The Boy Apprenticed to an Enchanter

by Padraic Colum

I sat down on the grass and I watched them feeding, thinking surely that some one would come and drive the flock to some market or to some great farm. I watched, and the ducks ate and ate in the hollow where they stayed. When the darkness came the thousand ducks put their heads each under a wing and settled down on the ground. I pulled grass to make a bed for myself, and ate the fruit I had brought with me, and lay down in a cold place near the hollow.

I was awakened by the thousand ducks quacking loudly, and I looked and saw that they had spread themselves over the plain and were moving in a direction. I thought I should follow the ducks, and I did, and I was able to chase away two or three foxes that would have hunted them.

They were beautiful, these thousand ducks, as they went over the green plain. They were shapely and active, and they had a wonderful soft whiteness. The drakes were not colored differently, but they had crests and tails that curled. When they knew I was with them they did not go straying here and there, but kept themselves together as a flock and went marching in a direction. I thought that they might bring me to my fortune. And then I thought that this great flock of ducks, so strangely without an owner, was my fortune.

I was faint and hungry, but I went on rejoicing in the beauty of the ducks. I gave them time to feed and they fed. At last I came to the gate of a town. The watcher was astonished at the greatness of the flock and he called to the townspeople to come out and fill their eyes with the spectacle. They came and asked me, “Who are you, O girl?” and I made answer, “I am the girl whose fortune is in ducks.” The people came on the walls of the town and looked over them, while the ducks spread themselves out, standing still. And more and more the people marveled at the number and the extraordinary beauty of the ducks.

The people set a place apart for the ducks and they gave me a shelter in which I might rest and refresh myself. After a while I heard them say, “The officers of the great King of Babylon should see this girl and her ducks. There is a marvel here for the great King to hear about.” People came to see the ducks as a spectacle, and one would say to the other, “No prince by any river in China has such a wonderful collection of ducks.”

And then I was told that the officers of the great King of Babylon would come to look on my flock. These officers had come into the country to get for the King’s gardens birds and beasts that were remarkable.

They came and looked on the flock, and marveled that, whether they rested or were feeding, the thousand ducks harkened to my call and went as I bade them go. They spoke, admiring their shape and whiteness. And then a dwarf who had a crown of crimson feathers on his head came amongst them and the officers spoke to him. This dwarf told me they would take the flock for the King, and that they would take me also to the great city, where I would have the office of minding the ducks in the King’s gardens.

So I brought the thousand ducks down to a great barge that was on the river, and I went on the barge, and the officers of the King with the dwarf that had the crown of crimson feathers on his head went aboard of it, and we sailed down the river, and we came into the great city. For two days the King had me show the wondrous flock in the market place as a spectacle for the people. All Babylon came and admired the number and the comeliness of the ducks. Afterward they were brought to the lake that was in the King’s gardens. As time went on many of the flock were taken by the purveyors and killed and eaten in the palace. But still they remained a wonder for their number and their comeliness. The King often came down to look on the thousand ducks, swimming on the water, or staying in their companies around the lake.