The Sword of Welleran and Other Stories - Lord Dunsany
A smouldering fragment fell in upon our camp fire and sent a strange
light into the eyes of the man in rags. He rose at once, and his
tattered cloak swirled up with him like a great wing; he said no
more, but turned round from us instantly southwards, and strode away
into the darkness towards Babbulkund. Then a hush fell upon our
encampment, and the smell of the tobacco of those lands arose. When
the last flame died down in our camp fire I fell asleep, but my rest
was troubled by shifting dreams of doom.
Morning came, and our guides told us that we should come to the city
ere nightfall. Again we passed southwards through the changeless
desert; sometimes we met travellers coming from Babbulkund, with the
beauty of its marvels still fresh in their eyes.
When we encamped near the middle of the day we saw a great number of
people on foot coming towards us running, from the southwards. These
we hailed when they were come near, saying, 'What of Babbulkund?'
They answered: 'We are not of the race of the people of
Babbulkund, but were captured in youth and taken away from the hills
that are to the northward. Now we have all seen in visions of the
stillness the Lord the God of our people calling to us from His
hills, and therefore we all flee northwards. But in Babbulkund King
Nehemoth hath been troubled in the nights by unkingly dreams of
doom, and none may interpret what the dreams portend. Now this is
the dream that King Nehemoth dreamed on the first night of his
dreaming. He saw move through the stillness a bird all black, and
beneath the beatings of his wings Babbulkund gloomed and darkened;
and after him flew a bird all white, beneath the beatings of whose
wings Babbulkund gleamed and shone; and there flew by four more
birds alternately black and white. And, as the black ones passed
Babbulkund darkened, and when the white ones appeared her streets
and houses shone. But after the sixth bird there came no more, and
Babbulkund vanished from her place, and there was only the empty
desert where she had stood, and the rivers Oonrana and Plegathanees
mourning alone. Next morning all the prophets of the King gathered
before their abominations and questioned them of the dream, and the
abominations spake not. But when the second night stepped down from
the halls of God, dowered with many stars, King Nehemoth dreamed
again; and in this dream King Nehemoth saw four birds only, black
and white alternately as before. And Babbulkund darkened again as
the black ones passed, and shone when the white came by; only after
the four birds came no more, and Babbulkund vanished from her place,
leaving only the forgetful desert and the mourning rivers.
'Still the abominations spake not, and none could interpret the
dream. And when the third night came forth from the divine halls
of her home dowered like her sisters, again King Nehemoth dreamed.
And he saw a bird all black go by again, beneath whom Babbulkund
darkened, and then a white bird and Babbulkund shone; and after them
came no more, and Babbulkund passed away. And the golden day
appeared, dispelling dreams, and still the abominations were silent,
and the King's prophets answered not to portend the omen of the
dream. One prophet only spake before the King, saying: "The sable
birds, O King, are the nights, and the white birds are the
days. . ." This thing the King had feared, and he arose and smote the
prophet with his sword, whose soul went crying away and had to do no
more with nights and days.
'It was last night that the King dreamed his third dream, and this
morning we fled away from Babbulkund. A great heat lies over it, and
the orchids of the jungle droop their heads. All night long the
women in the hareem of the North have wailed horribly for their
hills. A fear hath fallen upon the city, and a boding. Twice hath
Nehemoth gone to worship Annolith, and all the people have
prostrated themselves before Voth. Thrice the horologers have looked
into the great crystal globe wherein are foretold all happenings to
be, and thrice the globe was blank. Yea, though they went a fourth
time yet was no vision revealed; and the people's voice is hushed in
Babbulkund.'
Soon the travellers arose and pushed on northwards again, leaving us
wondering. Through the heat of the day we rested as well as we
might, but the air was motionless and sultry and the camels ill at
ease. The Arabs said that it boded a desert storm, and that a great
wind would arise full of sand. So we arose in the afternoon, and
travelled swiftly, hoping to come to shelter before the storm. And
the air burned in the stillness between the baked desert and the
glaring sky.
Suddenly a wind arose out of the South, blowing from Babbulkund, and
the sand lifted and went by in great shapes, all whispering. And the
wind blew violently, and wailed as it blew, and hundreds of sandy
shapes went towering by, and there were little cries among them and
the sounds of a passing away. Soon the wind sank quite suddenly, and
its cries died, and the panic ceased among the driven sands. And
when the storm departed the air was cool, and the terrible
sultriness and the boding were passed away, and the camels had ease
among them. And the Arabs said that the storm which was to be had
been, as was willed of old by God.
