The Sword of Welleran and Other Stories - Lord Dunsany
Then there grew up beside me the red brick buildings of my first
school and the chapel that adjoined it. The fields a little way off
were full of boys in white flannels playing cricket. On the asphalt
playing ground, just by the schoolroom windows, stood Agamemnon,
Achilles, and Odysseus, with their Argives armed behind them; but
Hector stepped down out of a ground-floor window, and in the
schoolroom were all Priam's sons and the Achaeans and fair Helen;
and a little farther away the Ten Thousand drifted across the
playground, going up into the heart of Persia to place Cyrus on his
brother's throne. And the boys that I knew called to me from the
fields, and said 'Goodbye,' and they and the fields went away; and
the Ten Thousand said 'Goodbye,' each file as they passed me
marching swiftly, and they too disappeared. And Hector and Agamemnon
said 'Goodbye,' and the host of the Argives and of the Achaeans; and
they all went away and the old school with them, and I was alone
again.
The next scene that filled the emptiness was rather dim: I was being
led by my nurse along a little footpath over a common in Surrey. She
was quite young. Close by a band of gypsies had lit their fire, near
them their romantic caravan stood unhorsed, and the horse cropped
grass beside it. It was evening, and the gypsies muttered round
their fire in a tongue unknown and strange. Then they all said in
English, 'Goodbye'. And the evening and the common and the
campfire went away. And instead of this a white highway with
darkness and stars below it that led into darkness and stars, but at
the near end of the road were common fields and gardens, and there I
stood close to a large number of people, men and women. And I saw a
man walking alone down the road away from me towards the darkness
and the stars, and all the people called him by his name, and the
man would not hear them, but walked on down the road, and the people
went on calling him by his name. But I became irritated with the man
because he would not stop or turn round when so many people called
him by his name, and it was a very strange name. And I became weary
of hearing the strange name so very often repeated, so that I made a
great effort to call him, that he might listen and that the people
might stop repeating this strange name. And with the effort I opened
my eyes wide, and the name that the people called was my own name,
and I lay on the river's bank with men and women bending over me,
and my hair was wet.
The Ghosts
The argument that I had with my brother in his great lonely house
will scarcely interest my readers. Not those, at least, whom I hope
may be attracted by the experiment that I undertook, and by the
strange things that befell me in that hazardous region into which so
lightly and so ignorantly I allowed my fancy to enter. It was at
Oneleigh that I had visited him.
Now Oneleigh stands in a wide isolation, in the midst of a dark
gathering of old whispering cedars. They nod their heads together
when the North Wind comes, and nod again and agree, and furtively
grow still again, and say no more awhile. The North Wind is to them
like a nice problem among wise old men; they nod their heads over
it, and mutter about it all together. They know much, those cedars,
they have been there so long. Their grandsires knew Lebanon, and
the grandsires of these were the servants of the King of Tyre and
came to Solomon's court. And amidst these black-haired children of
grey-headed Time stood the old house of Oneleigh. I know not how
many centuries had lashed against it their evanescent foam of years;
but it was still unshattered, and all about it were the things of
long ago, as cling strange growths to some sea-defying rock. Here,
like the shells of long-dead limpets, was armour that men encased
themselves in long ago; here, too, were tapestries of many colours,
beautiful as seaweed; no modern flotsam ever drifted hither, no
early Victorian furniture, no electric light. The great trade
routes that littered the years with empty meat tins and cheap novels
were far from here. Well, well, the centuries will shatter it and
drive its fragments on to distant shores. Meanwhile, while it yet
stood, I went on a visit there to my brother, and we argued about
ghosts. My brother's intelligence on this subject seemed to me to
be in need of correction. He mistook things imagined for things
having an actual existence; he argued that second-hand evidence of
persons having seen ghosts proved ghosts to exist. I said that even
if they had seen ghosts, this was no proof at all; nobody believes
that there are red rats, though there is plenty of first-hand
evidence of men having seen them in delirium. Finally, I said I
would see ghosts myself, and continue to argue against their actual
existence. So I collected a handful of cigars and drank several
cups of very strong tea, and went without my dinner, and retired
into a room where there was dark oak and all the chairs were covered
with tapestry; and my brother went to bed bored with our argument,
and trying hard to dissuade me from making myself uncomfortable.
All the way up the old stairs as I stood at the bottom of them, and
as his candle went winding up and up, I heard him still trying to
persuade me to have supper and go to bed.
