II
And indeed they were under the forest, just underneath a wooded glen between the two villages and the two counties. No one ever came to this glen but the herd boys and girls from both villages and both counties.
Now there was bitter strife between the two villages—strife over the threshing-floors, and the pastures, and the mills, and the timber-felling, and most of all over the staff of headmanship, which one of the villages had long claimed as belonging to it by rights, and the other would not give up. And so these two villages were at enmity with one another.
But the herd boys and girls of both villages were just simple young folk, who understood nothing about the rights of their elders, and cared less, but met every day on the boundary between the two villages and the two counties. Their flocks mingled and fed together, while the boys played games, and over their games would often be late in bringing the sheep home of an evening.
For this the poor boys and girls would be soundly rated and scolded in both villages. But in one of the villages there was a great-grandfather and a great-grandmother who could remember all that had ever happened in either village, and they said: “Leave the children alone. A better harvest will spring from their childish games than ever from your wheat in the fields.”
So the shepherds kept on coming, as before, with their sheep to the glen, and in time the parents stopped bothering about what the children did.
And so it was on the day when Reygoch broke through the earth at that very spot. The boys and girls happened to be all gathered together under the biggest oak, getting ready to go home. One was tying up his shoes, another fixing a thong to a stick, and the girls were collecting the sheep. All of a sudden they heard a dreadful thumping in the earth right underneath their feet! There was a thud, then a second, and at the third thud the earth gaped, and up there came, right in the midst of the shepherds, a fearsome large head as big as a barrel, with a beard like a shock of corn, and the beard still bristling with hoar-frost from Frosten city!
The boys and girls all screamed with fright and fell down in a dead faint—not so much because of the head as big as a barrel, but because of the beard, that looked for all the world like a shock of corn!
So the shepherds fainted away—all but young Lilio, who was the handsomest and cleverest among the lads of both villages and both counties.
Lilio kept his feet, and went close up to see what sort of monster it might be.
“Don’t be afraid, children,” said Lilio to the shepherds. “The Lord never created that monstrous giant for evil, else he would have killed half the world by now.”
So Lilio walked boldly up to Reygoch, and Reygoch lifted the basket with Curlylocks down from his ear and set it on the ground.
“Come—oh come quickly, boys!” cried Lilio. “There is a little girl with him, little and lovely as a star!”
The herd boys and girls got up and began to peep from behind each other at Curlylocks; and those who had at first been the most frightened were now the foremost in coming up to Curlylocks, because, you see, they were always quickest in everything.
No sooner had the herd boys and girls seen dear little Curlylocks than they loved her. They helped her out of her basket, led her to where the turf was softest, and fell to admiring her lovely robes, which were light as gossamer and blue as the sky, and her hair, which was shining and soft as the morning light; but most of all they admired her fairy veil, for she would wave it just for a moment, and then rise from the grass and float in the air.
The herd boys and girls and Curlylocks danced in a ring together, and played all kinds of games. Curlylocks’ little feet twinkled for pure joy, her eyes laughed, and so did her lips, because she had found companions who liked the same things as she did.
Then Curlylocks brought out her little bag of pearls to give presents and pleasure to her new friends. She threw down a pearl, and a little tree grew up in their midst, all decked with coloured ribbons, silk kerchiefs and red necklaces for the girls. She threw down a second pearl, and from all parts of the forest came forth haughty peacocks; they stalked and strutted, they flew up and away, shedding their glorious feathers all over the turf, so that the grass fairly sparkled with them. And the herd boys stuck the feathers in their caps and doublets. Yet another pearl did Curlylocks throw out, and from a lofty branch there dropped a golden swing with silken ropes; and when the boys and girls got on the swing, it swooped and stooped as light as a swallow, and as gently as the grand barge of the Duke of Venice.
The children shouted for joy, and Curlylocks threw out all the pearls in her bag one after another, never thinking that she ought to save them; because Curlylocks liked nothing in the world better than lovely games and pretty songs. And so she spent her pearls down to the last little seed pearl, though heaven alone knew how badly she would need them soon, both she and her new friends.
“I shall never leave you any more,” cried Curlylocks merrily. And the herd boys and girls clapped their hands and threw up their caps for joy over her words.
Only Lilio had not joined in their games, because he was rather sad and worried that day. He stayed near Reygoch, and from there he watched Curlylocks in all her loveliness, and all the pretty magic she made there in the forest.
Meantime Reygoch had come out of his hole. Out he came and stood up among the trees of the forest, and as he stood there his head rose above the hundred-year-old forest, so terribly big was Reygoch.
Over the forest looked Reygoch, and out into the plain.
