_Alveric Comes in Sight of the Elfin Mountains_
To the long chamber, sparsely furnished, high in a tower, in which
Alveric slept, there came a ray direct from the rising sun. He awoke,
and remembered at once the magical sword, which made all his awaking
joyous. It is natural to feel glad at the thought of a recent gift, but
there was also a certain joy in the sword itself, which perhaps could
communicate with Alveric's thoughts all the more easily just as they
came from dreamland, which was pre-eminently the sword's own country;
but, however it be, all those that have come by a magical sword, have
always felt that joy while it still was new, clearly and unmistakably.
He had no farewells to make, but thought it better instantly to obey his
father's command than to stay to explain why he took upon his adventure
a sword that he deemed to be better than the one his father loved. So he
stayed not even to eat, but put food in a wallet and slung over him by a
strap a bottle of good new leather, not waiting to fill it for he knew
he should meet with streams; and, wearing his father's sword as swords
are commonly worn, he slung the other over his back with its rough hilt
tied near his shoulder, and strode away from the Castle and Vale of Erl.
Of money he took but little, half a handful of copper only, for use in
the fields we know; for he knew not what coin or what means of exchange
were used on the other side of the frontier of twilight.
Now the Vale of Erl is very near to the border beyond which there is
none of the fields we know. He climbed the hill and strode over the
fields and passed through woods of hazel; and the blue sky shone on him
merrily as he went by the way of the fields, and the blue was as bright
by his feet when he came to the woods, for it was the time of the
bluebells. He ate, and filled his water-bottle, and travelled all day
eastwards, and at evening the mountains of faery came floating into
view, the colour of pale forget-me-nots.
As the sun set behind Alveric he looked at those pale-blue mountains to
see with what colour their peaks would astonish the evening; but never a
tint they took from the setting sun, whose splendour was gilding all the
fields we know, never a wrinkle faded upon their precipices, never a
shadow deepened, and Alveric learned that for nothing that happens here
is any change in the enchanted lands.
He turned his eyes from their serene pale beauty back to the fields we
know. And there, with their gables lifting into the sunlight above deep
hedgerows beautiful with Spring, he saw the cottages of earthly men.
Past them he walked while the beauty of evening grew, with songs of
birds, and scents wandering from flowers, and odours that deepened and
deepened, and evening decked herself to receive the Evening Star. But
before that star appeared the young adventurer found the cottage he
sought; for, flapping above its doorway, he saw the sign of huge brown
hide with outlandish letters in gilt which proclaimed the dweller below
to be a worker in leather.
An old man came to the door when Alveric knocked, little and bent with
age, and he bent more when Alveric named himself. And the young man
asked for a scabbard for his sword, yet said not what sword it was. And
they both went into the cottage where the old wife was, by her big fire,
and the couple did honour to Alveric. The old man then sat down near his
thick table, whose surface shone with smoothness wherever it was not
pitted by little tools that had drilled through pieces of leather all
that man's lifetime and in the times of his fathers. And then he laid
the sword upon his knees and wondered at the roughness of hilt and
guard, for they were raw unworked metal, and at the huge width of the
sword; and then he screwed up his eyes and began to think of his trade.
And in a while he thought out what must be done; and his wife brought
him a fine hide; and he marked out on it two pieces as wide as the
sword, and a bit wider than that.
And any questions he asked concerning that wide bright sword Alveric
somewhat parried, for he wished not to perplex his mind by telling him
all that it was: he perplexed that old couple enough a little later when
he asked them for lodging for the night. And this they gave him with as
many apologies as if it were they that had asked a favour, and gave him
a great supper out of their cauldron, in which boiled everything that
the old man snared; but nothing that Alveric was able to say prevented
them giving up their bed to him and preparing a heap of skins for their
own night's rest by the fire.
And after their supper the old man cut out the two wide pieces of
leather with a point at the end of each and began to stitch them
together on each side. And then Alveric began to ask him of the way,
and the old leather-worker spoke of North and South and West and even of
north-east, but of East or south-east he spoke never a word. He dwelt
near the very edge of the fields we know, yet of any hint of anything
lying beyond them he or his wife said nothing. Where Alveric's journey
lay upon the morrow they seemed to think the world ended.
And pondering afterwards, in the bed they gave him, all that the old man
had said, Alveric sometimes marvelled at his ignorance, and yet
sometimes wondered if it might have been skill by which those two had
avoided all the evening any word of anything lying to the East or
south-east of their home. He wondered if in his early days the old man
might have gone there, but he was unable even to wonder what he had
found there if he had gone. Then Alveric fell asleep, and dreams gave
him hints and guesses of the old man's wanderings in Fairyland, but gave
him no better guides than he had already, and these were the pale-blue
peaks of the Elfin Mountains.
