ΕΛΛΗΝΙΚΑ
A Hymn to Love and Silence!
On August 15th, after years of being away, I returned to my village. In the morning, I went to the church -same service, same faces, yet everything felt different inside me.
On the side, there was a small wooden icon said to have been made by Uncle Antonis: Panagia the Fairy.
Most people remarked that it looked more like a village woman than a holy figure; yet no one dared to say anything. They excused it because it had been crafted by Antonis, the only one, as they said, who had ever seen a fairy.
I was watching him in church as he came out with the offering basket and the myrrh, and something inside me sensed that he was different, almost saintly. Until I heard his story, and then I admired him even more. He had become grounded, yet at the same time something of a hero -a person who, through silence and cleverness, had managed to live and honor his love in a way no one else would have thought of.
And so, one summer, at a celebration in the village café, a villager told me:
“Antonis loved a girl, but they wouldn’t give her to him -because she came from a poor family. He wanted to see her, even just once, and he thought of something the cleverest person could imagine. He would meet her by the river. If anyone saw them? He would say he had seen a fairy. And, as the legend says, anyone who sees a fairy cannot speak for seven days. He would pretend he couldn’t speak -and no one would expose him.”
Antonis’s idea was not just daring; it was deeply human. The quiet, silent man found a way to protect his love and keep his secret alive. A person who was naturally silent used silence as a shield and imagination as freedom.
And then I remembered the words of a girl from my youth: “You never fight for anything.” At the time, her words carried a note of complaint, but today I found in them the same essence that Antonis’s story held. Love, life, desire -they do not wait, you cannot let them pass you by.
And when Flora passed by today with her basket, the air smelled of myrrh again. And among its drops, I remembered our eyes meeting silently in church when I would go to kiss the hand of the Virgin Fairy. I was the only one who approached her, and Antonis watched me. Perhaps he was jealous; perhaps he wanted to relive a little of the courage of his younger self.
The story of the Fairy, of silence and myrrh, is not just a memory, it is a hymn.
A hymn that says: speak, fight for what you love, and love openly. Life is not meant for silence; silence may protect love, but it cannot live it.
This story belongs to the Mitos Project, which records and preserves the memories, myths, and stories of people and villages. Through such stories, the Mitos Project highlights the courage, cleverness, love, and memory that shape our cultural and human heritage. Even if the objects or people no longer exist, the feelings and lessons they leave behind remain alive.
August 17, 2025
ΕΛΛΗΝΙΚΑ