The sun set and the gloaming came, and we neared the junction of
Oonrana and Plegathanees, but in the darkness discerned not
Babbulkund. We pushed on hurriedly to reach the city ere nightfall,
and came to the junction of the River of Myth where he meets with
the Waters of Fable, and still saw not Babbulkund. All round us lay
the sand and rocks of the unchanging desert, save to the southwards
where the jungle stood with its orchids facing skywards. Then we
perceived that we had arrived too late, and that her doom had come
to Babbulkund; and by the river in the empty desert on the sand the
man in rags was seated, with his face hidden in his hands, weeping
bitterly.
* * * * * * *
Thus passed away in the hour of her iniquities before Annolith, in
the two thousand and thirty-second year of her being, in the six
thousand and fiftieth year of the building of the World, Babbulkund,
City of Marvel, sometime called by those that hated her City of the
Dog, but hourly mourned in Araby and Ind and wide through jungle and
desert; leaving no memorial in stone to show that she had been, but
remembered with an abiding love, in spite of the anger of God, by
all that knew her beauty, whereof still they sing.
The Kith of the Elf Folk
Chapter I
The north wind was blowing, and red and golden the last days of
Autumn were streaming hence. Solemn and cold over the marshes arose
the evening.
It became very still.
Then the last pigeon went home to the trees on the dry land in the
distance, whose shapes already had taken upon themselves a mystery
in the haze.
Then all was still again.
As the light faded and the haze deepened, mystery crept nearer from
every side.
Then the green plover came in crying, and all alighted.
And again it became still, save when one of the plover arose and flew
a little way uttering the cry of the waste. And hushed and silent
became the earth, expecting the first star. Then the duck came in,
and the widgeon, company by company: and all the light of day faded
out of the sky saving one red band of light. Across the light
appeared, black and huge, the wings of a flock of geese beating up
wind to the marshes. These, too, went down among the rushes.
Then the stars appeared and shone in the stillness, and there was
silence in the great spaces of the night.
Suddenly the bells of the cathedral in the marshes broke out,
calling to evensong.
Eight centuries ago on the edge of the marsh men had built the huge
cathedral, or it may have been seven centuries ago, or perhaps
nine--it was all one to the Wild Things.
So evensong was held, and candles lighted, and the lights through
the windows shone red and green in the water, and the sound of the
organ went roaring over the marshes. But from the deep and perilous
places, edged with bright mosses, the Wild Things came leaping up to
dance on the reflection of the stars, and over their heads as they
danced the marsh-lights rose and fell.
The Wild Things are somewhat human in appearance, only all brown
of skin and barely two feet high. Their ears are pointed like the
squirrel's, only far larger, and they leap to prodigious heights.
They live all day under deep pools in the loneliest marshes, but at
night they come up and dance. Each Wild Thing has over its head a
marsh-light, which moves as the Wild Thing moves; they have no
souls, and cannot die, and are of the kith of the Elf-folk.
All night they dance over the marshes, treading upon the reflection
of the stars (for the bare surface of the water will not hold them
by itself); but when the stars begin to pale, they sink down one by
one into the pools of their home. Or if they tarry longer, sitting
upon the rushes, their bodies fade from view as the marsh-fires pale
in the light, and by daylight none may see the Wild Things of the
kith of the Elf-folk. Neither may any see them even at night unless
they were born, as I was, in the hour of dusk, just at the moment
when the first star appears.
Now, on the night that I tell of, a little Wild Thing had gone
drifting over the waste, till it came right up to the walls of the
cathedral and danced upon the images of the coloured saints as they
lay in the water among the reflection of the stars. And as it leaped
in its fantastic dance, it saw through the painted windows to where
the people prayed, and heard the organ roaring over the marshes. The
sound of the organ roared over the marshes, but the song and prayers
of the people streamed up from the cathedral's highest tower like
thin gold chains, and reached to Paradise, and up and down them went
the angels from Paradise to the people, and from the people to
Paradise again.