The sun had already set, and the sky was all crimson. In the plain you could see the two golden fields spread out like two gold kerchiefs, and in the midst of the fields two villages like two white doves. A little way beyond the two villages flowed the mighty River Banewater, and all along the river rose great grass-grown dykes; and on the dykes you could see herds and their keepers moving.
“Well, well!” said Reygoch, “and to think that I have spent a thousand years in Frosten city, in that desert, when there is so much beauty in the world!” And Reygoch was so delighted with looking into the plain that he just stood there with his great head as big as a barrel turning from right to left, like a huge scarecrow nodding above the tree-tops.
Presently Lilio called to him:
“Sit down, daddy, for fear the elders of the villages should see you.”
Reygoch sat down, and the two started talking, and Lilio told Reygoch why he was so sad that day.
“A very wicked thing is going to happen to-day,” said Lilio. “I overheard the elders of our village talking last night, and this is what they said: ‘Let us pierce the dyke along the River Banewater. The river will widen the hole, the dyke will fall, and the water will flood the enemy village; it will drown men and women, flood the graveyard and the fields, till the water will be level above them, and nothing but a lake to show where the enemy village has been. But our fields are higher, and our village lies on a height, and so no harm will come to us.’ And then they really went out with a great ram to pierce the dyke secretly and at dead of night. But, daddy,” continued Lilio, “I know that our fields are not so high, and I know that the water will overflow them too, and before the night is over there will be a lake where our two villages used to be. And that is why I am so sad.”
They were still talking when a terrible noise and clamour arose from the plain.
“There!” cried Lilio, “the dreadful thing has happened!”
Reygoch drew himself up, picked up Lilio, and the two looked out over the plain. It was a sad sight to see! The dyke was crumbling, and the mighty Black Banewater rolling in two arms across the beautiful fields. One arm rolled towards the one village, and the second arm towards the other village. Animals were drowning, the golden fields disappeared below the flood. Above the graves the crosses were afloat, and both villages rang with cries and shouting. For in both villages the elders had gone out to the threshing-floors with cymbals, drums and fifes, and there they were drumming and piping away each to spite the other village, so crazed were they with malice, while over and above that din the village dogs howled dismally, and the women and children wept and wailed.
“Daddy,” cried Lilio, “why have I not your hands to stop the water?”
Terrified and bewildered by the dreadful clamour in the plain, the herd boys and girls crowded round Reygoch and Lilio.
When Curlylocks heard what was the matter she called out quick and sprightly, as befits a little fairy:
“Come on, Reygoch—come on and stop the water!”
“Yes, yes, let’s go!” cried the herd boys of both villages and both counties, as they wept and sobbed without stopping. “Come on, Reygoch, and take us along too!”
Reygoch stooped, gathered up Lilio and Curlylocks (who was still carrying her lantern) in his right hand, and all the rest of the herd boys and girls in his left, and then Reygoch raced with ten-fathom strides through the forest clearing and down into the plain. Behind him ran the sheep, bleating with terror. And so they reached the plain.
Through fog and twilight ran Reygoch with the children in his arms and the terrified flocks at his heels in frantic flight—all running towards the dyke. And out to meet them flowed the Black Banewater, killing and drowning as it flowed. It is terribly strong, is that water. Stronger than Reygoch? Who knows? Will it sweep away Reygoch, too? Will it drown those poor herd boys and girls also, and must the dear little Fairy Curlylocks die—and she as lovely as a star?
So Reygoch ran on across the meadow, which was still dry, and came all breathless to the dyke, where there was a great breach, through which the river was pouring with frightful force.
“Stop it up, Reygoch—stop it up!” wailed the boys and girls.
Not far from the dyke there was a little mound in the plain.
“Put us on that mound,” cried Curlylocks briskly.
Reygoch set down Lilio and Curlylocks and the herd boys and girls on the hillock, and the sheep and lambs crowded round them. Already the hillock was just an island in the middle of the water.
But Reygoch took one mighty stride into the water and then lay down facing the dyke, stopping up the breach with his enormous chest. For a little while the water ceased to flow; but it was so terribly strong that nothing on earth could stop it. The water pressed forward; it eddied round Reygoch’s shoulders; it broke through under him, over him, about him—everywhere—and rolled on again over the plain. Reygoch stretched out both arms and piled up the earth in great handfuls; but as fast as he piled it up, the water carried it away.
And in the plain the water kept on rising higher and higher; fields, villages, cattle, threshing-floors, not one of them could be seen any more. Of both villages, the roofs and church steeples were all that showed above the flood.
Even around the hillock where the herd boys and girls were standing with Lilio and Curlylocks the flood was rising higher and higher. The poor young things were weeping and crying, some for their mothers, others for their brothers and sisters, and some for their homes and gardens; because they saw that both villages had perished, and not a soul saved—and the water rising about them, too!
