There once was a girl who cried tears of silver. She was married to a terrible man who made her cry everyday so that he could collect her tears and trade the silver for goods.
The man got greedy and lazy, not having to work hard for his silver like other men. He wanted more and more, so he said horrible things to his wife everyday to make her cry more and more.
One day, while her husband was out at the market buying extravagant things with her silver tears, she was tending to her flower garden. She leant in to smell a rose and when she looked up again, there was a beautiful nymph standing before her. The nymph had come to see the girl’s beautiful garden. The nymph and the girl got along very well, and before long they were laughing heartily as they enjoyed themselves. The girl laughed so hard, that she started to cry. But these tears were not silver; these tears were pearls.
She was so happy to see valuable, beautiful pearls falling from her own face that she kept laughing and crying and soon there were enough pearls on the ground to fill all her pockets. She heard her horrible husband returning home with his cart full of lavish goods, so she gathered up her precious pearls and ran into the woods with the nymph.
The girl and the nymph lived happily ever after in a small cottage in the woods with beautiful flower gardens, and they wanted for nothing as the girl was always very happy and often cried pearl tears which they used to trade for whatever they couldn’t grow themselves.
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This photo made me remember two very different episodes of TV. The episode of Lost Girl with a fae that cries all the time and her tears are collected and sold. And an episode of Lost Tales of the Brothers Grimm with a girl whose tears are pearls. With a little digging I found that the fae on Lost Girl was a squonk and the Grimms tale is “The Goose-Girl at the Well”.
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Photo credit: Natalia Drepina
Photo source: https://www.deviantart.com/nataliadrepina/art/Lacrymatory-724680381