It was a windy winter, and outside the cedars were muttering I know
not what about; but I think that they were Tories of a school long
dead, and were troubled about something new. Within, a great damp
log upon the fireplace began to squeak and sing, and struck up a
whining tune, and a tall flame stood up over it and beat time, and
all the shadows crowded round and began to dance. In distant
corners old masses of darkness sat still like chaperones and never
moved. Over there, in the darkest part of the room, stood a door
that was always locked. It led into the hall, but no one ever used
it; near that door something had happened once of which the family
are not proud. We do not speak of it. There in the firelight stood
the venerable forms of the old chairs; the hands that had made their
tapestries lay far beneath the soil, the needles with which they
wrought were many separate flakes of rust. No one wove now in that
old room--no one but the assiduous ancient spiders who, watching
by the deathbed of the things of yore, worked shrouds to hold their
dust. In shrouds about the cornices already lay the heart of the
oak wainscot that the worm had eaten out.
Surely at such an hour, in such a room, a fancy already excited by
hunger and strong tea might see the ghosts of former occupants. I
expected nothing less. The fire flickered and the shadows danced,
memories of strange historic things rose vividly in my mind; but
midnight chimed solemnly from a seven-foot clock, and nothing
happened. My imagination would not be hurried, and the chill that
is with the small hours had come upon me, and I had nearly abandoned
myself to sleep, when in the hall adjoining there arose the rustling
of silk dresses that I had waited for and expected. Then there
entered two by two the high-born ladies and their gallants of
Jacobean times. They were little more than shadows--very
dignified shadows, and almost indistinct; but you have all read
ghost stories before, you have all seen in museums the dresses of
those times--there is little need to describe them; they entered,
several of them, and sat down on the old chairs, perhaps a little
carelessly considering the value of the tapestries. Then the
rustling of their dresses ceased.
Well--I had seen ghosts, and was neither frightened nor convinced
that ghosts existed. I was about to get up out of my chair and go
to bed, when there came a sound of pattering in the hall, a sound of
bare feet coming over the polished floor, and every now and then a
foot would slip and I heard claws scratching along the wood as some
four-footed thing lost and regained its balance. I was not
frightened, but uneasy. The pattering came straight towards the
room that I was in, then I heard the sniffing of expectant nostrils;
perhaps 'uneasy' was not the most suitable word to describe my
feelings then. Suddenly a herd of black creatures larger than
bloodhounds came galloping in; they had large pendulous ears, their
noses were to the ground sniffing, they went up to the lords and
ladies of long ago and fawned about them disgustingly. Their eyes
were horribly bright, and ran down to great depths. When I looked
into them I knew suddenly what these creatures were, and I was
afraid. They were the sins, the filthy, immortal sins of those
courtly men and women.
How demure she was, the lady that sat near me on an old-world
chair--how demure she was, and how fair, to have beside her with its
jowl upon her lap a sin with such cavernous red eyes, a clear case
of murder. And you, yonder lady with the golden hair, surely not
you--and yet that fearful beast with the yellow eyes slinks from
you to yonder courtier there, and whenever one drives it away it
slinks back to the other. Over there a lady tries to smile as she
strokes the loathsome furry head of another's sin, but one of her
own is jealous and intrudes itself under her hand. Here sits an old
nobleman with his grandson on his knee, and one of the great black
sins of the grandfather is licking the child's face and has made the
child its own. Sometimes a ghost would move and seek another chair,
but always his pack of sins would move behind him. Poor ghosts,
poor ghosts! how many flights they must have attempted for two
hundred years from their hated sins, how many excuses they must have
given for their presence, and the sins were with them still--and
still unexplained. Suddenly one of them seemed to scent my living
blood, and bayed horribly, and all the others left their ghosts at
once and dashed up to the sin that had given tongue. The brute had
picked up my scent near the door by which I had entered, and they
moved slowly nearer to me sniffing along the floor, and uttering
every now and then their fearful cry. I saw that the whole thing
had gone too far. But now they had seen me, now they were all about
me, they sprang up trying to reach my throat; and whenever their
claws touched me, horrible thoughts came into my mind and
unutterable desires dominated my heart. I planned bestial things as
these creatures leaped around me, and planned them with a masterly
cunning. A great red-eyed murder was among the foremost of those
furry things from whom I feebly strove to defend my throat.
Suddenly it seemed to me good that I should kill my brother. It
seemed important to me that I should not risk being punished. I
knew where a revolver was kept; after I had shot him, I would dress
the body up and put flour on the face like a man that had been
acting as a ghost. It would be very simple. I would say that he had
frightened me--and the servants had heard us talking about ghosts.
