_The Arrival of the Rune_
On a sunny May morning in Erl the witch Ziroonderel sat in the castle
nursery by the fire, cooking a meal for the baby. The boy was now three
years old, and still Lirazel had not named him; for she feared lest some
jealous spirit of Earth or air should hear the name, and if so she would
not say what she feared then. And Alveric had said he must be named.
And the boy could bowl a hoop; for the witch had gone one misty night to
her hill and had brought him a moon-halo which she got by enchantment at
moonrise, and had hammered it into a hoop, and had made him a little rod
of thunderbolt-iron with which to beat it along.
And now the boy was waiting for his breakfast; and there was a spell
across the threshold to keep the nursery snug, which Ziroonderel had put
there with a wave of her ebon stick, and it kept out rats and mice and
dogs, nor could bats sail across it, and the watchful nursery cat it
kept at home: no lock that blacksmiths made was any stronger.
Suddenly over the threshold and over the spell the troll jumped
somersaulting through the air and came down sitting. The crude wooden
nursery-clock hanging over the fire stopped its loud tick as he came;
for he bore with him a little charm against time, with strange grass
round one of his fingers, that he might not be withered away in the
fields we know. For well the Elf King knew the flight of our hours: four
years had swept over these fields of ours while he had boomed down his
brazen steps and sent for his troll and given him that spell to bind
round one of his fingers.
"What's this?" said Ziroonderel.
That troll knew well when to be impudent, but looking in the witch's
eyes saw something to be afraid of; and well he might, for those eyes
had looked in the Elf King's own. Therefore he played, as we say in
these fields, his best card, and answered: "A message from the King of
Elfland."
"Is that so?" said the old witch. "Yes, yes," she added more lowly to
herself, "that would be for my lady. Yes, that would come."
The troll sat still on the floor fingering the roll of parchment inside
of which was written the rune of the King of Elfland. Then over the end
of his bed, as he waited for breakfast, the baby saw the troll, and
asked him who he was and where he came from and what he was able to do.
When the baby asked him what he was able to do the troll jumped up and
skipped about the room like a moth on a lamp-lit ceiling. From floor to
shelves and back and up again he went with leaps like flying; the baby
clapped his hands, the cat was furious; the witch raised her ebon stick
and made a charm against leaping, but it could not hold the troll. He
leaped and bounced and bounded, while the cat hissed all the curses that
the feline language knows, and Ziroonderel was wrath not only because
her magic was thwarted, but because with mere human alarm she feared for
her cups and saucers; and the baby shouted all the while for more. And
all at once the troll remembered his errand and the dread parchment he
bore.
"Where is the Princess Lirazel?" he said to the witch.
And the witch pointed the way to the princess's tower; for she knew that
there were no means nor power she had by which to hinder a rune from the
King of Elfland. And as the troll turned to go Lirazel entered the room.
He bowed all low before this great lady of Elfland and, with all his
impudence in a moment lost, kneeled on one knee before the blaze of her
beauty and presented the Elf King's rune. The boy was shouting to his
mother to demand more leaps from the troll, as she took the scroll in
her hand; the cat with her back to a box was watching alertly;
Ziroonderel was all silent.
And then the troll thought of the weed-green tarns of Elfland in the
woods that the trolls knew; he thought of the wonder of the unwithering
flowers that time has never touched; the deep, deep colour and the
perpetual calm: his errand was over and he was weary of Earth.
For a moment nothing moved there but the baby, shouting for new troll
antics and waving his arms: Lirazel stood with the elfin scroll in her
hand, the troll knelt before her, the witch never stirred, the cat stood
watching fiercely, even the clock was still. Then the Princess moved and
the troll rose to his feet, the witch sighed and the cat gave up her
watchfulness as the troll scampered away. And though the baby shouted
for the troll to return it never heeded, but twisted down the long
spiral stairs, and slipping out through a door was off towards Elfland.
As the troll passed over the threshold the wooden clock ticked again.
Lirazel looked at the scroll and looked at her boy, and did not unroll
the parchment, but turned and carried it away, and came to her chamber
and locked the scroll in a casket, and left it there unread. For her
fears told her well the most potent rune of her father, that she had
dreaded so much as she fled from his silver tower and heard his feet go
booming up the brass, had crossed the frontier of twilight written upon
the scroll, and would meet her eyes the moment she unrolled it and waft
her thence.
When the rune was safe in the casket she went to Alveric to tell him of
the peril that had come near her. But Alveric was troubled because she
would not name the baby, and asked her at once about this. And so she
suggested a name at last to him; and it was one that no one in these
fields could pronounce, an elvish name full of wonder, and made of
syllables like birds' cries at night: Alveric would have none of it. And
her whim in this came, as all the whims she had, from no customary thing
of these fields of ours, but sheer over the border from Elfland, sheer
over the border with all wild fancies that rarely visit our fields. And
Alveric was vexed with these whims, for there had been none like them of
old in the Castle of Erl: none could interpret them to him and none
advise him. He looked for her to be guided by old customs; she looked
only for some wild fancy to come from the south-east. He reasoned with
her with the human reason that folk set much store by here, but she did
not want reason. And so when they parted she had not after all told
anything of the peril that had sought her from Elfland, which she had
come to Alveric to tell.
