THE MAGIC LODGE
Of all the great magicians in the north, Wise-as-a-she-wolf alone
worked solely for the welfare of mankind; and, as his reputation for
virtue grew, so did his enemies multiply. But, with the exception of
Bright Robe, not one of them could compare with him for cleverness, or
courage, or knowledge of the secret arts. Few of them possessed either
brain or determination enough to master more than the simplest lessons
in magic! Having attained so far, they were content to practise their
little arts covertly, to serve their own ambitions. They overthrew
their enemies by provoking stronger people against them, working slyly,
with many false tales and foolish antics. They had been at the bottom
of most of the wars in the big island, and, though they seldom fought
in the front of the battle (not possessing the mastery over death, as
did Bright Robe and Wise-as-a-she-wolf), yet they usually gained power
and wealth at the cost of the warriors’ lives.
These people hated Wise-as-a-she-wolf, because he had always worked
against them. When he was at home, the island was at peace; but no
sooner was it known that he had gone to some distant land than a dozen
little wars sprang up, every village was turned against its neighbour
and battle and starvation ravaged the country. But, of late years,
the island had been quiet and prosperous. Bright Robe had been so
long in exile that he had become little more than a figure of legend,
and Wise-as-a-she-wolf had spent enough of his time in the island to
keep the designers of evil in constant fear. Then the news of Bright
Robe’s return, in all his old power and wickedness, reached the
little magicians. They heard that he was intent on the overthrow of
Wise-as-a-she-wolf, and at that their black hearts rejoiced, and they
began to plan murders and battles and thefts on their enemies. A few of
them had even seen Bright Robe and offered him their services; and he
was as great and terrible as their fathers had told them. And then, of
a sudden, he had disappeared and they feared that their wicked master
had deserted them, and had offended the gods afresh.
Now, with Bright Robe again reduced to a term of inactivity, the good
magician had time to devote himself to an important task of a rather
more private nature than that of keeping his countrymen in order; and
this was the building of a stronghold in a forest in the very heart
of the island. This forest was fenced, on the south and west, by a
bend of the Purple Hills. Northward and eastward of it lay trackless
marshes and naked barrens. The forest was of pine-trees for the most
part, standing tall and thick over miles of gently rolling country;
and in the centre of it lay a pond, fed by hidden springs of pure,
ice-cold water. The good magician’s lodge stood beside this pond.
He had commenced it when he first began to learn magic, and year by
year he had worked at it; and still it was not entirely finished.
There was ever some new beauty to be added to roof or walls. Only the
Crimson Wigwam, beyond the western edge of the world, and other homes
of the gods beyond the walls of ice, surpassed this magic lodge which
Wise-as-a-she-wolf had built with his own brains and hands. To begin
with, one might stare straight at it for hours, or for a hundred
years, and see nothing but pine-trees. There was not so much as a sign
of a clearing to lead one to think that a great lodge stood there.
And yet, if one were able to reach that particular portion of forest
where the lodge was, and pass the walls, he would find that he could
walk straight through the tree-trunks, as if they were as immaterial
as shafts of sunlight. And so they were. For the sturdy pines that
seemed to crowd so close in the compass of the lodge were but images of
the trees that had stood there before the magician had cut them down,
spellbound there to deceive the common eye. Nothing but the greatest
magic could have accomplished such a miracle. But the builder had
guarded against the chance of any one blundering against the invisible
walls and thereby discovering their magic quality, by encircling the
immediate vicinity with enchantment so potent that it would lead a
traveller ever to one side or the other and yet let him believe that he
was walking straight ahead.
This forest was occasionally visited by wandering hunters, and
more than one party of adventurous braves had camped, for a night
or two, beside the crystal pond; but none had ever suspected that
Wise-as-a-she-wolf’s home was so near at hand.
To eyes that could see it, the lodge was a fascinating and beautiful
place. Every stone, and log and sheet of bark that had been used in the
building of it, had been converted, inside or out, into something rare
and wonderful. Bark had been taken from a thousand birch trees and half
as many fir trees to cover the roof, which was higher than the top of
the tallest pine and painted like the roof of the world; painted so
cunningly, with magic pigments, that it changed in colour, hour by hour
through the days and the nights and the seasons, with all the colours
of the sky. It was as beautiful as the sky; and yet neither rain nor
snow could pierce it, and clouds could not hide its charms from the
dweller beneath it. At night it shone with stars, made of rare jewels
which the builder had brought from a distant land. They flashed an
hundred colours in the light which shone from the big lamps in golden
vessels that gave forth no smoke in the burning.