Then something akin to discontent troubled the Wild Thing for the
first time since the making of the marshes; and the soft grey ooze
and the chill of the deep water seemed to be not enough, nor the
first arrival from northwards of the tumultuous geese, nor the wild
rejoicing of the wings of the wildfowl when every feather sings, nor
the wonder of the calm ice that comes when the snipe depart and
beards the rushes with frost and clothes the hushed waste with a
mysterious haze where the sun goes red and low, nor even the dance
of the Wild Things in the marvellous night; and the little Wild
Thing longed to have a soul, and to go and worship God.
And when evensong was over and the lights were out, it went back
crying to its kith.
But on the next night, as soon as the images of the stars appeared
in the water, it went leaping away from star to star to the farthest
edge of the marshlands, where a great wood grew where dwelt the
Oldest of the Wild Things.
And it found the Oldest of Wild Things sitting under a tree,
sheltering itself from the moon.
And the little Wild Thing said: 'I want to have a soul to worship
God, and to know the meaning of music, and to see the inner beauty
of the marshlands and to imagine Paradise.'
And the Oldest of the Wild Things said to it: 'What have we to do
with God? We are only Wild Things, and of the kith of the Elf-folk.'
But it only answered, 'I want to have a soul.'
Then the Oldest of the Wild Things said: 'I have no soul to give
you; but if you got a soul, one day you would have to die, and if
you knew the meaning of music you would learn the meaning of sorrow,
and it is better to be a Wild Thing and not to die.'
So it went weeping away.
But they that were kin to the Elf-folk were sorry for the little
Wild Thing; and though the Wild Things cannot sorrow long, having no
souls to sorrow with, yet they felt for awhile a soreness where
their souls should be, when they saw the grief of their comrade.
So the kith of the Elf-folk went abroad by night to make a soul for
the little Wild Thing. And they went over the marshes till they came
to the high fields among the flowers and grasses. And there they
gathered a large piece of gossamer that the spider had laid by
twilight; and the dew was on it.
Into this dew had shone all the lights of the long banks of the
ribbed sky, as all the colours changed in the restful spaces of
evening. And over it the marvellous night had gleamed with all its
stars.
Then the Wild Things went with their dew-bespangled gossamer down to
the edge of their home. And there they gathered a piece of the grey
mist that lies by night over the marshlands. And into it they put
the melody of the waste that is borne up and down the marshes in the
evening on the wings of the golden plover. And they put into it, too,
the mournful song that the reeds are compelled to sing before the
presence of the arrogant North Wind. Then each of the Wild Things
gave some treasured memory of the old marshes, 'For we can spare
it,' they said. And to all this they added a few images of the stars
that they gathered out of the water. Still the soul that the kith of
the Elf-folk were making had no life.
Then they put into it the low voices of two lovers that went walking
in the night, wandering late alone. And after that they waited for
the dawn. And the queenly dawn appeared, and the marsh-lights of the
Wild Things paled in the glare, and their bodies faded from view;
and still they waited by the marsh's edge. And to them waiting came
over field and marsh, from the ground and out of the sky, the myriad
song of the birds.
This, too, the Wild Things put into the piece of haze that they had
gathered in the marshlands, and wrapped it all up in their
dew-bespangled gossamer. Then the soul lived.
And there it lay in
the hands of the Wild Things no larger than a hedgehog; and wonderful
lights were in it, green and blue; and they changed ceaselessly,
going round and round, and in the grey midst of it was a purple
flare.
And the next night they came to the little Wild Thing and
showed her the gleaming soul. And they said to her: 'If you must
have a soul and go and worship God, and become a mortal and die,
place this to your left breast a little above the heart, and it will
enter and you will become a human. But if you take it you can never
be rid of it to become immortal again unless you pluck it out and
give it to another; and we will not take it, and most of the humans
have a soul already. And if you cannot find a human without a soul
you will one day die, and your soul cannot go to Paradise, because
it was only made in the marshes.'
Far away the little Wild Thing saw
the cathedral windows alight for evensong, and the song of the
people mounting up to Paradise, and all the angels going up and
down. So it bid farewell with tears and thanks to the Wild Things of
the kith of Elf-folk, and went leaping away towards the green dry
land, holding the soul in its hands.
And the Wild Things were sorry that it had gone, but could not be
sorry long, because they had no souls.
At the marsh's edge the little Wild Thing gazed for some moments
over the water to where the marsh-fires were leaping up and down,
and then pressed the soul against its left breast a little above the
heart.
