_Alveric Comes Back to Earth After Many Years_
Back through the guarding wood went Alveric and Lirazel, she only
looking once more at those flowers and lawns, seen only by the
furthest-travelling fancies of poets in deepest sleep, then urging
Alveric on; he choosing the way past trees he had disenchanted.
And she would not let him delay even to choose his path, but kept urging
him away from the palace that is only told of in song. And the other
trees began to come lumbering towards them, from beyond the lustreless
unromantic line that Alveric's sword had smitten, looking queerly as
they came at their stricken comrades, whose listless branches drooped
without magic or mystery. And as the moving trees came nearer Lirazel
would hold up her hand, and they all halted and came on no more; and
still she urged upon Alveric to hasten.
She knew her father would climb the brazen stairs of one of those silver
spires, she knew he would soon come out on to a high balcony, she knew
what rune he would chant. She heard the sound of his footsteps
ascending, ringing now through the wood. They fled over the plain beyond
the wood, all through the blue everlasting elfin day, and again and
again she looked over her shoulder and urged Alveric on. The Elf King's
feet boomed slow on the thousand brazen steps, and she hoped to reach
the barrier of twilight, which on that side was smoky and dull; when
suddenly, as she looked for the hundredth time at the distant balconies
of the glittering spires, she saw a door begin to open high up, above
the palace only told of in song. She cried "Alas!" to Alveric, but at
that moment the scent of briar roses came drifting to them from the
fields we know.
Alveric knew not fatigue for he was young, nor she for she was ageless.
They rushed forward, he taking her hand; the Elf King lifted his beard,
and just as he began to intone a rune that only once may be uttered,
against which nothing from our fields can avail, they were through the
frontier of twilight, and the rune shook and troubled those lands in
which Lirazel walked no longer.
When Lirazel looked upon the fields we know, as strange to her as once
they have been to us, their beauty delighted her. She laughed to see the
haystacks and loved their quaintness. A lark was singing and Lirazel
spoke to it, and the lark seemed not to understand, but she turned to
other glories of our fields, for all were new to her, and forgot the
lark. It was curiously no longer the season of bluebells, for all the
foxgloves were blooming and the may was gone and the wild roses were
there. Alveric never understood this.
It was early morning and the sun was shining, giving soft colours to our
fields, and Lirazel rejoiced in those fields of ours at more common
things than one might believe there were amongst the familiar sights of
Earth's every day. So glad was she, so gay, with her cries of surprise
and her laughter, that there seemed thenceforth to Alveric a beauty
that he had never dreamed of in buttercups, and a humour in carts that
he never had thought of before. Each moment she found with a cry of
joyous discovery some treasure of Earth's that he had not known to be
fair. And then, as he watched her bringing a beauty to our fields more
delicate even than that the wild roses brought, he saw that her crown of
ice had melted away.
And thus she came from the palace that may only be told of in song, over
the fields of which I need not tell, for they were the familiar fields
of Earth, that the ages change but little and only for a while, and came
at evening with Alveric to his home.
All was changed in the Castle of Erl. In the gateway they met a guardian
whom Alveric knew: the man wondered to see them. In the hall and upon
the stairway they met some that tended the castle, who turned their
heads in surprise. Alveric knew them also, but all were older; and he
saw that quite ten years must have passed away during that one blue day
he had spent in Elfland.
Who does not know that this is the way of Elfland? And yet who would not
be surprised if they saw it happen as Alveric saw it now? He turned to
Lirazel and told her how ten or twelve years were gone. But it was as
though a humble man who had wed an earthly princess should tell her he
had lost sixpence; time had had no value or meaning to Lirazel, and she
was untroubled to hear of the ten lost years. She did not dream what
time means to us here.
They told Alveric that his father was long since dead. And one told him
how he died happy, without impatience, trusting to Alveric to accomplish
his bidding; for he had known somewhat of the ways of Elfland, and knew
that those that traffic twixt here and there must have something of that
calm in which Elfland forever dreams.
Up the valley, ringing late, they heard the blacksmith's work. This
blacksmith was he who had been the spokesman of those who went once to
the long red room to the Lord of Erl. And all these men yet lived; for
time though it moved over the Vale of Erl, as over all fields we know,
moved gently, not as in our cities.
Thence Alveric and Lirazel went to the holy place of the Freer. And when
they found him Alveric asked the Freer to wed them with Christom rites.
And when the Freer saw the beauty of Lirazel flash mid the common things
in his little holy place, for he had ornamented the walls of his house
with knick-knacks that he sometimes bought at the fairs, he feared at
once she was of no mortal line. And, when he asked her whence she came
and she happily answered "Elfland," the good man clasped his hands and
told her earnestly how all in that land dwelt beyond salvation. But she
smiled, for while in Elfland she had always been idly happy, and now she
only cared for Alveric. The Freer went then to his books to see what
should be done.
For a long while he read in silence but for his breathing, while Alveric
and Lirazel stood before him. And at last he found in his book a form of
service for the wedding of a mermaid that had forsaken the sea, though
the good book told not of Elfland. And this he said would suffice, for
that the mermaids dwelt equally with the elf-folk beyond thought of
salvation. So he sent for his bell and such tapers as are necessary.
Then, turning to Lirazel, he bade her forsake and forswear and solemnly
to renounce all things pertaining to Elfland, reading slowly out of a
book the words to be used on this wholesome occasion.
"Good Freer," Lirazel answered, "nought said in these fields can cross
the barrier of Elfland. And well that this is so, for my father has
three runes that could blast this book when he answered one of its
spells, were any word able to pass through the frontier of twilight. I
will spell no spells with my father."
"But I cannot wed Christom man," the Freer replied, "with one of the
stubborn who dwell beyond salvation."
Then Alveric implored her and she said the say in the book, "though my
father could blast this spell," she added, "if it ever crossed one of
his runes." And, the bell being now brought and the tapers, the good man
wedded them in his little house with the rites that are proper for the
wedding of a mermaid that hath forsaken the sea.