2. At the dawn of time, many people died at sea
due to human anger, revenge and greed. People
killed each other, filling water, which should give
life, with crimson.

3. One morning Zeus, who
loved to watch the solar
disc emerging from the
waves, saw the sea
littered with wrecks of
ships and stained with
human blood. He got very
upset about it because
they spoiled the peace and
harmony of the waters. He
summoned Poseidon and
ordered him to restore
order in the waters.

4. Poseidon
created the Water
defender, who he
called
Marene, which is the
Latin name of the
sea. She was made
of his saliva, a very
rare underwater
plant called
Integritat, the hair of
Athena and
Aphrodite’s tears.

5. Marene was a very
beautiful creature. Her
skin was pearly shade
that glowed in the dark.
She was slim and had
delicate facial features.
Her eyes shone like
diamonds, and her hair
was so long that it
covered Marene
during her sleep.
Marene looked like a
human woman but she
had a membrane
between her fingers and
a blue hue of hair.

6. She smelled of sea
water and resin.
Marene’s skin was very
thin and prone to
injury, which is why
Zeus made, especially
for her, a cover of sea
plants hard like steel.
Now, the Defender of
the Seas and Oceans
always put it on in the
morning and nothing
could hurt her
anymore.

7. Marene loved
chatting with animals
and people, laughing
brightly and shaking
her hair. She was very
sociable and able to get
out tactfully of any
situation. She could do
many things singing
sea shanties at the
same time. She was a bit
scatterbrained and her
cave, densely planted
with different types of
sea plants was often in
a mess.

8. Marene loved collecting pearls,
beautiful stones and amber.

9. All the Greek gods loved her honesty, gentleness and
simplicity. Hermes was so enchanted with her beauty and
goodness, that he wanted to marry her. Zeus, however, did
not agree on it because she was to focus solely on purifying
water from evil.

10. Marene’s unusual
abilities amazed
everyone who heard
about them. Poseidon
gave her strength to
sink ships with a crew
that benefited from
killing people. He
thought that his idea
was very brilliant and
effective so he was very
surprised when
Marene, horrified with
the very thought of
killing
people, proposed a
different solution.

11. Every time the two
hundredth man died on the
board of a ship, she was to
surface and tear a hair out.
Then all the men on the
ship turned into the
gentlest and smartest
creatures in the world-
women. Poseidon, who
initially was not happy with
the fact that Marene did not
like his idea, quickly
realized that the next
murders would not
improve the situation in the
waters. In the end, he
agreed with Marena’s idea.

12. Since then, thanks to Marene, men on the ships sometimes
turned into women during their deadly struggles. Men’s oily
hair with bald patches were replaced with tasteful
hairstyles, rags turned into beautiful dresses and knives and
guns, in the blink of an eye, were converted to embroidered
fans.

13. Fighters, out of the sudden, began to smile gracefully and
compliment other women's clothing. Suddenly most people on
the ship felt an incredible predilection to jewellery and
beautiful fabrics, demanding an immediate change of ship
course.

14. In such situations Marene always smiled in her
characteristic way, and hid in her underwater cave. She knew
that if two hundredth person died once again because of the
men's anger, the world would have another female crew.

15. The Author of The Legend: Urszula Sikora
The Drawings: Sara Redlarska