_The Wisdom of the Parliament of Erl_
In those bridal days the men of Erl came often to the castle, bringing
gifts and felicitations; and in the evenings they would talk in their
houses of the fair things that they hoped for the Vale of Erl on account
of the wisdom of the thing they had done when they spoke with the old
lord in his long red room.
There was Narl the blacksmith, who had been their leader; there was
Guhic, who first had thought of it, after speaking with his wife, an
upland farmer of clover pastures near Erl; there was Nehic a driver of
horses; there were four vendors of beeves; and Oth, a hunter of deer;
and Vlel the master-ploughman: all these and three men more had gone to
the Lord of Erl and made that request that had set Alveric on his
wanderings. And now they spoke of all the good that would come of it.
They had all desired that the Vale of Erl should be known among men, as
was, they felt, its desert. They had looked in histories, they had read
books treating of pasture, yet seldom found mention at all of the vale
they loved. And one day Guhic had said "Let all us people be ruled in
the future by a magic lord, and he shall make the name of the valley
famous, and there shall be none that have heard not the name of Erl."
And all had rejoiced and had made a parliament; and it had gone, twelve
men, to the Lord of Erl. And it had been as I have told.
So now they spoke over their mead of the future of Erl, and its place
among other valleys, and of the reputation that it should have in the
world. They would meet and talk in the great forge of Narl, and Narl
would bring them mead from an inner room, and Threl would come in late
from his work in the woods. The mead was of clover honey, heavy and
sweet; and when they had sat awhile in the warm room, talking of daily
things of the valley and uplands, they would turn their minds to the
future, seeing as through a golden mist the glory of Erl. One praised
the beeves, another the horses, another the good soil, and all looked to
the time when other lands should know the great mastery among valleys
that was held by the valley of Erl.
And Time that brought these evenings bore them away, moving over the
Vale of Erl as over all fields we know, and it was Spring again and the
season of bluebells. And one day in the prime of the wild anemones, it
was told that Alveric and Lirazel had a son.
Then all the people of Erl lit a fire next night on the hill, and danced
about it and drank mead and rejoiced. All day they had dragged logs and
branches for it from a wild wood near, and the glow of the fire was seen
in other lands. Only on the pale-blue peaks of the mountains of Elfland
no gleam of it shone, for they are unchanged by ought that can happen
here.
And when they rested from dancing round their fires they would sit on
the ground and foretell the fortune of Erl, when it should be ruled over
by this son of Alveric with all the magic he would have from his
mother. And some said he would lead them to war, and some said to deeper
ploughing; and all foretold a better price for their beeves. None slept
that night for dancing and foretelling a glorious future, and for
rejoicing at the things they foretold. And above all they rejoiced that
the name of Erl should be thenceforth known and honoured in other lands.
Then Alveric sought for a nurse for his child, all through the valley
and uplands, and not easily found any worthy of having the care of one
that was of the royal line of Elfland; and those that he found were
frightened of the light, as though not of our Earth or sky, that seemed
to shine at times in the baby's eyes. And in the end he went one windy
morning up the hill of the lonely witch, and found her sitting idly in
her doorway, having nothing to curse or bless.
"Well," said the witch, "did the sword bring you fortune?"
"Who knows," said Alveric, "what brings fortune, since we cannot see the
end?"
And he spoke wearily, for he was weary with age, and never knew how many
years had gone over him on the day he travelled to Elfland; far more it
seemed than had passed on that same day over Erl.
"Aye," said the witch. "Who knows the end but we?"
"Mother Witch," said Alveric, "I wedded the King of Elfland's daughter."
"That was a great advancement," said the old witch.
"Mother Witch," said Alveric, "we have a child. And who shall care for
him?"
"No human task," said the witch.
"Mother Witch," said Alveric, "will you come to the Vale of Erl and
care for him and be the nurse at the castle? For none but you in all
these fields knows ought of the things of Elfland, except the princess,
and she knows nothing of Earth."
And the old witch answered: "For the sake of the King I will come."
So the witch came down from the hill with a bundle of queer belongings.
And thus the child was nursed in the fields we know by one who knew
songs and tales of his mother's country.
And often, as they bent together over the baby, that aged witch and the
Princess Lirazel would talk together, and afterwards through long
evenings, of things about which Alveric knew nothing: and for all the
age of the witch, and the wisdom that she had stored in her hundred
years, which is all hidden from man, it was nevertheless she who learned
when they talked together, and the Princess Lirazel who taught. But of
Earth and the ways of Earth Lirazel never knew anything.
