win it from the dragon. But he really does not care so very much about
it, and I think he would let them have it in the end if it were not for
a great mistake that they make in asking for it. They tell him about
the curse of the ring, and that if he keeps it he will be killed this
very day. Now, you can see easily enough that that is the very worst
thing they could say if they hoped to get the ring from him, for he is
not in the least afraid of being killed, and he will not have anybody
believe that he is afraid. They shall not have it, he says, happen what
will. They will have it, they call back to him, and this very day; and
so they dive down under the water and leave him.
"Now come the rest of the huntsmen and sit about in a circle to rest
here in the shade and to talk. The king is gloomy, thinking still of
the wrongs that have been done him. His half-brother asks the hero if
it is true that he knows what the birds say. 'I listen to them no
more,' he answers; 'but to cheer the king I will tell you some stories
of the things that I have seen and the things that I have done.'
"He tells them of the dwarf who kept him and brought him up that he
might fight the dragon; he tells how he mended the magic sword, how he
killed the dragon with it, and took the helmet and the ring from the
cave. A bird then sang to him, he says, and told him that the dwarf
would try to kill him, but he killed the dwarf instead. Here he stops,
for he cannot remember anything about the mountain top with the fire
around it, or the Daughter of the God, or even what the bird sang to
him next. But the king's half-brother squeezes something into his wine
and tells him to drink it and it will make him remember better.
"He drinks, and it does make him remember better. He tells of the
lovely woman who slept with the fire all around her, and how he kissed
her and awoke her. Then suddenly the king understands it all; he
remembers the drink of forgetfulness that they gave the hero, and he
knows that nobody has done any wrong but his wicked half-brother; he it
was who told him of the woman in the fire who should be his wife, he
who said that the hero should bring her to him, he who bade them give
him the drink to make him forget, he who first said that the hero must
die. The king would gladly save the hero now, but it is too late.
"It is too late, for of a sudden two ravens fly up from beside the
river and away over the heads of them all. They are the ravens that fly
all over the world and then to the Father of the Gods, to tell him all
that they see and all that they hear. They are going now to tell him
that the end of the gods, the end that he longs for, is near. The hero
starts up to hear what they say. He turns his back to the others, and
the half-brother, before the king can stop him, thrusts his spear into
his back. The hero turns for an instant to rush against the murderer,
but his strength is gone, and he falls helpless upon the ground. All
the rest cry out in horror, and the half-brother turns from them and
strides away.
"And what now of the hero? He speaks no word to those who stand about
him as he lies here dying on the ground. Where are his thoughts now? He
is thinking of the only time he ever feared. He is back again upon the
rock, with the flames curling and whirling all around him. Before him
once more lies the Daughter of the God. Again he kisses her lips. She
awakes. He sees again those deep, blue, wonderful eyes. He does not see
the rocks, or the trees, or the sunlight--only her. Again for one last
moment he knows that in all the world there cannot be another woman
such as this. They look each into the other's eyes and into the other's
heart. He is dead.
"They lay him on his shield and lift it upon their shoulders, and so
they bear him back to the king's house by the river. The half-brother
is there before them and tells the princess that her lover has been
killed by a wild boar. She does not believe him, and when the others
come she calls the king and all the rest his murderers. The king indeed
wished his death once, but he is sorry enough for it now, and says that
it was his half-brother alone who did it. 'Well, then,' cries the
murderer, 'it was I, and now I will have my reward; I will take the
ring.'
"The king cries out that he shall not have it, and draws his sword. The
half-brother draws his own and rushes upon him, and before the men can
run between them the king too lies dead upon the ground. Then again the
murderer turns toward the body of the hero to take the ring, but, as he
comes near it, the hand that wears the ring rises of itself, as if it
were not dead and would ward him off. He falls back in terror, and so
do all the rest.
"But now comes the Daughter of the God. She bids them all stand back
from her hero. 'He was mine, not yours,' she says to the princess; 'he
loved me and I loved him before you ever saw him.'