She went instead to her tower and looked at the casket, shining there in
the low late light; and turned from it and often looked again; while
the light went under the fields and the gloaming came, and all glimmered
away. She sat then by the casement open towards eastern hills, above
whose darkening curves she watched the stars. She watched so long that
she saw them change their places. For more than all things else that she
had seen since she came to these fields of ours she had wondered at the
stars. She loved their gentle beauty; and yet she was sad as she looked
wistfully to them, for Alveric had said that she must not worship them.
How if she might not worship them could she give them their due, could
she thank them for their beauty, could she praise their joyful calm? And
then she thought of her baby: then she saw Orion: then she defied all
jealous spirits of air, and, looking toward Orion, whom she must never
worship, she offered her baby's days to that belted hunter, naming her
baby after those splendid stars.
And when Alveric came to the tower she told him of her wish, and he was
willing the boy should be named Orion, for all in that valley set much
store by hunting. And the hope came back to Alveric, which he would not
put away, that being reasonable at last in this, she would now be
reasonable in all other things, and be guided by custom, and do what
others did, and forsake wild whims and fancies that came over the border
from Elfland. And he asked her to worship the holy things of the Freer.
For never had she given any of these things their due, and knew not
which was the holier, his candlestick or his bell, and never would learn
for ought that Alveric told her.
And now she answered him pleasantly and her husband thought all was
well, but her thoughts were far with Orion; nor did they ever tarry with
grave things long, nor could tarry longer amongst them than butterflies
do in the shade.
All that night the casket was locked on the rune of the King of Elfland.
And next morning Lirazel gave little thought to the rune, for they went
with the boy to the holy place of the Freer; and Ziroonderel came with
them but waited without. And the folk of Erl came too, as many as could
leave the affairs of man with the fields; and all were there of those
that had made the parliament, when they went to Alveric's sire in the
long red room. And all of these were glad when they saw the boy and
marked his strength and growth; and, muttering low together as they
stood in the holy place, they foretold how all should be as they had
planned. And the Freer came forth and, standing amongst his holy things,
he gave to the boy before him the name of Orion, though he sooner had
given some name of those that he knew to be blessed. And he rejoiced to
see the boy and to name him there; for by the family that dwelt in the
Castle of Erl all these folk marked the generations, and watched the
ages pass, as sometimes we watch the seasons go over some old known
tree. And he bowed himself before Alveric, and was full courteous to
Lirazel, yet his courtesy to the princess came not from his heart, for
in his heart he held her in no more reverence than he held a mermaid
that had forsaken the sea.
And the boy came even so by the name of Orion. And all the folk rejoiced
as he came out with his parents and rejoined Ziroonderel at the edge of
the holy garden. And Alveric, Lirazel, Ziroonderel and Orion all walked
back to the castle.
And all that day Lirazel did nothing that caused anybody to wonder, but
let herself be governed by custom and the ways of the fields we know.
Only, when the stars came out and Orion shone, she knew that their
splendour had not received its due, and her gratitude to Orion yearned
to be said. She was grateful for his bright beauty that cheered our
fields, and grateful for his protection, of which she felt sure for her
boy, against jealous spirits of air. And all her unsaid thanks so burned
in her heart that all of a sudden she rose and left her tower and went
out to the open starlight, and lifted her face to the stars and the
place of Orion, and stood all dumb though her thanks were trembling upon
her lips; for Alveric had told her one must not pray to the stars. With
face upturned to all that wandering host she stood long silent, obedient
to Alveric: then she lowered her eyes, and there was a small pool
glimmering in the night, in which all the faces of the stars were
shining. "To pray to the stars," she said to herself in the night, "is
surely wrong. These images in the water are not the stars. I will pray
to their images, and the stars will know."
And on her knees amongst the iris leaves she prayed at the edge of the
pool, and gave thanks to the images of the stars for the joy she had had
of the night, when the constellations shone in their myriad majesty, and
moved like an army dressed in silver mail, marching from unknown
victories to conquer in distant wars. She blessed and thanked and
praised those bright reflections shimmering down in the pool, and bade
them tell her thanks and her praise to Orion, to whom she might not
pray. It was thus that Alveric found her, kneeling, bent down in the
dark, and reproached her bitterly. She was worshipping the stars, he
said, which were there for no such purpose. And she said she was only
supplicating their images.
We may understand his feelings easily: the strangeness of her, her
unexpected acts, her contrariness to all established things, her scorn
for custom, her wayward ignorance, jarred on some treasured tradition
every day. The more romantic she had been far away over the frontier, as
told of by legend and song, the more difficult it was for her to fill
any place once held by the ladies of that castle who were versed in all
the lore of the fields we know. And Alveric looked for her to fulfil
duties and follow customs which were all as new to her as the twinkling
stars.
But Lirazel felt only that the stars had not their due, and that custom
or reason or whatever men set store by should demand that thanks be
given them for their beauty; and she had not thanked them even, but had
supplicated only their images in the pool.
That night she thought of Elfland, where all things were matched with
her beauty, where nothing changed and there were no strange customs, and
no strange magnificences like these stars of ours to whom none gave
their due. She thought of the elfin lawns and the towering banks of the
flowers, and the palace that may not be told of but only in song.
Still locked in the dark of the casket the rune bided its time.