Instantly it became a young and beautiful woman, who was cold and
frightened. She clad herself somehow with bundles of reeds, and went
towards the lights of a house that stood close by. And she pushed
open the door and entered, and found a farmer and a farmer's wife
sitting over their supper.
And the farmer's wife took the little Wild Thing with the soul of
the marshes up to her room, and clothed her and braided her hair,
and brought her down again, and gave her the first food that she had
ever eaten. Then the farmer's wife asked many questions.
'Where have you come from?' she said.
'Over the marshes.'
'From what direction?' said the farmer's wife.
'South,' said the little Wild Thing with the new soul.
'But none can come over the marshes from the south,' said the
farmer's wife.
'No, they can't do that,' said the farmer.
'I lived in the marshes.'
'Who are you?' asked the farmer's wife.
'I am a Wild Thing, and have found a soul in the marshes, and we are
kin to the Elf-folk.'
Talking it over afterwards, the farmer and his wife agreed that she
must be a gipsy who had been lost, and that she was queer with
hunger and exposure.
So that night the little Wild Thing slept in the farmer's house, but
her new soul stayed awake the whole night long dreaming of the
beauty of the marshes.
As soon as dawn came over the waste and shone on the farmer's house,
she looked from the window towards the glittering waters, and saw
the inner beauty of the marsh. For the Wild Things only love the
marsh and know its haunts, but now she perceived the mystery of its
distances and the glamour of its perilous pools, with their fair and
deadly mosses, and felt the marvel of the North Wind who comes
dominant out of unknown icy lands, and the wonder of that ebb and
flow of life when the wildfowl whirl in at evening to the marshlands
and at dawn pass out to sea. And she knew that over her head above
the farmer's house stretched wide Paradise, where perhaps God was
now imagining a sunrise while angels played low on lutes, and the
sun came rising up on the world below to gladden fields and marsh.
And all that heaven thought, the marsh thought too; for the blue of
the marsh was as the blue of heaven, and the great cloud shapes in
heaven became the shapes in the marsh, and through each ran
momentary rivers of purple, errant between banks of gold. And the
stalwart army of reeds appeared out of the gloom with all their
pennons waving as far as the eye could see. And from another window
she saw the vast cathedral gathering its ponderous strength
together, and lifting it up in towers out of the marshlands.
She said, 'I will never, never leave the marsh.'
An hour later she dressed with great difficulty and went down to eat
the second meal of her life. The farmer and his wife were kindly
folk, and taught her how to eat.
'I suppose the gipsies don't have knives and forks,' one said to the
other afterwards.
After breakfast the farmer went and saw the Dean, who lived near his
cathedral, and presently returned and brought back to the Dean's
house the little Wild Thing with the new soul.
'This is the lady,' said the farmer. 'This is Dean Murnith.' Then he
went away.
'Ah,' said the Dean, 'I understand you were lost the other night in
the marshes. It was a terrible night to be lost in the marshes.'
'I love the marshes,' said the little Wild Thing with the new soul.
'Indeed! How old are you?' said the Dean.
'I don't know,' she answered.
'You must know about how old you are,' he said.
'Oh, about ninety,' she said, 'or more.'
'Ninety years!' exclaimed the Dean.
'No, ninety centuries,' she said; 'I am as old as the marshes.'
Then she told her story--how she had longed to be a human and go and
worship God, and have a soul and see the beauty of the world, and
how all the Wild Things had made her a soul of gossamer and mist and
music and strange memories.
'But if this is true,' said Dean Murnith, 'this is very wrong. God
cannot have intended you to have a soul.
'What is your name?'
'I have no name,' she answered.
'We must find a Christian name and a surname for you. What would you
like to be called?'
'Song of the Rushes,' she said.
'That won't do at all,' said the Dean.
'Then I would like to be called Terrible North Wind, or Star in the
Waters,' she said.
'No, no, no,' said Dean Murnith; 'that is quite impossible. We could
call you Miss Rush if you like. How would Mary Rush do? Perhaps you
had better have another name--say Mary Jane Rush.'
So the little Wild Thing with the soul of the marshes took the names
that were offered her, and became Mary Jane Rush.
'And we must find something for you to do,' said Dean Murnith.
'Meanwhile we can give you a room here.'
'I don't want to do anything,' replied Mary Jane; 'I want to worship
God in the cathedral and live beside the marshes.'
