_The Retreat of the Elf King_
When Lirazel blew away with the splendid leaves they dropped one by one
from their dance in the gleaming air, and ran on over fields for a
while, and then gathered by hedgerows and rested; but Earth that pulls
all things down had no hold on her, for the rune of the King of Elfland
had crossed its borders, calling her home. So she rode carelessly the
great north-west wind, looking down idly on the fields we know, as she
swept over them homewards. No grip had Earth on her any longer at all;
for with her weight (which is where Earth holds us) were gone all her
earthly cares. She saw without grief old fields wherein she and Alveric
walked once: they drifted by; she saw the houses of men: these also
passed; and deep and dense and heavy with colour, she saw the border of
Elfland.
A last cry Earth called to her with many voices, a child shouting, rooks
cawing, the dull lowing of cows, a slow cart heaving home; then she was
into the dense barrier of twilight, and all Earth's sounds dimmed
suddenly: she was through it and they ceased. Like a tired horse falling
dead our north-west wind dropped at the frontier; for no winds blow in
Elfland that roam over the fields we know. And Lirazel slanted slowly
onward and down, till her feet were back again on the magical soil of
her home. She saw full fair the peaks of the Elfin Mountains, and dark
underneath them the forest that guarded the Elf King's throne. Above
this forest were glimmering even now great spires in the elfin morning,
which glows with more sparkling splendour than do our most dewy dawns,
and never passes away.
Over the elfin land the elfin lady passed with her light feet, touching
the grasses as thistledown touches them when it comes down to them and
brushes their crests while a languid wind rolls it slowly over the
fields we know. And all the elvish and fantastic things, and the curious
aspect of the land, and the odd flowers and the haunted trees, and the
ominous boding of magic that hung in the air, were all so full of
memories of her home that she flung her arms about the first gnarled
gnome-like trunk and kissed its wrinkled bark.
And so she came to the enchanted wood; and the sinister pines that
guarded it, with the watchful ivy leaning over their branches, bowed to
Lirazel as she passed. Not a wonder in that wood, not a grim hint of
magic, but brought back the past to her as though it had scarcely gone.
It was, she felt, but yesterday morning that she had gone away; and it
was yesterday morning still. As she passed through the wood the gashes
of Alveric's sword were yet fresh and white on the trees.
And now a light began to glow through the wood, then flash upon flash of
colours, and she knew they shone from the glory and splendour of flowers
that girdled the lawns of her father. To these she came again; and her
faint footprints that she had made as she left her father's palace, and
wondered to see Alveric there, were not yet gone from the bended grass
and the spiders' webs and the dew. There the great flowers glowed in the
elfin light; while beyond them there twinkled and flashed, with the
portal through which she had left it still open wide to the lawns, the
palace that may not be told of but only in song. Thither Lirazel
returned. And the Elf King, who heard by magic the tread of her
soundless feet, was before his door to meet her.
His great beard almost hid her as they embraced: he had sorrowed for her
long through that elfin morning. He had wondered, despite his wisdom; he
had feared, for all his runes; he had yearned for her as human hearts
may yearn, for all that he was of magic stock dwelling beyond our
fields. And now she was home again and the elfin morning brightened over
leagues of Elfland with the old Elf King's joy, and even a glow was seen
upon slopes of the Elfin Mountains.
And through the flash and glimmer of the vast doorway they passed into
the palace once more; the knight of the Elf King's guard saluted with
his sword as they went, but dared not turn his head after Lirazel's
beauty; they came again to the hall of the Elf King's throne, which is
made of rainbows and ice; and the great King seated himself and took
Lirazel on his knee; and a calm came down upon Elfland.
And for long through the endless elfin morning nothing troubled that
calm; Lirazel rested after the cares of Earth, the Elf King sat there
keeping the deep content in his heart, the knight of the guard remained
at the salute, his sword's point downwards still, the palace glowed and
shone: it was like a scene in some deep pool beyond the sound of a city,
with green reeds and gleaming fishes and myriads of tiny shells all
shining in the twilight on deep water, which nothing has disturbed
through all the long summer's day. And thus they rested beyond the fret
of time, and the hours rested around them, as the little leaping waves
of a cataract rest when the ice calms the stream: the serene blue peaks
of the Elfin Mountains above them stood like unchanging dreams.