"'Then it was all the fault of this wicked man who has murdered him,'
the princess answers; 'he gave me the drink for him that made him
forget you.'
"She turns away from the hero and bends over the king, her brother. The
Daughter of the God understands now; he was never faithless to her of
himself. She tells the men to build a funeral pyre. They pile up the
wood and the women scatter flowers upon it. Then she takes the ring
from her hero's hand. While they lay his body on the pyre she bids them
bring his horse, the horse that once was hers, that flew with her
through the clouds when she was a goddess, and slept on the mountain
top with the fire around it where she slept. With a torch she lights
the pyre. See how the flames leap up and catch at the wood and stream
and grow. Once more the ravens fly up from the river bank and away into
the sky. Now the end for the gods comes indeed.
"The Daughter of the God springs upon the horse and with one bound they
leap into the middle of the flames. Yet, as soon as they are there,
they are gone, nor can I see the hero there any more. The pyre all
falls together; but in the middle of its hot, red embers I see
something brighter than all the rest. It is the ring. The water of the
river rises and rises till it flows over the fire and puts it out. Then
on the surface, swimming and playing about as always, I see the river
nymphs. They have found the ring, and their treasure is their own
again. But the wicked half-brother of the king, the son of that dwarf
who stole it at first long ago, tries one last time to gain it. He
plunges into the river to seize it from the nymphs, but one of them
holds it up high in her hand and swims away from him, and the others
twine their arms around him and draw him down and down under the water
and he is seen no more. The river sinks back to its old bed. The
treasure that was stolen is restored. All the evil and the punishment
that came from the curse of the ring is done."
[Illustration: "THEIR TREASURE IS THEIR OWN AGAIN."]
A big stick that had been burning brightly and steadily for a long time
suddenly fell in two and the quick flames and the sparks sprang high up
into the chimney. "See, it is the castle of the gods itself that is
burning and lighting up all the sky. The wrong that they have done and
the sorrow that they have suffered are past, and their end has come.
But the fire burns fiercer still. It seizes upon everything, in the sky
and on the earth. Perhaps it is better that it should. The world that
we have seen in our fire here grew so selfish and cruel and bad after
the gold was stolen from the river that it may be best for it to end in
these flames. They will last for only a moment. Even now they are not
so fierce. I can see the sky again. There is a beautiful brightness in
it, like the coming of the morning; yet it is more than that, for it
streams and flashes like the northern lights. I can see the earth again
too, but it is not as it was before. It is a new world. It has all the
beautiful things that the old one had, the green pastures and plains,
the silver rivers, the blue mountains. Some of the gods have come back,
but not those who did such wrong and made the old world so wicked. The
God of Summer, who died long ago when the evil began, has come again;
and if he and all who were good and beautiful before are to be here
still, I am sure that the Daughter of the God and the hero who knew no
fear must find their way here somehow. A new world that is to be all
unselfish and brave and true needs such a woman and such a hero."
THE KNIGHT OF THE SWAN
The little girl was lying on the rug before the fire, one elbow buried
in the long fur, and one cheek resting on her hand. She was gazing into
the fire, studying the bright, flickering flames and the red embers. I
had not noticed that she was there till her mother said, "You will ruin
that child's eyes with your stories about the things in the fire. She
would watch it half the day if I would let her; it is too bright and
too hot to look at so long and so near. Come away, dear, and don't look
at the fire again to-day."
"But why can't I see such things as you see?" the child said to me,
with a little sigh, as she got up slowly from the rug and came toward
me.
"Just because you have not quite learned how yet," I said; "now suppose
you give up trying for a little while, because you might hurt your
eyes, as your mother says, and let me look into the fire for you again.
Sit here in the big chair with me; turn your face right away from the
fire and lay it against my shoulder. Now shut your eyes. Some people
can see a great deal better with their eyes shut, especially such
things as we are trying to see, because when their eyes are open they
see the every-day things all around them, and it confuses them and
prevents their seeing what they want to see or what they ought to see.