So they crowded up higher and higher upon the hillock; they huddled together around Lilio and Curlylocks, who were standing side by side in the midst of their friends.
Lilio stood still and white as marble; but Curlylocks’ eyes shone, and she held up her lantern towards Reygoch to give him light for his work. Curlylocks’ veil rose and fluttered in the night wind and hovered above the water, as though the little fairy were about to fly away and vanish from among all these terrors.
“Curlylocks! Curlylocks! don’t go! Don’t leave us!” wailed the herd boys, to whom it seemed as if there were an angel with them while they could look upon Curlylocks.
“I’m not going—I’m not going away!” cried Curlylocks. But her veil fluttered, as if it would carry her away of its own accord, over the water and up into the clouds.
Suddenly they heard a scream. The water had risen and caught one of the girls by the hem of her skirt and was washing her away. Lilio stooped just in time, seized the girl, and pulled her back on to the hillock.
“We must tie ourselves together,” cried the herd boys; “we must be tied each to the other, or we shall perish.”
“Here, children—here!” cried Curlylocks, who had a kind and pitiful heart.
Quickly she stripped her magic veil off her shoulders and gave it to the herd girls. They tore the veil into strips, knotted the strips into long ropes, and bound themselves together, each to other, round Lilio and Curlylocks. And round the shepherds bleated the poor sheep in terror of being drowned.
But Curlylocks was now among these poor castaways, no better off than the rest of them. Her pearls she had wasted on toys, and her magic veil she had given away and torn up out of the goodness of her heart, and now she could no longer fly, nor save herself out of this misery.
But Lilio loved Curlylocks better than anything else in the world, and when the water was already up to his feet he called:
“Don’t be afraid, Curlylocks! I will save you and hold you up!” And he held up Curlylocks in his arms.
With one hand Curlylocks clung round Lilio’s neck, and with the other she held up her little lantern aloft towards Reygoch.
And Reygoch, lying on his chest in the water, was all the time steadily fighting the flood. Right and left of Reygoch rose the ruins of the dyke like two great horns. Reygoch’s beard was touzled, his shoulders were bleeding. Yet he could not stop the Banewater, and the flood round the hillock was rising and rising to drown the poor remnant there. And now it was night—yea, midnight.
All of a sudden a thought flashed through Curlylocks, and through all the sobbing and crying she laughed aloud as she called to Reygoch:
“Reygoch, you old simpleton! why don’t you sit between these two horns of the dyke? Why don’t you dam the flood with your shoulders?”
The herd boys and girls stopped wailing at once. So dumbfounded were they at the idea that not one of them had thought of that before!
“Uhuhu!” was all you could hear, and that was Reygoch laughing. And when Reygoch laughs, mind you, it’s no joke! All the water round him boiled and bubbled as he shook with laughter over his own stupidity!
Then Reygoch stood up, faced about, and—in a twinkling—he sat down between those two horns!
And then happened the most wonderful thing of all! For the Black Banewater stood as though you had rolled a wall into the breach! It stood, and could not rise above Reygoch’s shoulders, but followed its usual course, as before, the whole current behind Reygoch’s back. And surely that was a most marvellous rescue!
The boys and girls were saved from the worst of the danger; and Reygoch, sitting comfortably, took up earth in handfuls and all slow-and-surely rebuilt the dyke under himself and on either hand. He began in the middle of the night, and when the dawn broke, the job was finished. And just as the sun rose, Reygoch got up from the dyke with his work done, and started combing his beard, which was all caked with mud, twigs, and little fishes.
But the poor boys and girls were not yet done with their troubles; for where were they to go, and how were they to get there? There they stood on the top of the hillock. All around them was a waste of water. Nothing was to be seen of the two villages but just a few roofs—and not a soul alive in either. To be sure, the villagers might have saved themselves if they had taken refuge in their attics. But in both villages everybody had gone to the threshing-floor with cymbals and fifes to make merry, so that each could watch the destruction of the other. And when the water was up to their waists, they were still clanging their cymbals; and when it was up to their necks, they still blew their fifes for gratified spite. And so they were drowned, one and all, with their fifes and cymbals—and serve them right for their malice and uncharitableness!
So the poor children were left without a soul to cherish or protect them, all houseless and homeless.
“We’re not sparrows, to live on the housetops,” said the boys sadly, as they saw only the roofs sticking out of the water, “and we’re not foxes, to live in burrows in the hills. If someone could clear our villages of the water, we might make shift to get along somehow, but as it is, we might as well jump into the water with our flocks and be drowned like the rest, for we have nowhere and no one to turn to.”
