swim?" asked his wife.
"How would that look?" demanded the bear King. "Who ever heard of swimming to a wedding?"
"The whales will, I'm sure," protested the Queen.
"We're not whales," said the King.
"Can't we walk, then?" suggested the Queen .
"Royalty never goes on foot to weddings, according to the eti•
quette books I read," said the King.
"Well, then, you'll have to find some other way," said the Queen. "Summon the wise bears of your kingdom and offer a reward for the best idea."
So a meeting of wise bears was called, and a reward of fifty of
the finest fish was offered to the bear who came up with the best idea. And the wise bears sat in a circle and thought and thought,
while the northern lights danced wildly above their heads. At last one old bear rose and whispered in the King's ear and the King looked pleased, and said to the rest,
"You may all go home."
"But we haven't had our ideas yet," protested the other wise bears. "They might be better than his."
"His is the best," said the King. "Don't argue with a king! Go home, when I tell you to! But you may come back to wave to the Queen and me when we set off for the wedding."
And truly the royal departure was a great sight and filled every
bear's heart with pride. The day was fine, the sun shone brightly over miles of icebergs and sparkling water, and glittered on the crowns of their majesties and on their little proud eyes and their long polished claws.
But most brightly of all the light shone on the boat in which sat the royal bears. It was carved from a solid cake of ice, with a
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curving prow shaped like the head of an ice-dragon, and ten bears sat along its sides, with oars of polished ice in their paws, while the royal couple were seated in the stem on two thrones under a canopy of snow, fringed with icicles.
"Hurrah, hurrah for their majesties!" shouted the other bears,
as the ice blades dipped into the water and the beautiful vessel moved away.
And the bears had a right to be proud, for no one else arrived at the wedding of the Seal Princess in such regal style, and even to this day, when anyone in the Arctic wishes to say that a thing is very wonderful, he calls it as wonderful as the barge of the King and Queen of the Polar Bears.
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