Daughter of the Mistral

Several years ago I had a dream which I experienced as something not quite belonging to me. It was unusual for several reasons, one being that it was narrated, and in a lovely male voice and a language I had never heard before. Somehow, through dream omniscience, I guess, I was able to understand what was spoken. And yet it was almost as if there were no actual voice at all.

Also atypical of my dream life, was the fact that I was nowhere to be found in the dream itself. I generally have some role in these narratives, even if it's simply that of an observer. The dream felt like mythology. I'm sure it has it's meaning specific to me, but I couldn't help feeling like it meant something else, too. I would love to hear any interpretations.

It went like this -

Everything is hued in gold, a bright shining sun over the Mediterranean. A man sits naked on a raft, his weight is shifted onto one hip. His legs, though bent some, jut out behind him. He props his torso and head up by keeping his weight on his hands. In his left hip, or maybe just a bit down the thigh, is an embedded arrow.

On the shore are two other men, one of them an archer.

The man is in peril - our man, the subject of this story. The raft is stealing him away from harm, but he has no oars, no means to guide his craft.

For some time he floats. He going where the winds want to take him. It is said on the wind he must find the Mistral's daughter.

For who knows how long he is on this course. Then, one day he lands on a distant shore. She is there, lying on the beach. Still now, all is golden with the sun, like her hair. She is young and lovely, and trying to give birth. She cannot, and a pact is made.

He pulls the arrow out of his hip and carves the baby out of her mother's belly. Her mother, who inevitably must perish, and so he has promised to take her, this girl child.

They are floating on the raft together, this man and this little girl, a daughter of the Mistral.