That was a sad plight indeed, and Reygoch himself was dreadfully sorry for them. But here was an evil he could in no wise remedy. He looked out over the water and said: “There’s too much water here for me to bale out or to drink up so as to clear your villages. Eh, children, what shall I do for you?”
But then up and spoke Lilio, that was the wisest lad in these parts:
“Reygoch, daddy, if you cannot drink so much water, the Earth can. Break a hole in the ground, daddy, and drain off the water into the earth.”
Dearie me! and wasn’t that great wisdom in a lad no bigger than Reygoch’s finger?
Forthwith Reygoch stamped on the ground and broke a hole; and the Earth, like a thirsty dragon, began to drink and to drink, and swallow, and suck down into herself all that mighty water from off the whole plain. Before long the Earth had gulped down all the water; villages, fields, and meadows reappeared, ravaged and mud-covered, to be sure, but with everything in its right place.
The young castaways cheered up at the sight, but none was so glad as Curlylocks. She clapped her hands and cried:
“Oh, won’t it be lovely when the fields all grow golden again and the meadows green!”
But hereupon the herd boys and girls were all downcast once more, and Lilio said:
“Who will show us how to till the ground now that not one of our parents is left alive?”
And indeed, far and wide, there was not a soul alive older than that company of helpless young things in the midst of the ravaged plain, and none with them but Reygoch, who was so big and clumsy and simple that he could not turn his head inside one of their houses, nor did he know anything about ploughing or husbandry.
So they were all in the dumps once more, and most of all Reygoch, who was so fond of pretty Curlylocks, and now he could do nothing for her nor her friends!
And, worst of all, Reygoch was getting horribly homesick for his desolate city of Frosten. This night he had swallowed mud enough to last him a thousand years, and seen more than enough of trouble. And so he was just dying to be back in his vast, empty city, where he had counted the stones in peace for so many hundred years.
So the herd boys were very crestfallen, and Lilio was crestfallen, and Reygoch the most crestfallen of all. And really it was sad to look upon all these poor boys and girls, doomed to perish without their parents and wither like a flower cut off from its root.
Only Curlylocks looked gaily about her, right and left, for nothing could damp her good spirits.
Suddenly Curlylocks cried out:
“Look—oh look! What are those people? Oh dear, but they must have seen sights and wonders!”
All looked towards the village, and there, at one of the windows, appeared the heads of an aged couple—an old man and an old woman. They waved their kerchiefs, they called the young people by name, and laughed till their wrinkled faces all shone with joy. They were great-grandfather and great-grandmother, who had been the only sensible people in the two villages, and had saved themselves by taking refuge in the attic!
Oh dear! If the children had seen the sun at his rising and the morning star at that attic window, they would not have shouted so for joy. The very heavens rang again as they called out:
“Granny! Grandad!”
They raced to the village like young whippets, Curlylocks in front, with her golden hair streaming in the wind, and after them the ewes and lambs. They never stopped till they reached the village, and there grandfather and grandmother were waiting for them at the gate. They welcomed them, hugged them, and none of them could find words to thank God enough for His mercy in giving grandad and grandma so much wisdom as to make them take refuge in the attic! And that was really a very good thing, because these were only quite simple villages, where there were no books nor written records; and who would have reminded the herd boys and girls of the consequences of wickedness if grandad and grandma had not been spared?
When they had done hugging each other, they remembered Reygoch. They looked round the plain, but there was no Reygoch. He was gone—gone all of a sudden, the dear huge thing—gone like a mouse down its hole.
And Reygoch had indeed gone like a mouse down its hole. For when grandpa and grandma appeared at the attic window, Reygoch got a fright such as he had never yet had in his life. He was terrified at the sight of their furrowed, wrinkled, withered old faces.
“Oh dear! oh dear! what a lot of trouble these old people must have been through in these parts to have come to look like that!” thought Reygoch; and in his terror he that very instant jumped down into the hole through which the Black Banewater had sunk down, and so ran away back to his desolate Frosten city.
All went well in the village. Grandad and Grandma taught the young folk, and the young folk ploughed and sowed. Upon the grandparents’ advice they built just one village, one threshing-floor, one church, and one graveyard, so that there should be no more jealousy nor trouble.
All went well; but the best of all was that in the heart of the village stood a beautiful tower of mountain marble, and on the top of it they had made a garden, where blossomed oranges and wild olive. There lived Curlylocks, the lovely fairy, and looked down upon the land that had been so dear to her from the moment when she first came to earth.
And of an evening, when the field work was done, Lilio would lead the herd boys and girls to the tower, and they would sing songs and dance in a ring in the garden with Curlylocks, always lovely, gentle, and joyous.