And this old witch that watched over the baby so tended him and so
soothed, that in all his infancy he never wept. For she had a charm for
brightening the morning, and a charm for cheering the day, and a charm
for calming a cough, and a charm for making the nursery warm and
pleasant and eerie, when the fire leaped up at the sound of it, from
logs that she had enchanted, and sent large shadows of the things about
the fire quivering dark and merry over the ceiling.
And the child was cared for by Lirazel and the witch as children are
cared for whose mothers are merely human; but he knew tunes and runes
besides, that other children hear not in fields we know.
So the old witch moved about the nursery with her black stick, guarding
the child with her runes. If a draught on windy nights shrilled in
through some crack she had a spell to calm it; and a spell to charm the
song that the kettle sang, till its melody brought hints of strange news
from mist-hidden places, and the child grew to know the mystery of far
valleys that his eyes had never seen. And at evening she would raise her
ebon stick and, standing before the fire amongst all the shadows, would
enchant them and make them dance for him. And they took all manner of
shapes of good and evil, dancing to please the baby; so that he came to
have knowledge not only of the things with which Earth is stored; pigs,
trees, camels, crocodiles, wolves, and ducks, good dogs and the gentle
cow; but of the darker things also that men have feared, and the things
they have hoped and guessed. Through those evenings the things that
happen, and the creatures that are, passed over those nursery walls, and
he grew familiar with the fields we know. And on warm afternoons the
witch would carry him through the village, and all the dogs would bark
at her eerie figure, but durst not come too close, for a page-boy behind
her carried the ebon stick. And dogs, that know so much, that know how
far a man can throw a stone, and if he would beat them, and if he durst
not, knew also that this was no ordinary stick. So they kept far away
from that queer black stick in the hand of the page, and snarled, and
the villagers came out to see. And all were glad when they saw how
magical a nurse the young heir had, "for here," they said, "is the witch
Ziroonderel," and they declared that she would bring him up amongst the
true principles of wizardry, and that in his time there would be magic
that would make all their valley famous. And they beat their dogs until
they slunk indoors, but the dogs clung to their suspicions still. So
that when the men were gone to the forge of Narl, and their houses were
quiet in the moonlight and Narl's windows glowed, and the mead had gone
round, and they talked of the future of Erl, more and more voices
joining in the tale of its coming glory, on soft feet the dogs would
come out to the sandy street and howl.
And to the high sunny nursery Lirazel would come, bringing a brightness
that the learned witch had not in all her spells, and would sing to her
boy those songs that none can sing to us here, for they were learned the
other side of the frontier of twilight and were made by singers all
unvexed by Time. And for all the marvel that there was in those songs,
whose origin was so far from the fields we know, and in times remote
from those that historians use; and though men wondered at the
strangeness of them when from open casements through the Summer days
they drifted over Erl; yet none wondered even at those as she wondered
at the earthly ways of her child and all the little human things that he
did more and more as he grew. For all human ways were strange to her.
And yet she loved him more than her father's realm, or the glittering
centuries of her ageless youth, or the palace that may be told of only
in song.
In those days Alveric learned that she would never now grow familiar
with earthly things, never understand the folk that dwelt in the valley,
never read wise books without laughter, never care for earthly ways,
never feel more at ease in the Castle of Erl than any woodland thing
that Threl might have snared and kept caged in a house. He had hoped
that soon she would learn the things that were strange to her, till the
little differences that there are between things in our fields and in
Elfland should not trouble her any more; but he saw at last that the
things that were strange would always so remain, and that all the
centuries of her timeless home had not so lightly shaped her thoughts
and fancies that they could be altered by our brief years here. When he
had learned this he had learned the truth.
Between the spirits of Alveric and Lirazel lay all the distance there is
between Earth and Elfland; and love bridged the distance, which can
bridge further than that; yet when for a moment on the golden bridge he
would pause and let his thoughts look down at the gulf, all his mind
would grow giddy and Alveric trembled. What of the end, he thought? And
feared lest it should be stranger than the beginning.
And she, she did not see that she should know anything. Was not her
beauty enough? Had not a lover come at last to those lawns that shone by
the palace only told of in song, and rescued her from her uncompanioned
fate and from that perpetual calm? Was it not enough that he had come?
Must she needs understand the curious things folk did? Must she never
dance in the road, never speak to goats, never laugh at funerals, never
sing at night? Why! What was joy for if it must be hidden? Must
merriment bow to dulness in these strange fields she had come to? And
then one day she saw how a woman of Erl looked less fair than she had
looked a year ago. Little enough was the change, but her swift eye saw
it surely. And she went to Alveric crying to be comforted, because she
feared that Time in the fields we know might have power to harm that
beauty that the long long ages of Elfland had never dared to dim. And
Alveric had said that Time must have his way, as all men know; and where
was the good of complaining?