Then Mrs. Murnith came in, and for the rest of that day Mary Jane
stayed at the house of the Dean.
And there with her new soul she
perceived the beauty of the world; for it came grey and level out
of misty distances, and widened into grassy fields and ploughlands
right up to the edge of an old gabled town; and solitary in the
fields far off an ancient windmill stood, and his honest hand-made
sails went round and round in the free East Anglian winds. Close by,
the gabled houses leaned out over the streets, planted fair upon
sturdy timbers that grew in the olden time, all glorying among
themselves upon their beauty. And out of them, buttress by buttress,
growing and going upwards, aspiring tower by tower, rose the
cathedral.
And she saw the people moving in the streets all
leisurely and slow, and unseen among them, whispering to each other,
unheard by living men and concerned only with bygone things, drifted
the ghosts of very long ago. And wherever the streets ran eastwards,
wherever were gaps in the houses, always there broke into view the
sight of the great marshes, like to some bar of music weird and
strange that haunts a melody, arising again and again, played on the
violin by one musician only, who plays no other bar, and he is swart
and lank about the hair and bearded about the lips, and his
moustache droops long and low, and no one knows the land from which
he comes.
All these were good things for a new soul to see.
Then the sun set over green fields and ploughland and the night came
up. One by one the merry lights of cheery lamp-lit windows took
their stations in the solemn night.
Then the bells rang, far up in a cathedral tower,
and their melody fell on the roofs of the old houses and poured over
their eaves until the streets were full, and then flooded away over
green fields and plough, till it came to the sturdy mill and brought
the miller trudging to evensong, and far away eastwards and seawards
the sound rang out over the remoter marshes. And it was all as
yesterday to the old ghosts in the streets.
Then the Dean's wife took Mary Jane to evening service, and she saw
three hundred candles filling all the aisle with light. But sturdy
pillars stood there in unlit vastnesses; great colonnades going away
into the gloom, where evening and morning, year in year out, they
did their work in the dark, holding the cathedral roof aloft. And it
was stiller than the marshes are still when the ice has come and the
wind that brought it has fallen.
Suddenly into this stillness rushed the sound of the organ, roaring,
and presently the people prayed and sang.
No longer could Mary Jane
see their prayers ascending like thin gold chains, for that was but
an elfin fancy, but she imagined clear in her new soul the seraphs
passing in the ways of Paradise, and the angels changing guard to
watch the World by night.
When the Dean had finished service, a young curate, Mr. Millings,
went up into the pulpit.
He spoke of Abana and Pharpar, rivers of Damascus: and Mary Jane was
glad that there were rivers having such names, and heard with wonder
of Nineveh, that great city, and many things strange and new.
And the light of the candles shone on the curate's fair hair, and
his voice went ringing down the aisle, and Mary Jane rejoiced that
he was there.
But when his voice stopped she felt a sudden
loneliness, such as she had not felt since the making of the
marshes; for the Wild Things never are lonely and never unhappy, but
dance all night on the reflection of the stars, and having no
souls, desire nothing more.
After the collection was made, before anyone moved to go, Mary Jane
walked up the aisle to Mr. Millings.
'I love you,' she said.
Chapter II
Nobody sympathised with Mary Jane.
'So unfortunate for Mr. Millings,' every one said; 'such a promising
young man.'
Mary Jane was sent away to a great manufacturing city of the
Midlands, where work had been found for her in a cloth factory. And
there was nothing in that town that was good for a soul to see. For
it did not know that beauty was to be desired; so it made many
things by machinery, and became hurried in all its ways, and boasted
its superiority over other cities and became richer and richer, and
there was none to pity it.
In this city Mary Jane had had lodgings found for her near the
factory.
At six o'clock on those November mornings, about the time that, far
away from the city, the wildfowl rose up out of the calm marshes and
passed to the troubled spaces of the sea, at six o'clock the factory
uttered a prolonged howl and gathered the workers together, and
there they worked, saving two hours for food, the whole of the
daylit hours and into the dark till the bells tolled six again.
There Mary Jane worked with other girls in a long dreary room, where
giants sat pounding wool into a long thread-like strip with iron,
rasping hands. And all day long they roared as they sat at their
soulless work. But the work of Mary Jane was not with these, only
their roar was ever in her ears as their clattering iron limbs went
to and fro.