There were one or two trivialities that would have to be arranged,
but nothing escaped my mind. Yes, it seemed to me very good that I
should kill my brother as I looked into the red depths of this
creature's eyes. But one last effort as they dragged me down--'If
two straight lines cut one another,' I said, 'the opposite angles
are equal. Let AB, CD, cut one another at E, then the angles CEA,
CEB equal two right angles (prop. xiii.). Also CEA, AED equal two
right angles.'
I moved towards the door to get the revolver; a hideous exultation
arose among the beasts. 'But the angle CEA is common, therefore AED
equals CEB. In the same way CEA equals DEB. _QED_.' It was
proved. Logic and reason re-established themselves in my mind, there
were no dark hounds of sin, the tapestried chairs were empty. It
seemed to me an inconceivable thought that a man should murder his
brother.
The Whirlpool
Once going down to the shore of the great sea I came upon the
Whirlpool lying prone upon the sand and stretching his huge limbs in
the sun.
I said to him: 'Who art thou?'
And he said:
'I am named Nooz Wana, the Whelmer of Ships, and from the Straits of
Pondar Obed I am come, wherein it is my wont to vex the seas. There
I chased Leviathan with my hands when he was young and strong; often
he slipped through my fingers, and away into the weed forests that
grow below the storms in the dusk on the floor of the sea; but at
last I caught and tamed him. For there I lurk upon the ocean's
floor, midway between the knees of either cliff, to guard the
passage of the Straits from all the ships that seek the Further
Seas; and whenever the white sails of the tall ships come swelling
round the corner of the crag out of the sunlit spaces of the Known
Sea and into the dark of the Straits, then standing firm upon the
ocean's floor, with my knees a little bent, I take the waters of the
Straits in both my hands and whirl them round my head. But the ship
comes gliding on with the sound of the sailors singing on her decks,
all singing songs of the islands and carrying the rumour of their
cities to the lonely seas, till they see me suddenly astride athwart
their course, and are caught in the waters as I whirl them round my
head. Then I draw in the waters of the Straits towards me and
downwards, nearer and nearer to my terrible feet, and hear in my
ears above the roar of my waters the ultimate cry of the ship; for
just before I drag them to the floor of ocean and stamp them asunder
with my wrecking feet, ships utter their ultimate cry, and with it
go the lives of all the sailors and passes the soul of the ship. And
in the ultimate cry of ships are the songs the sailors sing, and
their hopes and all their loves, and the song of the wind among the
masts and timbers when they stood in the forest long ago, and the
whisper of the rain that made them grow, and the soul of the tall
pine-tree or the oak. All this a ship gives up in one cry which she
makes at the last. And at that moment I would pity the tall ship if
I might; but a man may feel pity who sits in comfort by his fireside
telling tales in the winter--no pity are they permitted ever to
feel who do the work of the gods; and so when I have brought her
circling from round my shoulders to my waist and thence, with her
masts all sloping inwards, to my knees, and lower still and
downwards till her topmast pennants flutter against my ankles, then
I, Nooz Wana, Whelmer of Ships, lift up my feet and trample her
beams asunder, and there go up again to the surface of the Straits
only a few broken timbers and the memories of the sailors and of
their early loves to drift for ever down the empty seas.
'Once in every hundred years, for one day only, I go to rest myself
along the shore and to sun my limbs on the sand, that the tall ships
may go through the unguarded Straits and find the Happy Isles. And
the Happy Isles stand midmost among the smiles of the sunny Further
Seas, and there the sailors may come upon content and long for
nothing; or if they long for aught, they shall possess it.
'There comes not Time with his devouring hours; nor any of the evils
of the gods or men. These are the islands whereto the souls of the
sailors every night put in from all the world to rest from going up
and down the seas, to behold again the vision of far-off intimate
hills that lift their orchards high above the fields facing the
sunlight, and for a while again to speak with the souls of old. But
about the dawn dreams twitter and arise, and circling thrice around
the Happy Isles set out again to find the world of men, then follow
the souls of the sailors, as, at evening, with slow stroke of
stately wings the heron follows behind the flight of multitudinous
rooks; but the souls returning find awakening bodies and endure the
toil of the day. Such are the Happy Isles, whereunto few have come,
save but as roaming shadows in the night, and for only a little
while.
