The High-Queen of the Island of Woods had died in childbirth, and
her child was put to nurse with a woman who lived in a hut of mud and
wicker, within the border of the wood. One night the woman sat rocking
the cradle, and pondering over the beauty of the child, and praying that
the gods might grant him wisdom equal to his beauty. There came a knock
at the door, and she got up, not a little wondering, for the nearest
neighbours were in the dun of the High-King a mile away; and the night
was now late. 'Who is knocking?' she cried, and a thin voice answered,
'Open! for I am a crone of the grey hawk, and I come from the darkness
of the great wood.' In terror she drew back the bolt, and a grey-clad
woman, of a great age, and of a height more than human, came in and
stood by the head of the cradle. The nurse shrank back against the wall,
unable to take her eyes from the woman, for she saw by the gleaming
of the firelight that the feathers of the grey hawk were upon her head
instead of hair. But the child slept, and the fire danced, for the
one was too ignorant and the other too full of gaiety to know what a
dreadful being stood there. 'Open!' cried another voice, 'for I am a
crone of the grey hawk, and I watch over his nest in the darkness of the
great wood.' The nurse opened the door again, though her fingers could
scarce hold the bolts for trembling, and another grey woman, not less
old than the other, and with like feathers instead of hair, came in and
stood by the first. In a little, came a third grey woman, and after her
a fourth, and then another and another and another, until the hut was
full of their immense bodies. They stood a long time in perfect silence
and stillness, for they were of those whom the dropping of the sand has
never troubled, but at last one muttered in a low thin voice: 'Sisters,
I knew him far away by the redness of his heart under his silver skin';
and then another spoke: 'Sisters, I knew him because his heart fluttered
like a bird under a net of silver cords '; and then another took up the
word: 'Sisters, I knew him because his heart sang like a bird that is
happy in a silver cage.' And after that they sang together, those who
were nearest rocking the cradle with long wrinkled fingers; and their
voices were now tender and caressing, now like the wind blowing in the
great wood, and this was their song:
Out of sight is out of mind:
Long have man and woman-kind,
Heavy of will and light of mood,
Taken away our wheaten food,
Taken away our Altar stone;
Hail and rain and thunder alone,
And red hearts we turn to grey,
Are true till Time gutter away.
When the song had died out, the crone who had first spoken, said: 'We
have nothing more to do but to mix a drop of our blood into his blood.'
And she scratched her arm with the sharp point of a spindle, which she
had made the nurse bring to her, and let a drop of blood, grey as the
mist, fall upon the lips of the child; and passed out into the darkness.
Then the others passed out in silence one by one; and all the while the
child had not opened his pink eyelids or the fire ceased to dance, for
the one was too ignorant and the other too full of gaiety to know what
great beings had bent over the cradle.
When the crones were gone, the nurse came to her courage again, and
hurried to the dun of the High-King, and cried out in the midst of the
assembly hall that the Sidhe, whether for good or evil she knew not, had
bent over the child that night; and the king and his poets and men of
law, and his huntsmen, and his cooks, and his chief warriors went with
her to the hut and gathered about the cradle, and were as noisy as
magpies, and the child sat up and looked at them.
Two years passed over, and the king died fighting against the Fer Bolg;
and the poets and the men of law ruled in the name of the child, but
looked to see him become the master himself before long, for no one
had seen so wise a child, and tales of his endless questions about
the household of the gods and the making of the world went hither and
thither among the wicker houses of the poor. Everything had been well
but for a miracle that began to trouble all men; and all women, who,
indeed, talked of it without ceasing. The feathers of the grey hawk
had begun to grow in the child's hair, and though, his nurse cut them
continually, in but a little while they would be more numerous than
ever. This had not been a matter of great moment, for miracles were a
little thing in those days, but for an ancient law of Eri that none who
had any blemish of body could sit upon the throne; and as a grey
hawk was a wild thing of the air which had never sat at the board, or
listened to the songs of the poets in the light of the fire, it was not
possible to think of one in whose hair its feathers grew as other than
marred and blasted; nor could the people separate from their admiration
of the wisdom that grew in him a horror as at one of unhuman blood. Yet
all were resolved that he should reign, for they had suffered much from
foolish kings and their own disorders, and moreover they desired to
watch out the spectacle of his days; and no one had any other fear but
that his great wisdom might bid him obey the law, and call some other,
who had but a common mind, to reign in his stead.
When the child was seven years old the poets and the men of law were
called together by the chief poet, and all these matters weighed and
considered. The child had already seen that those about him had hair
only, and, though they had told him that they too had had feathers but
had lost them because of a sin committed by their forefathers, they knew
that he would learn the truth when he began to wander into the country
round about. After much consideration they decreed a new law commanding
every one upon pain of death to mingle artificially the feathers of the
grey hawk into his hair; and they sent men with nets and slings and bows
into the countries round about to gather a sufficiency of feathers. They
decreed also that any who told the truth to the child should be flung
from a cliff into the sea.
