 CHAPTER XIX Now a few things pass by a village and leave no talk behind them, nor did this unicorn. For the three that saw it going by in the starlight immediately told their families, and many of these ran from their houses to tell the good news to others, for all strange news was accounted good in Earl because of the talk that it made, and talk was held to be needful when work was over to pass the evenings away. So they talked long of the unicorn, and after a day or two in the forage of Narl, the Parliament of Earl was met again, seated by mugs of mead discussing the unicorn. Some rejoiced and said that Orion was magic because unicorns were of magic stock and came from beyond our fields. Therefore, said one, he has been to lands of which it does not become us to speak and is magic as all things are which dwell over there. And some agreed and held that their plans had come to fruition. But others said that the beast went by in the starlight, if beast it were, and who could say it was a unicorn? And one said that in the starlight it was hard to see it at all, and another said unicorns were hard to recognize, and then they began to discuss the size and shape of these beasts, and all the known legends that told of them, and came no nearer to agreeing together whether or not their lord had hunted a unicorn. Till at last Narl seemed that they would not thus come by the truth and deeming it necessary that the fact should be established one way or the other, for ever, rose up and told them that the time had come for the vote. So by a method they had of casting shells of various colors into a horn that was passed from man to man they voted about the unicorn as Narl had commanded, and a hush fell and Narl counted, and it was seen to have been established by vote that there had been no unicorn. Horrified then that Parliament of Earl saw that their plans to have a magic lord had failed. They were all old men, and the hope that they had had for so long being gone they turned less easily to newer plans than they had to the plan that they had made so long ago. What should they do now? they said. How come by magic? What could they do that the world should remember Earl? Twelve old men, without magic, they sat there over their mead and could not lighten their sadness. But Orion was away with his hounds near that great inlet of Elfland where it lay as it were at high tide, touching the very grass of the fields we know. He went there at evening when the horns blew clear to guide him and waited there all quiet at the edge of those fields for the unicorns to steal across the border. For he hunted stags no more. And as he went over those fields in the late afternoon, folk working on the farms would greet him cheerily, but when still he went eastwards they spoke to him less and less, till at last when he neared the border and still kept on they looked his way no more, but left him and his hounds to their own devices. And by the time the sun set he would be standing quiet by the hedge that ran right down into the frontier of twilight. With his hounds all gathered close in under the hedge, with his eye on them all lest one of them dared to move. And the pigeons would come home to trees of the fields we know and twittering starlings, and the elfin horns would blow clear silver magical music thrilling the chilled air, and all the colors of clouds would go suddenly changing. It was then, in the failing light, in the darkening of colors, that a Ryan would watch for a dim white shape stepping out of the border of twilight. And this evening, just as he hushed a hand with his hand, just as all our fields went dim, there slipped a great white unicorn out of the border, still munching lilies such as never grew in any fields of ours. He came, a whiteness on perfectly silent feet, four or five yards into the fields we know, and stood there still as moonlight, and listened, and listened, and listened. A Ryan never moved, and he kept his hands silent by some power he had, or by some wisdom of theirs, and in five minutes the unicorn made a step or two forward, and began to crop the long, sweet earthly grasses. And as soon as he moved there came others through the deep blue border of twilight, and all at once there were five of them feeding there, and still a Ryan stood with his hands and waited. Little by little the unicorns moved further away from the border, lured further and further into the fields we know by the deep rich earthly grasses on which all five of them browsed in the silent evening. If a dog barked, even of a late cock crew, up went all their ears at once, and they stood, washful, not trusting anything in the fields of men, or venturing into them far. But at last the one that had come first through the twilight got so far from his magical home that a Ryan was able to run between him and the frontier, and his hounds came behind him, and then had a Ryan been toying with the chase, then had he hunted but for an idle whim, and not for that deep love of the huntsman's craft that only huntsmen know, then he had lost everything, for his hounds would have chased the nearest unicorns, and they would have been in a moment across the frontier and lost, and if the hounds had followed they would have been lost too, and all that day's work would have gone for nothing. But Orion led his hounds to chase the furthest, watching all the while to see if any hound would try to pursue the others, and only one began to, but Orion's whip was ready, and so he cut his quarry off from its home, and the hounds for the second time were in full cry after a unicorn. As soon as the unicorn heard the feet of the hounds, and saw with one flash of his eye that he could not get to his enchanted home, he shot forward with a sudden spring of his limbs, and went like an arrow over the fields we know. When he came to hedges he