But under the earth Reygoch once more fell in with the Black Banewater as it roared and burbled underneath, while he wrestled with it till he forced it deeper and deeper into the earth, and right down to the bottom of the Pit, so that it might never again serve the spite and envy of man. And then Reygoch went on to Frosten city. There he is sitting to this very day, counting the stones and praying the Lord never again to tempt him away from that vast and desolate spot, which is the very place for one so big and so simple.
Bridesman Sun
and
Bride Bridekins
Bridesman Sun
and
Bride Bridekins
ONCE upon a time there was a miller and his wife, and both were miserly and hard of heart. When the Emperor’s servants brought corn to be ground, the miller would grind the corn free of all charge and send the Emperor a gift into the bargain, only to gain favour with the mighty Emperor and his daughter, the proud princess. But when poor folk came to have their corn ground, the miller would take one measure in payment for every two that he ground, and without that he would not grind at all.
One day, just about Yuletide and in the time of bitter frost, an old wife came to the mill—an old wife all patches and tatters. The mill stood in a little grove by the stream, and no one could say whence that old wife had come.
But this wasn’t just an old wife like other old wives; it was Mother Muggish. Now Muggish could turn herself into any mortal thing, a bird or a snake, or an old woman or a young girl. And besides that she could do anything, both good and bad. But woe to him who got into her bad books, for she was very spiteful. Muggish lived in the morass on the fringe of the bog where the autumn sun dwelt. And with her the sun put up over the long winter night; for Muggish knew potent herbs and powerful spells; she would nurse and cherish the feeble old sun till he grew young again at Yuletide and started on his way once more.
“Good day to you,” Mother Muggish called out to the miller and his wife. “Just grind this bag of corn for me.”
The old wife stood the bag on the floor, and the miller agreed:
“I’ll grind it for you; half the bag for you for your cake, and half for me for my trouble.”
“Not so, my son! I shall not have enough for my Yuletide cake, because I have six sons, and for seventh my grandson, the Sun, who was born to-day.”
“Go away and don’t talk rubbish, you old fool!” burst out the miller. “A likely one you are to be the Sun’s grandmother!”
So they argued this way and that; but the miller wouldn’t consent to grind for less than one-half the bag, and so the old wife picked up her bag again and went away by the way she came.
But the miller had a daughter, a beautiful girl, called Bride Bridekins. When she was born, the fairies bathed her in the water that falls from the wheel, so that all evils should turn from her, even as water runs away from a mill. And, moreover, the fairies foretold that at her wedding the Sun should be bridesman. Just fancy! she was the Sun’s little bride! So they called her Bride Bridekins, and she was most beautiful and smiling as a summer’s day.
Bride Bridekins was sorry when the miller sent away the old wife so unkindly. She went out and waited in the wood for the old wife, and said:
“Come again to-morrow, Mother, when I shall be alone. I will grind your corn for you for nothing.”
Next day the miller and his wife went into the wood to cut the Yule log, and Bride Bridekins was left alone.
Before long the old wife came up with her bag.
“Good fortune be yours, young maiden,” said the wife.
“And yours, too,” returned Bride Bridekins. “Wait a moment, Mother, till we open the mill.”
The mill was worked by a little wheel which caught the water with four paddles set cross-wise, which turned like a spindle. Now the miller had shut off the water, and Bride Bridekins had to wade up to her knees in the icy stream to open the sluice.
The mill clattered, round went the mill-stones, and Bride Bridekins ground the old wife’s corn. She filled up the bag with flour and took nothing for her pains.
“Eh, thank you kindly, maiden,” said Mother Muggish, “and I’ll help you whithersoever your feet may carry you, since your feet you did not save from the ice-cold wave, nor grudge your hands to soil with unrequited toil. And, moreover, I’ll tell my grandson, the Sun, to whom he owes his Yuletide cake.” And the old wife took up her bag and went.
From that day nothing would prosper in the mill without Bride Bridekins. Unless her hand was on the mill, the paddles would not take the water; unless she looked in the bin, there would be no flour in it. No matter how much might fall into it from the grain-box, it was all lost on the floor; the bin remained empty unless Bride Bridekins fed the mill. And so it was with everything in and about the mill.
This went on for many a day, on and on and never any change, till the miller and his wife began to be jealous of their daughter and to hate her. The harder the girl worked and the more she earned, the blacker they looked at her, because it came to her as easy as a song, and to them not even with toiling and moiling.
It was upon a morning about Beltane time, when the Sun, strong and flaming, travels across one-half of heaven like a ball of pure gold. The Sun no longer slept in the morass, nor did Muggish foster him now; but the Sun was lord of the world, and sky and earth obeyed him. Bride Bridekins sat at Beltane time beside the mill and thought to herself:
“If I could only get away, since I cannot please these cross-patches anyhow!”
