The Story and Song of Black Roderick

Produced by Clare Boothby and PG Distributed Proofreaders
By Dora Sigerson
1906
This is the story of Black Earl Roderick, the story and the song of his pride and of his humbling; of the bitterness of his heart, and of the love that came to it at last; of his threatened destruction, and the strange and wonderful way of his salvation.
So shall I begin and tell.
He left his gray castle at the dawn of the morning, and with many a knight to bear him company rode, not eager and swift, like a prince who went to find a treasure, but steady and slow, as we should go to meet sorrow. Not one of the hundred men who followed dared to lilt a lay or fling a laughing jest from his mouth. All rode silent among their gay trappings, for so saith a song:
It was the Black Earl Roderick Who rode towards the south; The frown was heavy on his brow, The sneer upon his mouth.
Behind him rode a hundred men All gay with plume and spear; But not a one did lilt a song His weary way to cheer.
So stern was Black Earl Roderick Upon his wedding-day, To none he spake a single word Who met him on his way.
And of those that passed him as he went there were none who dared to bid him God-speed, and only one whispered at all; she was Mora of the Knowledge, who was picking herbs in a lonely place and saw him ride.
There goeth the hunter, said she; 'tis a white doe that thou wouldst kill. High hanging to thee, my lord, upon a windy day!
And of all the flying things he met in his going, one only dared to put pain upon him, and she was a honeybee who stabbed his cheek with her sword.