Royal Portrait of Queen Ealathoune the Fair by Loston Wallace
(As Related by Emily Woanaz to the Royal Archivist)
“One of the first Viking kings to rule the Isle of Man set this pearl in the ring he gave his Norman bride. She loved another, a handsome young warrior, but she was the price the king demanded for the cessation of raids on her father’s coastal kingdom. So remarkable was her beauty that no other maiden would do.
“The wily girl plied the king with liquor so that she would not have to endure their wedding night. When he awoke the next morning, he found her lover, who had been a guest at the wedding, had absconded with his new bride.
“She had the decency to return the ring, and it was the sight of the pearl that greeted him on his new bride’s pillow upon waking instead of her fresh, fair face.
“Of course, this humiliation was intolerable, and the Viking king of Man stood to lose the respect of both his people and his crews.
“Then, the girl’s plan turned on her. She and her lover were captured in their flight by another guest from the wedding. Unfortunately, this particular guest was a conquered island chieftain who bore the Viking king a grudge for making him his vassal. He sent him word that, as his faithful servant, he had slain the girl’s lover for him. She was unharmed but held for ransom.
“The chieftain’s price was the return of his independent rule of his island. Further, the Viking king was to acknowledge the acceptance of his terms by sending him for his trophy the exceptional pearl he had seen in the bride’s wedding ring.”
“This chieftain knew the pearl already signified one humiliation for the king and now it would be a visible reminder of two times he had been outdone by those formerly subdued by him. His enemy would then have the power over him to brandish his shame at will.”
“But if the Viking king withheld the pearl, the chieftain promised the girl would still be sent back to him alive…at least when she began the journey home on a floating Viking funeral pyre.”
“‘Then send her thus,’” her husband said. “For I can see that this pearl shall be a treasure easier to keep than she would ever be.’
“The groom’s death sentence upon his royal bride occasioned a great outcry in her homeland. They were all proud of their beautiful princess, who, until her forced nuptials, had always been a sweet girl. They held her an innocent in the affair.
“Even the Viking king’s own people, who had rejoiced that such beauty was now theirs in a queen of Man, loathed that she should suffer such a fate and spent a day of public mourning in hopes of turning their ruler’s decision.
“But he alone refused to shed a tear, most especially his tear shaped pearl.”
“This king’s name was Balder.”
“Thus he reversed the pattern of the Norse myth….”
“…and regained his lost renown for austere ruthlessness, so necessary for one who makes a career of pillaging and plundering. Which, of course, after his queen’s death, he then inflicted upon the rebellious chieftain’s people. Said chieftain himself upon his capture was subjected to his own immolation by funeral pyre.
“For, in truth, the king did mourn his bride. He loved her yet, and her rejection pained him greatly, but he had mastered the manly Viking art of ‘hiding his grief behind his battle arms.’ Only on his death bed did he give up one tear for her. It fell upon the pearl he held to him in his dying. The legend is that this tear left the mark of a halved heart in the pearl’s nacre.
“In his will, he set apart the pearl among the royal jewels to be held for the one woman who might return the beauty of his bride to the people of Man. That Norman princess’s name was “Elleàlathoune,” which means ‘she is like unto a fortified city.’
“Among the people of the Isle of Man, this legendary beauty became known as Ealathoune the Fair.
“It is said the Isle of Man never saw such beauty in a woman again, until it was incarnate at the birth of Princess Edina Crovan. Accordingly, then, on her sixteenth birthday, her name was changed to Ealathoune Crovan the Fair, and she was crowned with a tiara in which Balder’s Tear had been set.
“After her marriage to King Lothar Dorn Serapion, she wore this tiara at her coronation as queen of Aarastad with the understanding that its pearl was now part of the Serapions’ own royal jewels.
“But that wicked family would never possess neither the pearl nor Ealathoune and her beauty of legend for long….