The years passed, and the child grew from childhood into boyhood and
from boyhood into manhood, and from being curious about all things
he became busy with strange and subtle thoughts which came to him in
dreams, and with distinctions between things long held the same and
with the resemblance of things long held different. Multitudes came from
other lands to see him and to ask his counsel, but there were guards set
at the frontiers, who compelled all that came to wear the feathers of
the grey hawk in their hair. While they listened to him his words seemed
to make all darkness light and filled their hearts like music; but,
alas, when they returned to their own lands his words seemed far off,
and what they could remember too strange and subtle to help them to live
out their hasty days. A number indeed did live differently afterwards,
but their new life was less excellent than the old: some among them had
long served a good cause, but when they heard him praise it and their
labour, they returned to their own lands to find what they had loved
less lovable and their arm lighter in the battle, for he had taught them
how little a hair divides the false and true; others, again, who
had served no cause, but wrought in peace the welfare of their own
households, when he had expounded the meaning of their purpose, found
their bones softer and their will less ready for toil, for he had shown
them greater purposes; and numbers of the young, when they had heard him
upon all these things, remembered certain words that became like a fire
in their hearts, and made all kindly joys and traffic between man and
man as nothing, and went different ways, but all into vague regret.
When any asked him concerning the common things of life; disputes about
the mear of a territory, or about the straying of cattle, or about the
penalty of blood; he would turn to those nearest him for advice; but
this was held to be from courtesy, for none knew that these matters were
hidden from him by thoughts and dreams that filled his mind like the
marching and counter-marching of armies. Far less could any know that
his heart wandered lost amid throngs of overcoming thoughts and dreams,
shuddering at its own consuming solitude.
Among those who came to look at him and to listen to him was the
daughter of a little king who lived a great way off; and when he saw her
he loved, for she was beautiful, with a strange and pale beauty unlike
the women of his land; but Dana, the great mother, had decreed her a
heart that was but as the heart of others, and when she considered the
mystery of the hawk feathers she was troubled with a great horror. He
called her to him when the assembly was over and told her of her beauty,
and praised her simply and frankly as though she were a fable of the
bards; and he asked her humbly to give him her love, for he was
only subtle in his dreams. Overwhelmed with his greatness, she half
consented, and yet half refused, for she longed to marry some warrior
who could carry her over a mountain in his arms. Day by day the king
gave her gifts; cups with ears of gold and findrinny wrought by the
craftsmen of distant lands; cloth from over sea, which, though woven
with curious figures, seemed to her less beautiful than the bright cloth
of her own country; and still she was ever between a smile and a frown;
between yielding and withholding. He laid down his wisdom at her feet,
and told how the heroes when they die return to the world and begin
their labour anew; how the kind and mirthful Men of Dea drove out the
huge and gloomy and misshapen People from Under the Sea; and a multitude
of things that even the Sidhe have forgotten, either because they
happened so long ago or because they have not time to think of them; and
still she half refused, and still he hoped, because he could not believe
that a beauty so much like wisdom could hide a common heart.
There was a tall young man in the dun who had yellow hair, and was
skilled in wrestling and in the training of horses; and one day when the
king walked in the orchard, which was between the foss and the forest,
he heard his voice among the salley bushes which hid the waters of the
foss. 'My blossom,' it said, 'I hate them for making you weave these
dingy feathers into your beautiful hair, and all that the bird of prey
upon the throne may sleep easy o' nights'; and then the low, musical
voice he loved answered: 'My hair is not beautiful like yours; and now
that I have plucked the feathers out of your hair I will put my hands
through it, thus, and thus, and thus; for it casts no shadow of terror
and darkness upon my heart.' Then the king remembered many things that
he had forgotten without understanding them, doubtful words of his poets
and his men of law, doubts that he had reasoned away, his own continual
solitude; and he called to the lovers in a trembling voice. They came
from among the salley bushes and threw themselves at his feet and prayed
for pardon, and he stooped down and plucked the feathers out of the hair
of the woman and then turned away towards the dun without a word. He
strode into the hall of assembly, and having gathered his poets and his
men of law about him, stood upon the dais and spoke in a loud, clear
voice: 'Men of law, why did you make me sin against the laws of Eri? Men
of verse, why did you make me sin against the secrecy of wisdom, for law
was made by man for the welfare of man, but wisdom the gods have made,
and no man shall live by its light, for it and the hail and the rain and
the thunder follow a way that is deadly to mortal things? Men of law and
men of verse, live according to your kind, and call Eocha of the Hasty
Mind to reign over you, for I set out to find my kindred.' He then came
down among them, and drew out of the hair of first one and then another
the feathers of the grey hawk, and, having scattered them over the
rushes upon the floor, passed out, and none dared to follow him, for
his eyes gleamed like the eyes of the birds of prey; and no man saw him
again or heard his voice. Some believed that he found his eternal abode
among the demons, and some that he dwelt henceforth with the dark and
dreadful goddesses, who sit all night about the pools in the forest
watching the constellations rising and setting in those desolate
mirrors.