They are people who have not learned to look right through the every-
day things and see others, in spite of them, that are much better and
more beautiful, as you will learn to do some time. But just now keep
your eyes shut.
"I see then, first, a splendid company of knights and people. The
shining of the fire is like the light of the sun, that glances from the
polished armor, the gleaming weapons, the standards, and the banners of
bright-colored silk and gold. It is all so fine that it looks like a
holiday time; but it is not that, for the crowds of people seem bent on
something more important than dancing and playing games. They are all
looking toward the King, who stands under a great tree and seems to
have something to say to them. The heralds are blowing their trumpets
and calling to the people to come and hear what the King has to say,
though they are all there already and are only too anxious to hear, and
so the King speaks. He says that far away at the other end of the
country there is danger. Enemies are coming against him and his people,
and he calls upon all the men here about him to help him to guard the
land.
"Then they all shout and wave their banners and their arms, as I can
see in the flickering of the bright little flames, and they all cry
that they will fight for their King and their country. But this does
not satisfy the King, for he says that since he has come here he finds
everything going wrong and everybody quarrelling, and he asks what it
all means. Now there comes forward a man who has all this while been
standing silent beside his wife; and it may be as well to say just here
that this man's wife is a wicked witch and that the man himself is none
too good. So a part of what he tells the King is true and another good
large part is not true at all. When he tells what the King knew before,
he tells the truth; and when he tells anything that the King did not
know before, it is generally a lie.
"So he tells the King that he was left the guardian of the two children
of the Duke who ruled in this part of the country, and who died a few
years ago. One of the children was a girl and the other was a boy, and
he tells the King, too, how he took care of them as they grew up. All
this is true and the King knew all about it before. But now he goes on
to say that one day, when the brother and the sister had gone away from
their castle together, the sister came back alone, trembling and crying
and saying that she had lost her brother. Probably this is true enough
too, but when he says that the poor sister was not really sorry at all,
because she had killed her brother herself, he is telling a dreadful,
cruel lie. Still perhaps it is not so much his fault, for his wife, the
witch, who you must remember is a good deal more wicked than himself,
knows much more about it all than it would do for her to tell, and she
may have deceived him as well as other people.
"Of course the King is shocked at such a dreadful story as this, and he
wants to know how the sister could ever have done anything so wicked.
Well, of course the man who accuses her so boldly has a reason to give
for what he says she did, or he never would have dared mention it at
all. So he explains that the sister was to be married to him and that
she refused him, and then he married the witch instead, only he does
not call her a witch. He thinks that the sister must have had some
other lover, and she must have thought that if her brother, who ought
to be Duke as soon as he should be old enough, were only dead, she
could be married to her lover, and then he would be the Duke. And now
he says that he thinks he himself ought to be Duke, since there is
nobody who deserves to be one better than he, and he asks the King to
make him so. Now, of course anybody as bright as you are can see at
once that the whole reason for all these wicked stories is just that he
wants to be Duke; but kings and knights and crowds of people are not
always very bright, though they may look so there in the fire, and they
do not feel so sure about it as you or I would. So the quarrel lies
between a rich and powerful man who is a soldier and once saved the
King's life, with a wife who is a witch and knows all about magic, and
one poor girl who knows nothing about magic and who has no friends who
would dare to help her. For these people here about the King are a
peculiar sort of people who shout very loud about justice and their own
rights and others' rights, but seldom do anything unless they feel sure
that they are on the side that is going to win. There are no such
people nowadays, of course; but there were once.
"But the King himself is a good king, and he means to be quite fair and
just, and he calls for the sister to come before him and tell her own
story. So the heralds blow their trumpets again and call for her, and
she comes. She is dressed all in white, and she looks so beautiful and
pale and sad that nobody who was not wicked himself could ever suspect
her of doing anything wicked, and all the men about mutter that the one
who says that she killed her brother will have to prove it. They have
just heard the King say something of the kind, so they feel very
righteous and very bold about it. The King, then, asks her if she can
say anything about this dreadful accusation, and she tells him how
often she has prayed for help, how, after she has prayed, she has
fallen into a sweet sleep and has seen a knight in bright armor,
leaning on his sword, and how he has comforted her. This knight, she
says, shall be the one to fight for her and to protect her.
