THE WILD SWANS
One day as I was passing the library door with a pair of swan’s wings
belonging to Philip, Mr Morgan stepped out. The look which he gave to
the wings and to me compelled me to stop, and he said:
“You have a pair of wild swans there, Arthur.”
I said I had.
“Swan’s wings,” he repeated. “Swan’s wings;” and as he uttered the
words his body relaxed more than ordinary, until the middle of his back
was supported against the wall, his feet and face stuck out towards me.
“Did you know,” said he, “that some women had swan’s wings with which
to fly?”
Now I had heard of swan maidens, but he distinctly said “women,” and
the tone of his voice made me feel that he was not referring to the
flimsy, incredible creatures of fairy tales, but to women of flesh and
blood, of human stature and nature, such women as might come into the
library and stand by Mr Morgan’s fire--only, so far as I knew, no women
ever did. So I said “No.”
“They have,” said he, “or they had in the young days of Elias
Griffiths, who was an old man when I was a lad.”
Here he sighed and paused, but apologised, though not exactly to me, by
saying: “But that”--meaning, I suppose, the sigh--“is neither here nor
there. Besides, I must not trespass in Mr Stodham’s province.” For Mr
Stodham was then passing, and I made way for him.
Mr Morgan continued:
“It was on a Thursday....”
Now I held Mr Morgan in great respect, but the mention of Thursday at
the opening of a story about swan maidens was too much for me.
“Why Thursday?” I asked.
“I agree with the boy,” remarked Mr Stodham, leaving us and the talk of
swan maidens and Thursday.
Thursday was a poor sort of a day. Saturday, Sunday, Monday, were all
noticeable days in some way, though not equally likeable. Friday, too,
as, ushering in Saturday and the end of the week, had some merit.
Wednesday, again, was a half holiday. But least of all was to be said
for Thursday. Mr Morgan’s answer was:
“I said it was on a Thursday, because it was on a Thursday and not on
any other day. I am sorry to see that the indolent spirit of criticism
has resorted to you. Pluck it out, my boy.... Give me those wings....
They are beautiful: I expect the ferryman shot the swans in the estuary
at Abercorran.... However, they are not large enough....”
He was looking carefully at the wings, thinking things which he could
not say to me, and I said nothing. Then, handing me back the wings, he
went on:
“It was on a Thursday, a very stormy one in December, that two young
men who lived with their old mothers a mile or two inland went down to
the rocks to shoot with their long, ancient guns. They shot some trash.
But the wind for the most part snatched the birds from the shot or the
shot from the birds, and they could not hold their guns still for cold.
They continued however, to walk in and out among the rocks, looking for
something to prevent them saving their gunpowder. But they saw nothing
more until they were close to a creek that runs up into the cliff and
stops you unless you have wings. So there they stopped and would have
turned back, if one of them had not gone to the very edge of the creek
wall and looked down. He levelled his gun instantly, and then dropped
it again. His companion coming up did the same. Two white swans--not
gray ones like this--were just alighting upon the sand below, and
before the eyes of the young men they proceeded to lay aside their
wings and entered the water, not as swans, but as women, upon that
stormy Thursday. They were women with long black hair, beautiful white
faces and--Have you seen the statues at the Museum, my boy? Yes, you
have; and you never thought that there was anything like them outside
of marble. But there is. These women were like them, and they were not
of marble, any more than they were of what I am made of.” His own skin
was coloured apparently by a mixture of weather and cigar smoke. “These
women were white, like the moon when it is neither green nor white.
Now those young men were poor and rough, and they were unmarried. They
watched the women swimming and diving and floating as if they had been
born in the sea. But as it began to darken and the swimmers showed
no signs of tiring, the young men made their way down to the swans’
wings to carry them off. No sooner had they picked up the wings than
the two women hastened towards them into the shallow water, crying out
something in their own tongue which the men could not even hear for the
roar of winds and waters. As the women drew nearer, the men retreated
a little, holding the wings behind them, but keeping their eyes fixed
on the women. When the women actually left the water the men turned and
made for home, followed by the owners of the wings. They reached their
cottages in darkness, barred the doors, and put away the wings.
But the wingless ones knocked at the doors, and cried out until the old
mothers heard them. Then the sons told their tale. Their mothers were
very wise. Fumbling to the bottom of their chests they found clothes
suitable for young women and brides, and they opened their doors. They
quieted the women with clothes for wings, and though they were very
old they could see that the creatures were beautiful as their sons had
said. They took care that the wings were not discovered.
Those young men married their guests, and the pairs lived happily. The
sons were proud of their wives, who were as obedient as they were
beautiful. Said the old women: Anybody might think they still had
their wings by their lightsome way of walking. They made no attempt to
get away from the cottages and the smell of bacon. In fact, they were
laughed at by the neighbours for their home-keeping ways; they never
cared to stay long or far from home, or to see much of the other women.
When they began to have children they were worse than ever, hardly ever
leaving the house and never parting from their children. They got thin
as well as pale; a stranger could hardly have told that they were not
human, except for the cold, greenish light about them and their gait
which was like the swimming of swans.
In course of time the old women died, having warned their sons not to
let their wives on any account have the wings back. The swan-women grew
paler and yet more thin. One of them, evidently in a decline, had at
length to take to her bed. Here for the first time she spoke of her
wings. She begged to be allowed to have them back, because wearing
them, she said, she would certainly not die. She cried bitterly for the
wings, but in vain. On her deathbed she still cried for them, and took
no notice of the minister’s conversation, so that he, in the hope of
gaining peace and a hearing, advised her husband to give way to her. He
consented. The wings were taken out of the chest where they had been
exchanged for a wedding garment years before; they were as white and
unruffled as when they lay upon the sand. At the sight of them the sick
woman stood up in her bed with a small, wild cry. The wings seemed to
fill the room with white waves; they swept the rush-light away as they
carried the swan out into the wind. All the village heard her flying
low above the roofs towards the sea, where a fisherman saw her already
high above the cliffs. It was the last time she was seen.
The other swan-wife lingered for a year or two. A sister of her
husband’s kept house in her place. Whether this woman had not heard
the story or did not believe it, I do not know. One day, however, she
discovered the wings and gave them to the children to play with. As one
child came in soon afterwards crying for his mother and the wings at
the same time, it was certain that she also had taken flight to some
place more suitable for wild swans. They say that two generations of
children of these families were famous for the same beautiful walking
as their mothers, whom they never saw again....” Here Mr Morgan paused
for a moment then added: “I wonder why we never hear of swan-men?”
I was not much impressed at the time by the story and his dry way of
telling it. What I liked most was the idea that two ordinary men went
shooting on a Thursday in mid-winter and caught swan-maidens bathing in
a pool on the Welsh coast and married them. So I said to Mr Morgan:
“Why did you ever leave Wales, Mr Morgan?”
He put a new cigar severely between his teeth and looked at me as if he
did not know or even see me. I ran off with the wings to Philip.