The Wagner Story Book: Firelight Tales of the Great Music Dramas

by William Henry Frost

"Yet he does not know that men wear armor and fight with spears and swords, and he has never heard of an army or a battle. Perhaps he may be almost enough of a simple fool about these things to help the King of the Grail."

"I don't think he was a fool at all," said the little girl, "if his mother wouldn't let him hear anything about such things."

"I think," I answered, "that the letters around the Grail could not have meant quite what we mean by a fool. The Grail would not choose any such person, I am sure. They must have meant some one who was good and simple and had not learned the ways of the world. And then you know the letters said, 'taught by pity,' so I suppose he is to be a fool at all only till he is 'taught by pity.' Well, the mother might have known that she could not keep her boy in this ignorance forever, and so one day he meets three knights riding through the forest. He is filled with wonder and delight at their polished armor, their waving plumes, and their long spears, with their glittering points. He asks them who they are and what all these wonderful things are for. They tell him that they are knights, and everything else that he wants to know, and then he runs home to his mother and tells her that he wants to go away and see the world and be a knight too.

"She tries to tell him that knights are wicked men, but he will not believe it, and he begs her to let him go. She sees that she cannot keep him, that all her care has been lost, and at last she says that he may go. He has no armor, but perhaps he may get that some time. He takes his bow and his arrows and wanders away through the forest, and his mother looks after him till she can see no more through her tears.

"We are back near the Temple of the Grail now. I see a beautiful, deep forest. An old knight and two young squires are lying on a green bank and are just awaking at the sound of trumpets from the temple. They are scarcely awake when a strange creature is seen coming toward them. It is a woman upon a galloping horse. And the horse is strange enough too. Its mane is so long that it drags upon the ground, and then the wind catches it and blows it about till the horse looks like a hurrying black cloud, and its eyes show through the cloud like flashes of lightning. The woman's eyes sometimes are deep and full of fire, and sometimes they look dull and cold, almost dead. She is not beautiful. She has a dark face, burned as if she had travelled much under hot suns. Her long black hair is in disorder and flies all about her in the wind. Her dress is in disorder too, and it is fastened around the waist by a girdle of snake skin, with long ends that hang down to the ground. Everything about her looks wild and terrible. She is a woman whom you would not care to meet on a lonely road after dark and on a horse like this. Yet if you looked at her face more closely you would not find anything cruel in it, but you would find a great deal of sorrow and suffering.

"You can never guess who this woman is, so I must tell you. She is the very same who helps the wicked magician to entice knights into his castle. She looks very different now, to be sure, but it is a strange life that she leads altogether. It is only when she is asleep that the magician has power over her. When she is awake she tries to atone a little for her great sins by serving the Holy Grail. She rides all over the world and brings news of battles or messages from knights of the Grail who are in distant countries, or she stays here and finds work to do at home. But always, because of her curse, she laughs, even at the good that she herself tries to do. And at last the longing for rest comes upon her again till she cannot resist it. She sinks to sleep, and then the magician calls her. She is forced to obey him, he gives her back that wonderful beauty, and she helps him in his wicked work.

"Now she has been all the way to Arabia to find a balsam for the King's wound. She gives it to the old knight, in a little flask, and then throws herself upon the ground to rest. At the same time there comes a train of knights, bearing the King of the Grail in a litter toward the lake for his morning bath. He thanks the woman for bringing the balsam, but she only laughs at what she has done and at his thanks. It will do him no good, she says. Alas, he knows too well that it will do him none. Nobody can do him good but the simple Fool, taught by pity. And so they carry him on to his bath.

"The old knight stays behind. 'Why should we try all these things,' he thinks again, 'when none can help him but the simple Fool?' At this instant a swan flies up from the lake and then suddenly flutters and falls upon the ground. There is an arrow through its heart. Everybody who sees it cries out in horror, for it is one of the laws of this place that no animal shall be harmed. What man cruel enough to kill this beautiful, harmless swan can have found his way here, where none can come who is not chosen by the Grail? In a moment some squires run in, bringing the murderer of the swan. He is scarcely a man at all, hardly more than a boy, and he carries a bow and arrow. It is the same boy whom we saw living in the woods with his mother. The old knight looks at him sorrowfully. 'Did you kill this poor bird?' he asks.

"'Yes, to be sure,' says the young man,' I can hit anything.'

"The old knight talks with him kindly and tells him how wrong it is to kill harmless things. His mother never taught him that. She only tried to keep him from knowing anything about knights. The old man makes him see how cruel he has been, and at last the boy throws away his arrows and breaks his bow. Now the knight asks him who he is, whence he comes, and who was his father, but he can answer nothing. Indeed, he knows little enough of these things, for his mother never told him. His mother and the life that he led with her in the forest are all that he can remember to tell the old knight. Even of his mother and of his old life the strange woman who lies upon the grass can tell more than he, for she has seen him and his mother often, though they did not see her, and she laughs at the poor woman who thought she could keep her son from ever knowing anything of arms and battles. She tells him, too, that his mother is dead; she saw her die as she passed, because he had left her. The boy is moved at last, frightened, bewildered. He never knew anybody but his mother; she was his only friend; she taught him all he ever learned; and she is dead because of him. What shall he do now?