The Legend of Gwashbrari, the Glacier-Hearted Queen

Once upon a time, long, long ago, when the world was young and everything was very different from the way it is now, the mighty Westarwan was king of all the mountains. He lifted his head high above every other hill, so high that when the summer clouds gathered around his broad shoulders, he stood alone beneath the blue sky. Because he was so far above the world and so alone in his greatness, he grew proud. Even when the mists cleared and the lovely new world lay smiling at his feet, he never looked down at it. Day and night he gazed only at the sun and the stars.

All the other mountains, Haramukh and Nanga Parbat and the rest, stood in a great ring around Westarwan like courtiers waiting on their king. They grew annoyed because he treated them as if they were nothing, and when the summer cloud floating above their heads hung on his shoulders like a royal robe, they muttered bitter, angry, jealous words.

Only the beautiful Gwashbrari, cold and glittering among her glaciers, kept silent. She was calm and pleased with herself, and her beauty was enough for her. Others might rise higher through the mists, but nobody in all the land was as lovely as she was.

Yet one day, when the cloud hid Westarwan from view and the grumbling grew loud and fierce, she flashed a scornful smile at the others and told them to be quiet.

“Why argue?” she said, sure that she knew better. “Great Westarwan is proud. But though the stars seem to crown his head, his feet are made of earth like anybody’s. He is made of the same stuff as we are. There is simply more of him, that is all.”

“All the more reason to hate his pride!” grumbled the others. “Who made him king over us?”

Gwashbrari smiled a wicked smile. “Oh, you fools, you poor blind fools, to think him so grand! I tell you, mighty Westarwan, with all his starry crown and all his height, is no king of mine. It is I who am his queen!”

At that the great mountains roared with laughter, for Gwashbrari was the smallest of them all.

“Wait and see,” said her cold, calm voice. “Before sunrise tomorrow, great Westarwan shall be my slave.”

Again the great mountains echoed with mocking laughter, but the ice-hearted beauty paid no attention. Lovely and calm, she smiled at everyone all through the long summer day. Only now and then a white puff rose from her snowy slopes where an avalanche had swept some nimble-footed mountain goat away.

But as the sun went down, a rosy glow spread over the whole world, and Gwashbrari’s pale face flushed with life. Her chilly beauty warmed and glowed. Changed and glorious, she shone like a star against the darkening sky.

Mighty Westarwan saw the rosy light in the east and turned his proud eyes towards it. And when he saw how perfectly beautiful she was, he was struck with a sharp, aching wonder that such loveliness could exist, that anything so precious could be found in the world he had looked down on. As the sun sank lower, it cast a deeper red over Gwashbrari’s face, and it seemed as though she were blushing under the great king’s gaze. A mighty longing filled his heart and burst from his lips in a single passionate cry:

“O Gwashbrari! Kiss me, or I die!”

The cry echoed through the valleys, and the startled peaks stood around, waiting to see what would happen.

Behind her borrowed blush, Gwashbrari smiled in triumph as she answered, “How can that be, great king, when I am so small? Even if I wanted to, how could I reach your starry head, I who cannot touch your cloudy shoulder even on tiptoe?”

Again the passionate cry rang out: “I love you! Kiss me, or I die!”

Then the glacier-hearted beauty whispered softly and sweetly, and the music of her voice wove a magic spell around great Westarwan. “You love me? Don’t you know that those who love must bend? Bow your proud head down to my lips, and come for the kiss I cannot help but give.”

Slowly, steadily, like someone under a spell, the king of the mountains bent down, lower and lower, towards her shining beauty, forgetting everything else on earth and in the sky.

The sun set. The rosy blush faded from Gwashbrari’s fair, false face, leaving it as cold as ice and as pitiless as death. The stars began to twinkle in the pale sky, but the king lay at Gwashbrari’s feet, his crown lost for ever.

And that is why great Westarwan stretches out his long body across the valley of Kashmir, resting his head, which used to stand so high, on the glacier heart of Queen Gwashbrari.

And every night his crown of stars still hangs in the sky, just as it did long ago.

About this story

This legend comes from Tales of the Punjab, Told by the People, by Flora Annie Steel. In his notes, R. C. Temple explains that all the mountains in the tale are real peaks in Kashmir: Nanga Parbat to the north-west, Haramukh to the north, and Gwashbrari, also called Kolahoi, to the north-east. Westarwan is a long ridge that runs right into the Kashmir valley.

Temple suggests that the clear slant of the rock layers in the Westarwan ridge probably gave rise to this “fanciful and poetical legend”. He also points out that, in fact, Westarwan does not rest its head anywhere near Gwashbrari.

Read the original: Flora Annie Steel, Tales of the Punjab (Project Gutenberg #6145, The Legend of Gwashbrari)

Best for ages 9–12 — a short, poetic Kashmiri legend that explains the shape of the mountains through pride, beauty and a single sunset.

A closer reading

The sunset gives Gwashbrari a ‘borrowed blush’: warmth belongs to the light falling on the mountain, while Westarwan reads it as feeling directed toward him. That gap between a visible effect and an imagined intention drives the legend. When the light disappears, his changed position remains, giving a temporary evening color a permanent consequence in the story.

Height, a crown of stars and a robe of cloud turn a landscape into a court. Gwashbrari challenges the idea that greater size makes a ruler superior, yet replaces that hierarchy with her own promise to enslave him. Neither pride nor domination becomes admirable. His demand for a kiss on pain of death is also an extreme poetic expression, not an obligation another person must satisfy.

Try this with the story

Collect five landscape details and the human meanings the narrator gives them: cloud/robe, stars/crown, sunset/blush, bending/bowing and ridge/body. Choose one and describe it first as scenery, then in the voice of a character. Notice how personification changes what readers infer.

Questions to ask

• Why were the other mountains angry with Westarwan?
• How did Gwashbrari plan to make Westarwan her slave?
• What part did the sunset play in her plan?
• What do you think this legend says about pride?

You may also like

• The Faithful Prince — another tale from Flora Annie Steel’s Tales of the Punjab
• Princess Pepperina — another tale from Steel’s collection
• The Ivory City and Its Fairy Princess — another tale from the Kashmir region