'But longer than is needed to make me strong and fierce again I may
not stay, and at set of sun, when my arms are strong again, and when
I feel in my legs that I can plant them fair and bent upon the floor
of ocean, then I go back to take a new grip upon the waters of the
Straits, and to guard the Further Seas again for a hundred years.
Because the gods are jealous, lest too many men shall pass to the
Happy Isles and find content. _For the gods have not content_.'
The Hurricane
One night I sat alone on the great down, looking over the edge of it
at a murky, sullen city. All day long with its smoke it had troubled
the holy sky, and now it sat there roaring in the distance and
glared at me with its furnaces and lighted factory windows. Suddenly
I became aware that I was not the only enemy of that city, for I
perceived the colossal form of the Hurricane walking over the down
towards me, playing idly with the flowers as he passed, and near me
he stopped and spake to the Earthquake, who had come up mole-like but
vast out of a cleft in the earth.
'Old friend,' said the Hurricane, 'rememberest when we wrecked the
nations and drave the herds of the sea into new pasturage?'
'Yes,' said the Earthquake, drowsily; 'Yes, yes.'
'Old friend,' said the Hurricane, 'there are cities everywhere. Over
thy head while thou didst sleep they have built them constantly. My
four children the Winds suffocate with the fumes of them, the
valleys are desolate of flowers, and the lovely forests are cut down
since last we went abroad together.'
The Earthquake lay there, with his snout towards the city, blinking
at the lights, while the tall Hurricane stood beside him pointing
fiercely at it.
'Come,' said the Hurricane, 'let us fare forth again and destroy
them, that all the lovely forests may come back and the furry
creeping things. Thou shalt whelm these cities utterly and drive the
people forth, and I will smite them in the shelterless places and
sweep their desecrations from the sea. Wilt thou come forth with me
and do this thing for the glory of it? Wilt thou wreck the world
again as we did, thou and I, or ever Man had come? Wilt thou come
forth to this place at this hour tomorrow night?'
'Yes,' said the Earthquake, 'Yes,' and he crept to his cleft again,
and head foremost waddled down into the abysses.
When the Hurricane strode away, I got up quietly and departed, but
at that hour of the next night I came up cautiously to the same
spot. There I found the huge grey form of the Hurricane alone, with
his head bowed in his hands, weeping; for the Earthquake sleeps long
and heavily in the abysses, and he would not wake.
The Fortress Unvanquishable, Save For Sacnoth
In a wood older than record, a foster brother of the hills, stood
the village of Allathurion; and there was peace between the people
of that village and all the folk who walked in the dark ways of the
wood, whether they were human or of the tribes of the beasts or of
the race of the fairies and the elves and the little sacred spirits
of trees and streams. Moreover, the village people had peace among
themselves and between them and their lord, Lorendiac. In front of
the village was a wide and grassy space, and beyond this the great
wood again, but at the back the trees came right up to the houses,
which, with their great beams and wooden framework and thatched
roofs, green with moss, seemed almost to be a part of the forest.
Now in the time I tell of, there was trouble in Allathurion, for of
an evening fell dreams were wont to come slipping through the tree
trunks and into the peaceful village; and they assumed dominion of
men's minds and led them in watches of the night through the cindery
plains of Hell. Then the magician of that village made spells
against those fell dreams; yet still the dreams came flitting
through the trees as soon as the dark had fallen, and led men's
minds by night into terrible places and caused them to praise Satan
openly with their lips.
And men grew afraid of sleep in Allathurion. And they grew worn and
pale, some through the want of rest, and others from fear of the
things they saw on the cindery plains of Hell.
Then the magician of the village went up into the tower of his
house, and all night long those whom fear kept awake could see his
window high up in the night glowing softly alone. The next day, when
the twilight was far gone and night was gathering fast, the magician
went away to the forest's edge, and uttered there the spell that he
had made. And the spell was a compulsive, terrible thing, having a
power over evil dreams and over spirits of ill; for it was a verse
of forty lines in many languages, both living and dead, and had in
it the word wherewith the people of the plains are wont to curse
their camels, and the shout wherewith the whalers of the north lure
the whales shoreward to be killed, and a word that causes elephants
to trumpet; and every one of the forty lines closed with a rhyme for
'wasp'.