And just as she thought this, there appeared before her the old wife, who was really Muggish.
“I will help you, but you must obey me in all things, and take care not to offend me,” said the old wife. “This very morning the proud princess walked in the meadow and lost the keys of her chest and her wardrobe, and now she cannot get at her crown nor her robes either. So the princess has caused it to be proclaimed that whoever finds the keys, if it be a youth the princess will become his true love and bride-to-be, and if it be a maiden, the princess will take her for her first lady-in-waiting. So you come away with me, and I will show you where the keys are lying among the love-lies-bleeding that grows in the meadow. You will bring the princess her keys and become her first lady-in-waiting. You will be dressed in silk and sit by the princess’s knee.”
Then Muggish at once turned herself into a quail, and Bride Bridekins followed her.
So they came to the meadow in front of the Emperor’s castle. Gallant knights and noble dames walked about the meadow, and around the meadow stood their esquires holding mettlesome steeds. One steed only was not held by a squire, but by a barefoot boy. This horse belonged to Oleg the Warden, and it was the most fiery steed of all. And Oleg the Warden himself was the most excellent knight under the sun. You might know Oleg the Warden amid ever so many earls and nobles, because his attire was plain and without ornament, but his white plume, the prize of valour, distinguished him above all the rest.
So the knights and dames walked about the meadow, all trampling the grass with their shoes in their anxiety to find the keys. Only Oleg the Warden kept but a poor look-out for the keys, taking the matter as a mere jest and idle pastime. But from her window the Emperor’s daughter looked out and watched to see whom fortune would favour. Very careful watch did she keep, the proud princess, and repeated spells for luck so that Oleg the Warden should find the keys.
When Bride Bridekins came with the quail running before her, not a soul in the meadow noticed her but only Oleg the Warden.
“Never yet have I seen so sweet a maiden,” thought Oleg the Warden, and strode towards her.
But just then the Emperor’s daughter also noticed Bride Bridekins from her window, and so proud and heartless was she that she never stopped to look how sweet the maiden was, but grew very angry, and said: “A fine plight should I be in were that common wench there to find the keys and become my lady-in-waiting!” Thus thinking, she at once sent out her servants to drive away the girl.
Bride Bridekins went over the meadow where-ever the quail led her. They came to the middle of the meadow, where the love-lies-bleeding grew tall. The quail parted two leaves at the foot of a tuft of love-lies-bleeding, and under them lay the keys.
Bride Bridekins bent down and picked up the keys; but when she looked up to the Emperor’s castle and saw the proud princess, Bride Bridekins became frightened, and thought: “How should I become the princess’s lady-in-waiting?”
As she thought this she looked up, and lo, beside her stood a glorious knight, as he might have been sworn brother to the Sun. And that was Oleg the Warden.
Quickly Bride Bridekins made up her mind to disobey Muggish’s commands, and she held out the keys to Oleg the Warden.
“Take the keys, unknown knight, and let the Emperor’s daughter be your true love and bride-to-be,” said Bride Bridekins, and could not take her eyes off the glorious knight.
But at that moment came the servants with whips, and roughly rated Bride Bridekins so as to drive her away from the meadow, according to the princess’s commands. When Oleg the Warden saw this, he was soon resolved, and thus did he answer Bride Bridekins:
“Thank you for the keys, sweet maiden; but I have made up my mind otherwise. You shall be my true love and bride-to-be, because you are fairer than the morning star. Here is my good horse; he will carry us to my Barren Marches.”
Gladly did Bride Bridekins go with Oleg the Warden, and he lifted her beside him on to his horse. As the good steed carried them swiftly past the Emperor’s daughter sitting at her window. Oleg the Warden threw her the keys so skilfully that they caught right on the window latch!
“There are your keys, august Princess!” cried Oleg the Warden. “Wear your crown and your robes in all happiness, for I have taken the maiden for myself.”
All that night Oleg the Warden rode on with Bride Bridekins, and at dawn they arrived in the Barren Marches, at the oaken stronghold of Oleg the Warden. Round the stockade there were three moats, and in the midst of the stockade stood a smoke-blacked house.
“Behold the Castle of Oleg the Warden!” said the knight to Bride Bridekins, and he laughed himself because his castle was not more splendid. But Bride Bridekins laughed still more heartily because she was to be the lady of such a glorious knight.
So they settled at once upon the wedding guests, so as to celebrate the marriage. They invited twenty gallants and twenty orphan maids, because that was all the people there were in the Barren Marches. And so that they might be more and merrier, they also asked the Wild Wolf and his Mate from the hills, and the Tawny Eagle, and the Grey Goshawk; and Bride Bridekins asked two bridesmaids—the Turtle Dove and the Slender Swallow.