did not seem to gather his limbs to leap, but seemed to glide over them with motionless muscles, galloping again when he touched the grass once more. In that first rush the hounds drew far ahead of Orion, and this enabled him to head the unicorn off whenever he tried to turn to the magical land, and at such turnings he came near his hounds again, and the third time that Orion turned the unicorn it galloped straight away, and so continued over the fields of men. The cry of the hounds went through the comb of the evening, like a long ripple across a sleeping lake, following an unseen way of some strange diver. In that straight gallop the unicorn gained so much on the hounds that soon Orion only saw him far off, a white spot moving along a slope in the gloaming. Then it reached the top of a valley and passed from view. But that strong clear scent that led the hounds, like a song, remained clear on the grass, and they never checked or faltered except for a moment at streams. Even there their ranging noses picked up the magical scent before Orion came up to give them his aid. And as the hunt went on the daylight faded away till the sky was all prepared for the coming of stars. And one or two stars appeared, and a mist came up from the streams and spread all white over the fields till they could not have seen the unicorn if he had been close before them. The very trees seemed sleeping. They passed by little houses, lonely, sheltered by elms, shut off by high hedges of you from those that roamed the fields. Houses that Orion had never seen or known till the chance course of this unicorn brought him suddenly past their doors. Dogs barked as they passed and continued barking long. For that magical scent on the air and the rush in the voice of the pack told them something strange was afoot. And at first they barked because they would have shared in what was afoot and afterwards to warn their masters about the strangeness. They barked long through the evening. And one says they passed a little house in a cluster of old thorns. A door suddenly opened and a woman stood gazing to see them go by. She could have seen no more than gray shapes. But Orion, in the moment he had passed, saw all the glow of the house and the yellow light streaming out into the cold. The merry warmth cheered him and he would have rested a while in that little oasis of man in the lonely fields. But the hounds went on and he followed. And those in the houses heard their cry go past like the sound of a trumpet whose echoes go fading away amongst the furthest hills. A fox heard them coming and stood quite still and listened. At first he was puzzled. Then he caught the scent of the unicorn and all was clear to him. For he knew by the magic flavor that it was something coming from Elfland. But when sheep caught the scent they were terrified and ran all huddled together until they could run no more. Cattle leaped up from their sleep, gazed dreamily and wondered. But the unicorn went through them and away as some rose-scented breeze that has strayed from valley gardens into the streets of a city slips through the noisy traffic and is gone. Soon all the stars were looking on those quiet fields through which the hunt went with its exultation, a line of vehement life cleaving through sleep and silence. And now the unicorn far out of sight though he was no longer gained a little at every hedge. For at first he lost no more pace at any hedge than a bird loses passing clear of a cloud while the great hounds struggled through what gaps they could find or lay on their sides and wriggled between the stems of the bushes. But now he gathered his strength with more effort at every hedge and sometimes hit the top of the hedge and stumbled. He was galloping slower too, for this was a journey such as no unicorn made through the deep calm of Elfland. And something told the tired hounds they were drawing nearer and a new joy entered their voices. They crossed a few more black hedges and then they're loomed before them, the dark of a wood. When the unicorn entered the wood, the voices of the hounds were clear in his ears. A pair of foxes saw him going slowly and they ran along beside him to see what would befall the magic creature coming weary to them from Elfland. One on each side they ran, keeping his slow pace and watching him, and they had no fear of the hounds though they heard their cry, for they knew that nothing that followed that magical scent would turn aside after any earthly thing. So he went laboring through the wood and the foxes watched him curiously all the way. The hounds entered the wood and the great oaks rang with the sound of them and Orion followed with an enduring speed that he may have got from our fields or that may have come to him over the border from Elfland. The dark of the wood was intense but he followed his hounds cry and they did not need to see with that wonderful scent to guide them. They never wavered as they followed that scent but went on through gloaming and starlight. It was not like any hunt of fox or stag for another fox will cross the line of a fox or a stag may pass through a herd of stags and hines. Even a flock of sheep will be wielder hounds by crossing the line they follow. But this unicorn was the only magical thing in all our fields that night and his scent lay unmistakable over the earthly grass a burning pungent flavor of enchantment among the things of every day. They hunted him clear through the wood and down to the valley the two foxes keeping with him and watching still. He picked his feet carefully as he went down the hill as though his weight hurt them while he descended the slope. Yet his pace was as fast as that of the hounds going down. Then he went a little way along the trough of the valley turning to his left as soon as he came down the hill. But the hounds gained on him