Then like the noise of some city heard amongst birds in woods, like a
sob heard amongst children that are all met to rejoice, like laughter
amongst a company that weep, like a shrill wind in orchards amongst the
early blossom, like a wolf coming over the downs where the sheep are
asleep, there came a feeling into the Elf King's mood that one was
coming towards them across the fields of Earth. It was Alveric with his
sword of thunderbolt-iron, which somehow the old King sensed by its
flavour of magic.
Then the Elf King rose, and put his left arm about his daughter, and
raised his right to make a mighty enchantment, standing up before his
shining throne which is the very centre of Elfland. And with clear
resonance deep down in his throat he chaunted a rhythmic spell, all made
of words that Lirazel never had heard before, some age-old incantation,
calling Elfland away, drawing it further from Earth. And the marvellous
flowers heard as their petals drank in the music, and the deep notes
flooded the lawns; and all the palace thrilled, and quivered with
brighter colours; and a charm went over the plain as far as the frontier
of twilight, and a trembling went through the enchanted wood. Still the
Elf King chaunted on. The ringing ominous notes came now to the Elfin
Mountains, and all their line of peaks quivered as hills in haze, when
the heat of summer beats up from the moors and visibly dances in air.
All Elfland heard, all Elfland obeyed that spell. And now the King and
his daughter drifted away, as the smoke of the nomads drifts over Sahara
away from their camel's-hair tents, as dreams drift away at dawn, as
clouds over the sunset; and like the wind with the smoke, night with the
dreams, warmth with the sunset, all Elfland drifted with them. All
Elfland drifted with them and left the desolate plain, the dreary
deserted region, the unenchanted land. So swiftly that spell was
uttered, so suddenly Elfland obeyed, that many a little song, old
memory, garden or may tree of remembered years, was swept but a little
way by the drift and heave of Elfland, swaying too slowly eastwards till
the elfin lawns were gone, and the barrier of twilight heaved over them
and left them among the rocks.
And whither Elfland went I cannot say, nor even whether it followed the
curve of the Earth or drifted beyond our rocks out into twilight: there
had been an enchantment near to our fields and now there was none:
wherever it went it was far.
Then the Elf King ceased to chaunt and all was accomplished. As silently
as, in a moment that none can determine, the long layers over the sunset
turn from gold to pink, or from a glowing pink to a listless unlit
colour, all Elfland left the edges of those fields by which its wonder
had lurked for long ages of men, and was away now whither I know not.
And the Elf King seated himself again on his throne of mist and ice, in
which charmed rainbows were, and took Lirazel his daughter again on his
knee, and the calm that his chaunting had broken came back heavy and
deep over Elfland. Heavy and deep it fell on the lawns, heavy and deep
on the flowers; each dazzling blade of grass was still in its little
curve as though Nature in a moment of mourning said "Hush" at the
sudden end of the world; and the flowers dreamed on in their beauty,
immune from Autumn or wind. Far over the moors of the trolls slept the
calm of the King of Elfland, where the smoke from their queer
habitations hung stilled in the air; and in a forest wherein it quieted
the trembling of myriads of petals on roses, it stilled the pools where
the great lilies towered, till they and their reflections slept on in
one gorgeous dream. And there below motionless fronds of dream-gripped
trees, on the still water dreaming of the still air, where the huge
lily-leaves floated green in the calm, was the troll Lurulu, sitting
upon a leaf. For thus they named in Elfland the troll that had gone to
Erl. He sat there gazing into the water at a certain impudent look that
he had on. He gazed and gazed and gazed.
Nothing stirred, nothing changed. All things were still, reposing in the
deep content of the King. The Knight of the Guard brought his sword back
to the carry, and afterwards stood as still at his perpetual post as
some suit of armour whose owner is centuries dead. And still the King
sat silent with his daughter upon his knee, his blue eyes unmoving as
the pale-blue peaks, which through wide windows shone from the Elfin
Mountains.
And the Elf King stirred not, nor changed; but held to that moment in
which he had found content; and laid its influence over all his
dominions, for the good and welfare of Elfland; for he had what all our
troubled world with all its changes seeks, and finds so rarely and must
at once cast it away. He had found content and held it.
And in that calm that settled down upon Elfland there passed ten years
over the fields we know.