The Bride’s Bird.  Still very young and unaware of the ways of the world, the seventeenth daughter of Nature decided to take a husband.  There were many years of bliss, until her husband became ill.  When his eyes ceased to see her and his chest ceased to move, she cried out in anguish for her mother’s help; but Nature told her this was the way of mortals, and she could do nothing to go against their fate.  Nature’s daughter begged the birds to take her soul to her husband’s, but they too could not go against the way of things.  Devastated and alone, the daughter of Nature tore apart her wedding dress and began to fashion her own bird, sewn together with her own hair, bejeweled with her own blood, its eyes made from her own crystallized tears held in place by her own wedding ring.  She breathed the breath of life into the bird, and when its wings spread and flapped she begged for it to take her soul to her husband’s.  The end of the tale changes depending upon the storyteller, but they generally agree that the bird took her to meet her husband, and Nature would never again acknowledge her seventeenth daughter.

More info and a couple more pictures are available on my web site.  (It’s also currently available for sale.)