And Bride Bridekins even boasted to Oleg the Warden:
“If the Sun were to recognise me, he too would come to the wedding. The Sun would have been bridesman at the wedding, for so did the fairies foretell.”
And so the wedding guests assembled in the soot-blacked castle, to make merry—and never knew of the ill fate in store for them.
Now it had stung the proud princess to the heart when Oleg the Warden had flung her the keys, and before so many nobles, before earls and knights, refused the august princess and preferred a nameless maiden.
So the princess persuaded the Emperor, her father, and begged and entreated him till he lent her his mighty army. Well mounted, the army advanced upon the Barren Marches of Oleg the Warden with the wrathful princess at its head.
The guests were just at table when the army came in sight. It was so great that it covered all the Barren Marches till you could not see so much as a patch of earth for it. And in front of the army a herald cried aloud for all the world to hear:
Behold a gallant army
Has taken the field;
The Warden is a rebel,
We bid him to yield.
Alive shall he be taken
That freedom loved best;
But the heart shall be riven
From his lady’s breast.
When Oleg the Warden heard this, he asked Bride Bridekins:
“Are you afraid, lovely maiden?”
“I am not afraid,” she smilingly made answer. “I put my trust in the Grey Wolf and his Mate, in your twenty gallants and twenty orphans, and most of all in the knight Oleg the Warden. And besides that I have two brave bridesmaids—the Turtle Dove and the Slender Swallow.”
Oleg the Warden smiled, and already the wedding guests had lightly sprung to their feet. They seized their warriors’ weapons, both gallants and orphans, and stood by the windows of the soot-blacked castle stringing their good bows with silken cords as they waited for the princess and her army. But that army was so mighty that neither Oleg the Warden, nor his wedding guests, nor the soot-blacked house were able to withstand it.
The first to fall were the Grey Wolf and his Mate; for they jumped the stockade and the moats and rushed straight at the Emperor’s army to tear out the proud princess’s eyes in the midst of her army. But a hundred maces rose in the air; the soldiers defended the proud princess, the Eagle and the Grey Goshawk had their pinions broken, and then the heavy horses trampled them into the black earth.
The great host came nearer and nearer to the soot-blacked house. When it was fairly on the threshold the wedding guests loosed their silken bowstrings and greeted the soldiers with a shower of arrows.
But the wrathful archers of the wrathful princess did not stop!
Arrows flew hither and thither. There were archers past counting in the army, so that their arrows flew in at the windows of the soot-blacked house like a plague from heaven. Each gallant had his two or three wounds to show, and each orphan some ten.
But the most grievous wound of all was upon Oleg the Warden. His good right hand hung powerless, so greatly was he overcome by his wound.
Quickly Bride Bridekins stepped up to Oleg the Warden to wash his wound in the courtyard of the soot-blacked house. While she was washing his wound, Oleg the Warden said to her: “It’s a poor fortune we have garnered, my Bride Bridekins. There are none left for you to put your trust in, and here is the host at the gates of the soot-blacked house. They will break down the oak stockade, batter down the ancient gates. We are lost; this is the end of us—wolves and eagles, and gallants and orphans, and Oleg the Warden and his Bride Bridekins!”
But Bride Bridekins considered sadly, and then she said:
“Do not fear, brave Warden. I will send the Turtle Dove to fetch Muggish from her morass. There is nothing Muggish does not know and nothing she cannot do, and she will help us.”
So Bride Bridekins sent out the swift Turtle Dove. Away flew the grey dove swifter than an arrow from the string, nor did the soldiers’ darts overtake her. Off she flew and brought back Muggish from the bog. But Muggish had turned herself into a raven and perched upon the gable of the soot-blacked House.
Already the soldiers were battering at the entrance. Heavy clubs hammered on the doors and portals, banging and clanging till all the courts and passages of the soot-blacked house rang again, as though a host from the nethermost Pit were beating on the gates of Oleg the Warden.
“Fair greeting, dear Muggish!” the lovely Bride appealed to the black raven—“fair greeting! Help us against the Princess’s malice, or else we must all die untimely!”
But Muggish had only bided her time spitefully for an opportunity to give vent to her grievance. Flapping her black wings, the raven said:
“Save yourself, my little dove! If you had listened to me, you would have given the Princess her keys. You would have basked in royal grace, beside the Princess had your place, in sumptuous silk fair to behold, sipping wine from a cup of gold. But now you have gotten your heart’s desire. Here you are in the soot-blacked house with none but sore-wounded beggars within and a countless host outside. Seek help from those whose counsel brought you to this!”
