St. Paul daily globe. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1884-1896, 1888-09-30

The Artist-Queen Telling Stories
on the Sands by the North Sea.


on the Sands by the North Sea.
London Daily Telegraph.
ScheheraZade-if she ever existed at
all and is not a solar myths dead and
embalmed; but the modern "Queen
Bee of story tellers is yet alive among
US, and we heard news of her. Far
away on the sands by the North Sea
watering place. Westerland, she has
been holding little juvenile
court. Every day she plants her camp
stool by the edge of the ripples
that furrow the ribbed sea sand" and
the children call it her throne, decorate
1t with wild flowers and dig entrench-
ments round it with their little wooden
spades to keep off the kracken and the
sea serpents. who are, of course, sIngu-
larly active and dangerous at this sea
son of the year. They build up a huge
fort of sand, probably nearly full
yard high, and defiantly plant their
small toy flags captured at the point
of the fork from the sugar bas-
tiOns and mamelOnS of many cakes, as
a warning to the great powers not to
interfere. Then they sit in a circle
and listen to the royal ''Marchentante"
the fairy-tale aunt-aS she WeaveS
them legends of elves, gnomeS. pixies,
Sprites, water babies and good people"
generally. Who is the artist queen who
tells stories on the sands? Well, it is a
story in itself. She was the daugh-
ter of Prince Herman of WED
and the Princess Marie of Mas
sau, and in her girlish days at Bonn,
when she used to wander into the vii
lage school and sing with the children,
her sweet yet sometimes wild and tur-
bulent temper" says a recent writer on
her life, gained for her from her par
ents the name of 'WaldrOefchen"-
tie wild rose. The story of her educa-
ton brings her close to us, for we know
that 'Ivanhoe'' and that pathetic Ameri-
can tale, "TheWide, Wide World and the
works of Shakespeare and Dickens.
were among her faVOrite books. She
wrote, as she still writes, touching and
graceful poems, even when wandering
through European courts. As became
a princess of her rank, she mastered
many languages, and when she went
with her mother to Sweden in 1868
to visit her royal relatives, she
was soon able TO read the
fairy legends of Friesland in the
original. She was a born story
teller, hereditary Interpreter of
fairy lore to mOrtalS. Then she sang
of willow trees, of birds, of mystical
sorrows, and the world came to know
of her, not as princess, but as a sweet
singer called Sylvia Carmen" Now,
long before this, when she was quite a
girl at the court of Berlin, she had made
the acquaintance of Prince Charles of
ROumania in rather romantic
manner, for her foot slipped as
she was rushing down stairs,
and ''the gallant young lieutenant
caught her in his arms aud saved herr
so says Mrs. Mawer in the interesting
sketch we quote from the WOman'S
World-''frOm an ugly fall" And now
that young lieutenant is king of Rou-
mania and 'Sylva Carmen" is his
queen. Poems, tales, the libretto of an
opera, ''Neaja," performed with dis
tinct success i'll Stockholm, and many
works of art, such as painted missalS
for the cathedral, she gave to the
world; but her strongest hold on the
hearts of the ROgmanian people dates
from the RuSSO-TurkiSh war of 1S77-S,
when she devoted herself to the sick
and wounded, meeting each train as it
came from the front and giving food
and clothing and nursing to the inyalids
OH their arrival. These deeds earned
for her Poet Majesty the title of 'Muma
Ranitilor''-the mo Their of the Wound
ed"-and at the coronation of their
majesties, when Roumania became
kingdom in 1881, we learn from this
authority that the words "Muma
hamilton" were seen in glittering let
tiers over many triumphal arch. and at
the end of the war the officers of the
Roumanian army offered their queen
statuette in silver, where she IS repre-
scented as giving cup of drink to
wounded soldier.