Tales from silver lands

by Charles Joseph Finger

The story of the beauty and goodness of the maiden ran through all the land, and young men who sought her hand came from far and wide. So many were her suitors that a day was set apart each week, when all the people gathered to see the young men display their powers or their gifts or their clevernesses. Some would shoot with the bow and others cast the lasso. Singers sang the songs they had made and musicians played their flutes so well that the slender boughs bent to listen. There were gifts, too, and some brought rare stones cut into the shapes of birds and animals and flowers, but not one man had touched the heart of the princess, though she was gracious to all.

Now before the king came, an evil creature of a witch had ruled the land, and she had come from the Land of the Shaking Mud. Somehow, the Sea-shell King had driven her away and, that she should worry his people no more, he had set a boundary, and guards were on watch day and night to prevent her in her mischief. So she spent the day in her cave, coming out only at night to prowl about the boundary, and then only when there was no moon. Her name was Tlapa.

One day there came to the king a man in rags, who said that his name was Maconahola, and the king was glad to see him, the more so because age was creeping upon the king, and he sought someone wise and brave enough to rule in his place. But no sooner had the princess looked at the stranger than she cast down her eyes, saying that he had the face of the man she had seen in a dream. When the king asked her questions, she said that in her dream she had followed the stranger about, had slept at his feet, had tended his fields and made his clothes. At that her father was greatly astonished, for that his daughter should be the servant of a man who came clad in rags seemed strange indeed.

The second day, Maconahola was asked if he bore gifts, but he showed his empty hands. Then, to the end that no idle or useless man should be in that land, a time was set and Maconahola was ordered to appear before the young men and compete with them. At the test Maconahola stood very well. When the best bowman sent his arrow into the exact centre of the mark, Maconahola drew his bow and aimed so carefully that his arrow split the arrow of the other man. Nor was he less skilful with the lasso, casting his loop so that it fell about the smallest thing aimed at. It was much the same when the swiftest runner was brought. To be sure, he ran like a deer, but Maconahola ran like the wind, leaving him far behind. As for the singing contest, when the stranger sang the very birds were hushed and, the song being finished, a great quetzal with jet-black wings, a scarlet breast, and head and back of gold-green feathers, flew down and sat on the shoulder of Maconahola.

Then a great shout went up, and all the bowmen, the lasso throwers, the runners, and the singers came forward and greeted Maconahola, for there was no jealousy in that land, nor was there envy, and each had it in his mind to strive for that which seemed best, caring nothing for self-advancement. As for the king, being very old and tired, he was glad indeed to find a man who might become ruler in his place. So he stepped down from his high place and cast his coat made of a thousand turquoise feathers about the stranger’s shoulders. All went very well indeed, and the princess was happy to have found the man of her dreams, and the two of them loved all things, so that all things embraced and loved them.

But Tlapa, the witch with long crooked nails and black teeth and ice-like eyes, learned of all this from the bats. Loving evil, and war, and violence, she was angry that another should come into the land to rule when the old king died, for she had long waited for the breath to pass from his body so that she might rule again. Seeing how the people greeted Maconahola, she became tight-lipped and slit-eyed. One night she went to Roraima, a place of rocks, where lived a wild man of terrible strength who sat in his cave all day, crouched over a fire of smoking green wood. Over the cave fire Tlapa and the wild man whispered long and long, while bats flapped and fluttered and white worms crawled close to listen, for they plotted how to dispose of Maconahola. The wild man was all for dashing into the country, trampling down the guards that stood in his way, and beating the stranger with his great club of long, blunt thorns. But that Tlapa would not hear of, knowing that Maconahola could shoot an arrow that would speedily put an end to the wild man of the rocks. Far more crafty was she, remembering and telling the wild man of a strange plant that grew in the gloomy depths of a forest far away, where, because of the tangled thicket, she could never go.

No sooner had the wild man learnt of the strange plant than he sprang to his feet and with great bounds went crashing through the forest, overturning trees that stood in his way, upsetting huge rocks, splashing through swamps, and climbing a rocky precipice like a wild cat until he came to the place where grew the evil weed. He was back again in his cave before midnight. Taking the weed, Tlapa dried it over a fire of rotten wood and crushed it into powder. The powder she cast into the air and, carried by the wind, it fell where the king’s people lived. Wherever it fell, wherever it touched, there grew hate and suspicion, jealousy and greed. Where the dust fell on plant or flower, though there was but the slightest fleck of it, there was immediately a withering and a dying; the very corn shrivelled and shrunk. Where had been flowers, there grew in a single night dense, thorny tangle. The very weather changed and the pleasant cool passed away, so that the days were hot and the nights icy cold. Some men, touched with a strange greed, laid claim to great tracts of earth, bidding others begone, and so for the first time in that land men quarrelled and fought. Even the old king changed a little and, seeing the trouble that had come upon his land, was persuaded to believe that Maconahola was the cause.

Word passed from mouth to mouth and whispering tongues poisoned truth, and when Maconahola took his walks, grieving to see the withered flowers and fruits, people hid from his gaze. Thoughts passed to words and words to deeds, and one day a crowd turned on Maconahola and with sticks and stones drove him across the border and into a forest where, except for the cry of a distant bird, it was still as midnight.

Sad at heart, Maconahola built a little shelter of branches and leaves and day after day wandered alone. Nor had he living company until one day there came to him a dog, footsore and thin. The creature was hungry and weak and thorn-torn, and Maconahola took it in, washed and tended it and shared with it his meal. And a poor enough meal it was being of small berries and drops of tree gum and little roots.

In the morning when he went down to the stream to bathe, the dog did not follow him, and on his return, to his vast astonishment, he found in front of his house a field with growing corn and many food plants. It had grown up in less than an hour. So that evening he was full of gladness, and with his dog walked about in full enjoyment of the beautiful green earth, thankful for the humming bees and the gentle wind that moved the leaves, thankful for the only living creature that was with him.