The old man woke him after he had slept long. When he came to the
day-room a bright fire was burning there, his breakfast was ready for
him and the scabbard made, which fitted the sword exactly. The old
people waited on him silently and took payment for the scabbard, but
would not take aught for their hospitality. Silently they watched him
rise to go, and followed him without a word to the door, and outside it
watched him still, clearly hoping that he would turn to the North or
West; but when he turned and strode for the Elfin Mountains, they
watched him no more, for their faces never were turned that way. And
though they watched him no longer yet he waved his hand in farewell;
for he had a feeling for the cottages and fields of these simple folk,
such as they had not for the enchanted lands. He walked in the sparkling
morning through scenes familiar from infancy; he saw the ruddy orchis
flowering early, reminding the bluebells they were just past their
prime; the small young leaves of the oak were yet a brownish yellow; the
new beech-leaves shone like brass, where the cuckoo was calling clearly;
and a birch tree looked like a wild woodland creature that had draped
herself in green gauze; on favoured bushes there were buds of may.
Alveric said over and over to himself farewell to all these things: the
cuckoo went on calling, and not for him. And then, as he pushed through
a hedge into a field untended, there suddenly close before him in the
field was, as his father had told, the frontier of twilight. It
stretched across the fields in front of him, blue and dense like water;
and things seen through it seemed misshapen and shining. He looked back
once over the fields we know; the cuckoo went on calling unconcernedly;
a small bird sang about its own affairs; and, nothing seeming to answer
or heed his farewells, Alveric strode on boldly into those long masses
of twilight.
A man in a field not far was calling to horses, there were folk talking
in a neighbouring lane, as Alveric stepped into the rampart of twilight;
at once all these sounds grew dim, humming faintly, as from great
distances: in a few strides he was through, and not a murmur at all came
then from the fields we know. The fields through which he had come had
suddenly ended; there was no trace of its hedges bright with new green;
he looked back, and the frontier seemed lowering, cloudy and smoky; he
looked all round and saw no familiar thing; in the place of the beauty
of May were the wonders and splendours of Elfland.
The pale-blue mountains stood august in their glory, shimmering and
rippling in a golden light that seemed as though it rhythmically poured
from the peaks and flooded all those slopes with breezes of gold. And
below them, far off as yet, he saw going up all silver into the air the
spires of the palace only told of in song. He was on a plain on which
the flowers were queer and the shape of the trees monstrous. He started
at once toward the silver spires.
To those who may have wisely kept their fancies within the boundary of
the fields we know it is difficult for me to tell of the land to which
Alveric had come, so that in their minds they can see that plain with
its scattered trees and far off the dark wood out of which the palace of
Elfland lifted those glittering spires, and above them and beyond them
that serene range of mountains whose pinnacles took no colour from any
light we see. Yet it is for this very purpose that our fancies travel
far, and if my reader through fault of mine fail to picture the peaks of
Elfland my fancy had better have stayed in the fields we know. Know then
that in Elfland are colours more deep than are in our fields, and the
very air there glows with so deep a lucency that all things seen there
have something of the look of our trees and flowers in June reflected in
water. And the colour of Elfland, of which I despaired to tell, may yet
be told, for we have hints of it here; the deep blue of the night in
Summer just as the gloaming has gone, the pale blue of Venus flooding
the evening with light, the deeps of lakes in the twilight, all these
are hints of that colour. And while our sunflowers carefully turned to
the sun, some forefather of the rhododendrons must have turned a little
towards Elfland, so that some of that glory dwells with them to this
day. And, above all, our painters have had many a glimpse of that
country, so that sometimes in pictures we see a glamour too wonderful
for our fields; it is a memory of theirs that intruded from some old
glimpse of the pale-blue mountains while they sat at easels painting the
fields we know.
So Alveric strode on through the luminous air of that land whose
glimpses dimly remembered are inspirations here. And at once he felt
less lonely. For there is a barrier in the fields we know, drawn sharply
between men and all other life, so that if we be but a day away from our
kind we are lonely; but once across the boundary of twilight and Alveric
saw this barrier was down. Crows walking on the moor looked whimsically
at him, all manner of little creatures peered curiously to see who was
come from a quarter whence so few ever came; to see who went on a
journey whence so few ever returned; for the King of Elfland guarded his
daughter well, as Alveric knew although he knew not how. There was a
merry sparkle of interest in all those little eyes, and a look that
might mean warning.
There was perhaps less mystery here than on our side of the boundary of
twilight; for nothing lurked or seemed to lurk behind great boles of
oak, as in certain lights and seasons things may lurk in the fields we
know; no strangeness hid on the far side of ridges; nothing haunted deep
woods; whatever might possibly lurk was clearly there to be seen,
whatever strangeness might be was spread in full sight of the traveller,
whatever might haunt deep woods lived there in the open day.
And, so strong lay the enchantment deep over all that land, that not
only did beasts and men guess each other's meanings well, but there
seemed to be an understanding even, that reached from men to trees and
from trees to men. Lonely pine trees that Alveric passed now and then on
the moor, their trunks glowing always with the ruddy light that they had
got by magic from some old sunset, seemed to stand with their branches
akimbo and lean over a little to look at him. It seemed almost as though
they had not always been trees, before enchantment had overtaken them
there; it seemed they would tell him something.
But Alveric heeded no warnings either from beasts or trees, and strode
away toward the enchanted wood.