[Illustration: “HERE A GOD STOOD HUGE AND BLACK AGAINST A SUNSET SKY,
LOOKING OUT ACROSS A DARKENING WORLD.”]
The outer walls (invisible to the eyes of every one but
Wise-as-a-she-wolf) were dull and plain, save for the windows of
crystal as clear as ice. They were built of great fragments of
granite, and pine logs, set skilfully and firmly together. But within,
the rough materials had been smoothed to fine surfaces whereon the
master had painted hunters and beasts, warriors, lovers and battles,
spring and summer and winter, children and gods, in living colours.
Never had there been such a picture before; and never, I fear, will
there be such an one again. He had wrought on it for years. To stand
in the midst of those four walls was to have life, and all the men
and wonders of the world, within the glance of your eye. Here stood
two young lovers in a sunlit glade; and there sat a group of old
story-tellers around a cooking-fire. Here a hunter stooped above a
fallen stag, his red knife in one hand, his slackened bow in the other;
and there a young mother washed her babe in a clear stream. Here a
god stood huge and black against a sunset sky, looking out across
a darkening world of pigmy villages and wide forests; here a naked
child sat in the sunlight and played with toys of carved wood; here
were fields of ice, and a gray sea, and innumerable seals; and there
ran a great wolf with his thin red tongue hanging from his jaws. Here
was a girl weaving a basket of split willows, her face bent demurely
above her work; and you had but to turn your head to behold five-score
warriors in battle, dealing blows and shedding blood.
As these pictures grew under the hand of the good magician, it seemed
to him a pity--great work selfishly done--if no one but himself should
be allowed to enjoy them. So he went out from his magic house, and
travelled among his people with this thought in his mind. And, first of
all, he found a man called Wounded Hawk, who was crippled and sick and
a burden to the village in which he lived. The man was tired of life,
for he had always been active and adventurous, and now his hunting days
were over because of an injury he had received in a fight with a bear.
So the magician took him from his poor wigwam, in the dead of night,
and carried him to his own magic lodge.
For twenty days, Wounded Hawk lived in that house of wonder; and not
once, in that time, did he see his unknown host, though food and drink
were always at his hand. He lived as one in a dream, and was happy from
dawn till dark in the contemplation of the pictures, all valour and
romance and tenderness and adventure and sheer delight; and yet he
knew that they were but drawings of a real world and common things. So
his old zest in life returned to him, and his face grew rosier and his
eyes brighter. Stories of the battles and the huntings and the homelier
incidents, stirred in his brain. On the night of the twentieth day, as
he lay in a sound sleep, Wise-as-a-she-wolf lifted him in his arms and
carried him back to his poor wigwam. When he awoke, he looked about
him at the sloping walls of bark and rubbed his eyes. Then he laughed,
thinking of the wonderful dream he had enjoyed and of the pleasure he
would have in telling it to his friends. Though he was still lame in
one leg, he felt vigorous and happy, and left his lodge and greeted his
friends with a merry face.
Of course they stared at him in amazement. “Where have you been?” they
cried. “You look as if you had found a good hunting-ground.”
“I have had a good sleep, and a fine dream,” replied Wounded Hawk.
“Have you been sleeping ever since you went away?” they asked. “Have
you been dreaming for twenty days?”
“Twenty days?” queried Wounded Hawk, opening his eyes wide.
“Did you think that we would not look inside your wigwam, when we
missed you?” asked the chief of the village. “Come, now, tell us what
mischief you were about?”
Wounded Hawk shouted with joy. “Then it must be true,” he cried, “and
not a dream after all.”
They continued to question him, and he told them a little part of the
wonder of the magic lodge and magic pictures. At first they thought he
was deceiving them; then they crowded about him to hear his stories.
They built him a comfortable lodge and gave him furs and food; and
his fame went abroad as the master of story-tellers, the maddest of
dreamers.
And from then, to the day of his death, life seemed a fine thing to
him and the world a delightful place. The wonders of the pictures
and the magic lodge were always green in his memory and his stories
carried the fame of the Pictures of Life far and wide. Warriors and
children came to his lodge and begged him to talk, and he told them
great stories. He even painted pictures, with coloured earths and dyes,
on bark and dressed hide, making them as much like the pictures in his
mind as he was able. And he was always striving to make them better,
and to tell finer stories. Love and honour were his; and when he died,
people mourned him as the mightiest warrior is not mourned. And his
soul (which was not crippled) went gladly out on an eternal quest of
valorous and beautiful things.
Another had seen the magic lodge. An old woman, whom the good magician
had found in a deserted camp, had ended her days there, thinking
herself beyond the black river of death.