And still the dreams came flitting through the forest, and led men's
souls into the plains of Hell. Then the magician knew that the
dreams were from Gaznak. Therefore he gathered the people of the
village, and told them that he had uttered his mightiest spell--a
spell having power over all that were human or of the tribes of the
beasts; and that since it had not availed the dreams must come from
Gaznak, the greatest magician among the spaces of the stars. And he
read to the people out of the Book of Magicians, which tells the
comings of the comet and foretells his coming again. And he told
them how Gaznak rides upon the comet, and how he visits Earth once
in every two hundred and thirty years, and makes for himself a vast,
invincible fortress and sends out dreams to feed on the minds of
men, and may never be vanquished but by the sword Sacnoth.
And a cold fear fell on the hearts of the villagers when they found
that their magician had failed them.
Then spake Leothric, son of the Lord Lorendiac, and twenty years old
was he: 'Good Master, what of the sword Sacnoth?'
And the village magician answered: 'Fair Lord, no such sword as yet
is wrought, for it lies as yet in the hide of Tharagavverug,
protecting his spine.'
Then said Leothric: 'Who is Tharagavverug, and where may he be
encountered?'
And the magician of Allathurion answered: 'He is the dragon-crocodile
who haunts the Northern marshes and ravages the homesteads
by their marge. And the hide of his back is of steel, and his under
parts are of iron; but along the midst of his back, over his spine,
there lies a narrow strip of unearthly steel. This strip of steel is
Sacnoth, and it may be neither cleft nor molten, and there is
nothing in the world that may avail to break it, nor even leave a
scratch upon its surface. It is of the length of a good sword, and
of the breadth thereof. Shouldst thou prevail against Tharagavverug,
his hide may be melted away from Sacnoth in a furnace; but there is
only one thing that may sharpen Sacnoth's edge, and this is one of
Tharagavverug's own steel eyes; and the other eye thou must fasten
to Sacnoth's hilt, and it will watch for thee. But it is a hard task
to vanquish Tharagavverug, for no sword can pierce his hide; his
back cannot be broken, and he can neither burn nor drown. In one way
only can Tharagavverug die, and that is by starving.'
Then sorrow fell upon Leothric, but the magician spoke on:
'If a man drive Tharagavverug away from his food with a stick for
three days, he will starve on the third day at sunset. And though he
is not vulnerable, yet in one spot he may take hurt, for his nose is
only of lead. A sword would merely lay bare the uncleavable bronze
beneath, but if his nose be smitten constantly with a stick he will
always recoil from the pain, and thus may Tharagavverug, to left and
right, be driven away from his food.'
Then Leothric said: 'What is Tharagavverug's food?'
And the magician of Allathurion said: 'His food is men.'
But Leothric went straightway thence, and cut a great staff from a
hazel tree, and slept early that evening. But the next morning,
awaking from troubled dreams, he arose before the dawn, and, taking
with him provisions for five days, set out through the forest
northwards towards the marshes. For some hours he moved through the
gloom of the forest, and when he emerged from it the sun was above
the horizon shining on pools of water in the waste land. Presently
he saw the claw-marks of Tharagavverug deep in the soil, and the
track of his tail between them like a furrow in a field. Then
Leothric followed the tracks till he heard the bronze heart of
Tharagavverug before him, booming like a bell.
And Tharagavverug, it being the hour when he took the first meal of
the day, was moving towards a village with his heart tolling. And
all the people of the village were come out to meet him, as it was
their wont to do; for they abode not the suspense of awaiting
Tharagavverug and of hearing him sniffing brazenly as he went from
door to door, pondering slowly in his metal mind what habitant he
should choose. And none dared to flee, for in the days when the
villagers fled from Tharagavverug, he, having chosen his victim,
would track him tirelessly, like a doom. Nothing availed them
against Tharagavverug. Once they climbed the trees when he came, but
Tharagavverug went up to one, arching his back and leaning over
slightly, and rasped against the trunk until it fell. And when
Leothric came near, Tharagavverug saw him out of one of his small
steel eyes and came towards him leisurely, and the echoes of his
heart swirled up through his open mouth. And Leothric stepped
sideways from his onset, and came between him and the village and
smote him on the nose, and the blow of the stick made a dint in the
soft lead. And Tharagavverug swung clumsily away, uttering one
fearful cry like the sound of a great church bell that had become
possessed of a soul that fluttered upward from the tombs at night--an
evil soul, giving the bell a voice. Then he attacked Leothric,
snarling, and again Leothric leapt aside, and smote him on the nose
with his stick. Tharagavverug uttered like a bell howling. And
whenever the dragon-crocodile attacked him, or turned towards the
village, Leothric smote him again.