"Now, of course, this is all very pretty, but it does not seem to have
much to do with the question of whether she killed her poor little
brother or not. Yet it does have something to do with it, and I will
tell you how. A long time ago, hundreds of years, when people had
quarrels, they did not hire lawyers to argue and plead and plot and
contrive for them, but they just stood up together, if they were both
strong men, and fought till one of them killed the other or showed that
he could if he wanted to. And everybody who looked on felt perfectly
sure that the one who was right could not possibly lose such a fight
and the one who was wrong could not possibly win it. If one of the two
who had the quarrel was a woman, some friend who trusted her enough to
think that she was right would fight for her."
"But what made the man who was wrong ever fight at all," the little
girl asked, "if everybody believed that he was sure to get beaten?"
"I have thought of that myself," I admitted, "and I think that it must
have been for one of two reasons: either the bad people did not believe
that the right was sure to win, or else the people who were wrong
usually thought that they were really right. I believe that was the
true reason, and it shows that bad people are not always quite so bad
as we think, for they usually contrive in some way, I am sure, to make
themselves believe they are right. And now, though all these things
that I am telling you are things that I see right here in the fire, yet
they are like things that must have happened long, long ago, and this
very way of settling disagreements by a good hard fight is the way that
the question of this poor girl's guilt or innocence must be settled.
She probably knows this just as well as anybody, and that is what she
means when she says that the knight she saw in her dream shall be the
one to fight for her. But the accuser turns everything against her, as
usual, and says: 'You see it is just as I said; she is talking about
this lover of hers who she hopes will marry her and be Duke instead of
her brother. Yet he says he is quite ready to fight anybody who wants
to try it with him, and he invites any of the men standing about to
come forward and fight for the poor, helpless girl, if he wants to. But
they all say no, they should be very sorry to have to kill such a great
man and so brave a soldier. The truth is, you see, they are all afraid
that if they should fight they might get hurt, and why should they
trouble themselves about this girl's rights or wrongs?
"Still she says that the knight whom she saw in her dream shall be her
champion, and if he will come now and help her in this need she will be
his bride if he will take her, and he shall have all her father's lands
and his crown, since her brother is dead. But nobody comes, and the
people all begin to think that she must be guilty after all, and that,
instead of the accuser having to prove that she is, she will have to
prove that she is not, if she wants any sympathy from them, though why
she should want it I hardly know. But the King still means to give her
every chance, and he orders the heralds to blow their trumpets toward
the north and the east and the south and the west, and to call upon
anybody who will defend her straightway to appear. And the heralds blow
their loud trumpets and the people gaze anxiously in all directions,
but nobody comes to help her. And then she tells the King that her
knight dwells far off and does not hear, and she begs him to call upon
him again, and the heralds blow once more, and she prays that her
knight may be sent to her, and now suddenly all the eyes of the crowd
are turned one way, and all the people shout and point and gaze at
something which they see away in the distance.