then and he turned for the opposite slope and then his weariness could be concealed no longer the thing that all wild creatures concealed to the last. He toiled over every step as though his legs dragged his body heavily. Orion saw him from the opposite slope and when the unicorn got to the top the hounds were close behind him so that he suddenly whipped around his great single horn and stood before them threatening. Then the hounds bathed about him but the horn waved and bowed with such swift grace that no hound got a grip. They knew death when they saw it and eager though they were to fasten upon him they leaped back from that flashing horn. Then Orion came up with his bow but he would not shoot perhaps because it was hard to put an arrow safely past his pack of hounds perhaps because of a feeling such as we have today and which is no new thing among us that it was unfair to the unicorn. Instead he drew an old sword that he was wearing and advanced through his hounds and engaged that deadly horn. The unicorn arched his neck and the horn flashed at Orion and weary though the unicorn was yet a mighty force remained in that muscular neck to drive the blow that he aimed and Orion barely parried. He thrusted the unicorn's throat but the great horn tossed the sword aside from its aim and again lunged at Orion. Again he parried with the whole weight of his arm and had but an inch to spare. He thrust again at the throat and the unicorn parried the sword thrust almost contemptuously. Again and again the unicorn aimed fair at Orion's heart the huge white beast stepped forward pressing Orion back that graceful bowing neck with its white arch of hard muscle driving the deadly horn was wearying Orion's arm. Once more he thrust and failed. He saw the unicorn's eye flash wickedly in the starlight. He saw all white before him the fearful arch of its neck. He knew he could turn aside its heavy blows no more. And then a hound got a grip in front of the right shoulder. No moments passed before many another hound leaped onto the unicorn each with a chosen grip for all that they looked like a rabble rolling and heaving by chance. Orion thrust no more for many hounds all at once were between him and his enemy's throat. Awful groans came from the unicorn such sounds as are not heard in the fields we know and then there was no sound but the deep growl of the hounds that roared over the wonderful carcass as they wallowed in fabulous blood. End of chapter 19. 12 old men without magic. Chapter 20 of The King of Elfland's Daughter by Lord Dunseney. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Chapter 20. A Historical Fact. Amongst the weary hounds refreshed with fury and triumph Orion stepped with his whip and drove them away from the monstrous dead body and sent the lash quivering round in a wide circle while in his other hand he took his sword and cut off the unicorn's head. He also took the skin of the long white neck and brought it away dangling empty from the head. All the while the hounds bade and made eager rushes one by one at that magical carcass whenever one saw a chance of eluding the whip so that it was long before Orion got his trophy for he had to work as hard with his whip as with his sword but at last he headed slung by the leather thong over his shoulders the great horn pointing upwards past the right side of his head and the smeared skin hanging down along his back and while he arranged it thus he allowed his hounds to worry the body again and taste that wonderful blood then he called them and blew a note on his horn and turned slowly home towards Earl and they all followed behind him and the two foxes stole up to taste the curious blood for they had sat and waited for this. While the unicorn was climbing his last hill Orion felt such fatigue that he could have gone little further but now that the heavy head hung from his shoulders all his fatigue was gone and he tried with a lightness such as he had in the mornings for it was his first unicorn and his hounds seemed refreshed as though the blood they had lapped had some strange power in it and they came home riotously gambling and rushing ahead as when newly loosed from their kennels thus Orion came home over the downs in the night till he saw the valley before him full of the smoke of Earl where one late light was burning in a window of one of his towers and coming down the slopes by familiar ways he brought his hounds to their kennels and just before dawn had touched the heights of the downs he blew his horn before his postered door and the aged guardian of the door when he opened it to Orion saw the great horn of the unicorn bobbing over his head this was the horn that was sent in later years as a gift from the Pope to King Francis Benvenuto Cellini tells of it in his memoirs he tells how Pope Clement sent for him in a certain Tobiah and ordered them to make designs for the setting of a unicorn's horn the finest ever seen judge then of Orion's delight when the horn of the first unicorn he ever took was such as to be esteemed generations later the finest ever seen and in no less a city than Rome with all her opportunities to acquire and compare such things for a number of these curious horns must have been available for the Pope to have selected for the gift the finest ever seen but in the simpler days of my story the rarity of the horn was so great that unicorns were still considered fabulous the year of the gift to King Francis would be about 1530 the horn being mounted in gold and the contract went to Tobiah and not to Benvenuto Cellini I mentioned the date because there are those who care little for a tale if it be not here and there supported by history and who even in history care more for fact than philosophy if any such reader have followed the fortunes of Orion so far he will be hungry by now for a date or a