When Oleg the Warden heard this, he sprang to his feet, all wounded as he was, and wrathfully cried out:
“Leave this unprofitable business, Bride Bridekins! When had a hero help from a raven? And you,” he called to Muggish, “get off my roof, you black bird of ill-omen, lest I waste a good swift arrow and shoot the bird upon my gable!” With that Oleg the Warden embraced Bride Bridekins and said:
“When I perish in the midst of the Emperor’s host, go, my lovely little Bride! submit yourself to the Princess, and you shall be lady-in-waiting to the proud Princess, who should have been true love and lady of Oleg the Warden.” For a moment Oleg the Warden flinched; but then he tore himself away from his bride, and rushed through the courtyard and passage to raise the oaken bars, to throw open the gates to the countless host, to perish or cut his way through their numbers.
Bride Bridekins was left alone in the castle, and above her on the roof perched the black raven. She could hear the heavy oaken bars falling; now the ancient gates must yield; another moment and the cruel soldiers will burst in, take Oleg prisoner, and rive the heart out of the breast of her, sweet child! Bride Bridekins’ thoughts chased through her brain: What is to be done, and how?
The lovely bride looked all around to see if there were any found to pity her in her distress. She bent her beauteous eyes to earth, and raised them heavenward. As she raised them heavenward the Sun travelled across the zenith in a blaze of pure gold. And as she looked at the Sun, the Sun marvelled at so much loveliness, and at once looked back at her. The Sun and Bride Bridekins looked at one another, and as they looked, they recognised one another, and at once the Sun remembered. “Why, that is the little bride whose Bridesman the Sun was to be! In a lucky hour she gave me my Yuletide bread, and in a yet luckier moment she sought me overhead.”
Just one moment before the Sun had heard Muggish mocking Bride Bridekins and spitefully refusing to help her. So now the Sun thundered forth his anger. All the land fell silent with fear; axes and clubs were dropped in terror as the Sun thundered at Muggish:
“Eh, foster-mother, heart of stone! were the world’s justice to be carved by spite, what crooked justice would pervert the right! If thou from slime hast reared me, yet content art thou to keep the slime thine element! With me thou hast not strode across the sky, nor from the heavens downward bent thine eye to learn how justice should be born of light. Fie, foster-mother, heart of stone! What! should the Sun at Beltane in his might forget who sent him gifts on Yule night, when he was a feeble babe? Or shall Bridesman Sun take it ill of the bride that she left the Emperor’s palace and the Princess’s court because she preferred a hero in her heart? Down with you into the earth, black-hearted nurse! so that you underground, and I from the skies, may help yon worthy knight and his lovely lady.”
Sky and earth obey the Sun, and how should the black raven—and that was Muggish—withstand his commands? Upon the instant Muggish sank into the earth to do the Sun’s bidding.
And strong as the Sun had been before, he now made himself yet stronger. The Sun smote from above; he scorched the Barren Marches; he seared heaven and earth; he would have melted the Mountain of Brass!
Upon the cruel soldiers’ heads their helmets dissolved; their heavy armour melted; spears and axes grew red-hot. Heat overcame the wrathful princess; heat overcame the multitude of archers as their brains grilled inside their helmets, and their breasts laboured with the heat under their armour. Who had not the shelter of a roof could not live. All the host was struck down by the heat. They fell one atop of the other. A man would call upon his sworn brother, and then the voice would cease as the speaker perished.
While the Sun was thus smiting the cruel soldiers, Muggish helped the Sun from underground. She opened deep bogholes under their feet. Whenever the Sun struck down a man, there a boghole would gape beneath him. He slipped into the bog, and the bog closed above him; where a man stood, there his grave yawned for him.
So the soldiers vanished one by one, and the archers one by one, and the weapons of war, and the clubs and the axes. It was terrible to behold such a vast army stricken by the judgment of the Sun from the skies. The Sun was executioner and the earth gravedigger. Yet a little while, an hour or two, and the great host had vanished—not a soul was left alive in the Barren Marches. Only those who were under the roof of the soot-blacked house, they were left alive.
Once more all was still in the Barren Marches; and now the lovely lady. Bride Bridekins, peeped joyously from her window to watch her bridesman grow mild, now that he had done with slaying spite upon the earth.
Soon the wounds healed upon the gallants, for they had good luck to help them; and the orphans recovered still more quickly, because hardship is a good school. As for Oleg Ban, he could not pine with such a true love as Bride Bridekins beside him. Early in the morning the Slender Swallow flew out with a greeting for the Sun. At nightfall the Swallow returned with greetings from the Sun, bidding them prepare the wedding feast for the morrow, for he would come to give away the bride.
So they made ready, and it all fell out as they had planned. And such a wedding as they had, and such songs as were sung that day in the Barren Marches you’ll not find again in a hundred years, nor throughout nine empires.
Stribor’s Forest