"I can see it too, for there in the fire, back on the hearth, is a bed
of bright embers that shines and glitters like a broad river under the
sun of noon, and at the very farthest place is one little spot brighter
than all the rest, and it seems to come nearer and nearer, and as it
comes I begin to make out its wonderful shape. There is a little boat,
and in it stands a knight, all in silver armor, and it is his armor
that shines so. But the strangest thing of all is that a beautiful
white swan, its wings almost as bright as the knight's armor, is
drawing the boat along by a silver chain wound about its neck. It is
this that makes the people gaze and point, and, while the swan and the
boat are coming nearer, I will tell you more about the knight than he
will be willing to tell about himself. Did you ever hear of the Holy
Grail? It was the crystal cup, the old stories say, out of which the
Saviour drank at the Last Supper, and afterward His blood was caught in
it, as He hung upon the cross. Hundreds of years later it was kept in a
beautiful temple which nobody ever knew how to find, except a few
chosen knights, who guarded the Grail and did its bidding, for this cup
seemed still to have the life of that blood in it, and it had ways of
telling its knights what they must do. And so they were sometimes sent
far away to fight for the right or to punish wrong, but wherever they
went they never knew hunger or thirst or weariness, and they could
never be killed or overcome in battle; but no one must ever ask one of
these knights his name or his dwelling place, and, if anyone having the
right should ask these questions, the knight must return to the temple
of the Holy Grail. Now, seven days ago a bell in the temple rang, all
of itself, meaning that help was needed somewhere. One of the knights
put on his armor and called for his horse, and stood ready, but he knew
not where he was to go or what he was to do, till a swan drawing a
little boat came sailing along upon the river, and the knight said:
'Take back the horse; I will go with the swan,' and so here is he come
to see what help is wanted of him.
"And now I see him step on shore, and the girl whom he has come to
rescue knows him as the knight of her dream, and everybody is glad of
his coming except the accuser and his wife, the witch, and she,
strangely enough, seems a good deal more frightened at the sight of the
swan than at that of the knight. Now the knight asks the young girl
whether, if he will fight her battle and win it, she will promise never
to ask him whence he comes or what he is, and she swears that she will
always love him and trust him, and will do whatever he commands. So now
the two knights, with all the people looking on and holding their
breaths with anxiety, and the king watching that all may be done fairly
and in order, draw their swords and stand against each other. But I see
only one or two little flashes of the flames as the gleaming swords are
whirled above their heads, and then the wicked accuser falls and the
Knight of the Swan spares his life, while all the people shout and lift
the knight above their heads on his shield, just as if they had known
all along that the girl was innocent, and just as if they would not
have shouted just as loud if the battle had gone the other way.
[Illustration: "THE KNIGHT OF HER DREAM."]
"The fire is going down a little and everything looks darker. It is
night now. Here on one side is a church, all dark, and on the other
side, where the light still shines, I can see the bright windows of the
palace, where they are making preparations for a grand wedding
tomorrow, and you can guess who are to be married. On the steps of the
church, looking up at the palace windows and the lights that shine in
them, are the witch and her husband. He is bemoaning his disgrace and
accusing his wife of causing it all by telling him that the good sister
had killed her brother. And this shows me, more than anything he has
done before, how bad he is, and what a coward he is, because, when a
man has tried to gain things that he knows are not his by ways that he
knows are not right, he ought to take all the consequences, if he
fails, like a man, and not snivel and say that a woman made him do it.
But the witch says that there is a chance yet for them to be revenged,
for, if only the Knight of the Swan can be made to tell who he is, he
will have to go away as he came and be lost, and she believes she can
find some way to tempt his bride to ask him the forbidden questions,
and then he will have to answer.
"Now the bride that is to be to-morrow comes out upon a balcony of the
palace, and the witch, sending her husband away, calls to her and tells
her how sorry they both are for all that they have done. No doubt they
are very sorry indeed, as they ought to be. But the bride is so happy
and so kind that she cannot bear to see anybody unhappy, so she says
that she forgives them, and if she has injured them in any way she asks
that they forgive her. That is absurd, of course. Then she lets the
witch talk to her till the wicked woman says that she hopes the knight
who came to her in such a strange way, that nobody can account for,
will never deceive her, and that she will always live happily with him;
and by this she means, of course, that she thinks that he will deceive
her and that she will not be happy. But the bride says that she trusts
her knight wholly, and she asks the witch to come in with her and rest
for the night. And that is just the one thing she ought not to do, for
here is what I hope you will see and remember more than anything else
in all this: be as kind and as helpful and as compassionate as you can,
always, but never help, never listen to, never allow to be near you a
man or a woman who says one word against anyone you love. Put no trust
in anyone till you know that trust is safe, and, when you once know,
never hear of one breath of doubt again.