historical fact as for the date I give him 1530 while for the historical fact I select the generous gift recorded by Benvenuto Cellini because it may well be that just where he came to unicorns such a reader may have felt furthest away from history and have felt loneliest just at this point for want of historical things how the unicorns horn found its way from the castle of Earl and in what hands it wondered and how it came at last to the city of Rome would of course make another book but all that I need say now about that horn is that Orion took the whole head to Threl who took off the skin and washed it and boiled the skull for hours and replaced the skin and stuffed the neck with straw and Orion said it in the midmost place among all the heads that hung in the high hall and the rumor went all through Earl as swift as unicorns gallop telling of this fine horn that Orion had won so that the parliament of Earl met again in the forge of Narl they sat at the table there debating the rumor and others besides Threl had seen the head and at first for the sake of old divisions some held to their opinions that there had been no unicorn they drank Narl's goodly mead and argued against the monster but after a while whether Threl's argument convinced them or whether as is more likely they yielded from generosity which arose like a beautiful flower out of the mellow mead whatever it was the debate of those that opposed the unicorn languished and when the vote was put it was declared that Orion had killed a unicorn which he had hunted hither from beyond the fields we know and at this they all rejoiced for they saw at last the magic for which they had longed and for which they had planned so many years ago when all were younger and had had more hope in their plans and as soon as the vote was taken Narl brought out more mead and they drank again to mark the happy occasion for magic at last said they had come on Orion and a glorious future surely awaited Earl and the long room and the candles and the friendly men and the deep comfort of mead made it easy to look a little way forward into time and to see a year or so that had not yet come and to see coming glories glowing a little way off and they told again of the days but nearer now when the distant lands should hear of the veil they loved they told again of the fame of the fields of Earl going from city to city one praised its castle another its huge high downs another the veil itself all hidden from every land another the dear quaint houses built by an olden folk another the deep of the woods that lay over the skyline and all spoke of the time when the wide world should hear of it all because of the magic that there was in Orion for they knew that the world had a quick ear for magic and always turned toward the wonderful even though it be nearly asleep their voices were high praising magic telling again of the unicorn glorifying in the future of Earl when suddenly in the doorway stood the friar he was there in his long white robe with its trimming of mauve in the door with the night behind him as they looked in the light of their candles they could see he was wearing an emblem on a chain of gold around his neck Narl gave him welcome some moved a chair to the table but he had heard them speak of the unicorn he lifted his voice from where he stood and addressed them cursed be unicorns he said and all their ways and all things that be magic in the awe that suddenly changed the mellow room one cried master curse not us good friar said Narl we hunted no unicorn but the friar raised up his hand against unicorns and cursed them yet cursed be their horn he cried and the place where they dwell and the lilies whereon they feed cursed be all songs that tell of them cursed be they utterly with everything that dwelleth beyond salvation he paused to allow them to renounce the unicorns standing still in the doorway looking sternly into the room and they thought of the sleekness of the unicorns hide his swiftness the grace of his neck and his dim beauty cantering by when he came past Earl in the evening they thought of his stalwart and redoubtable horn they remembered old songs that told of him they sat in uneasy silence and would not renounce the unicorn and the friar knew what they thought and he raised his hand again clear in the candlelight with the night behind him cursed be their speed he said and their sleek white hide cursed be their beauty and all that they have of magic and everything that walks by enchanted streams and still he saw in their eyes a lingering love for those things that he forbade and therefore he ceased not yet he lifted his voice yet louder and continued with his eyes sternly upon those troubled faces and cursed be trolls elves goblins and fairies upon the earth and hippogriffs and pegasus in the air and all the tribes of the merfolk under the sea our holy rites forbid them and cursed be all doubts all singular dreams all fancies and from magic may all true folk be turned away amen he turned around suddenly and was into the night a wind loitered about the door then flapped it too and the large room and the forge of gnarl was as it had been but a few moments before yet the mellow mood of it seemed dulled and dim and then gnarl spoke rising up at the table's end and breaking the gloom of the silence did we plan our plans he said so long ago and put our faith in magic that we should renounce now magical things and curse our neighbors the harmless folk beyond the fields we know and the beautiful things of the air and dead mariners lovers dwelling beneath the sea no no said some and they quaffed their meat again and then one rose with his horn of meat held high then another and then another till all were standing upright all around the light of the candles magic one cried and the rest with one accord took up his cry till all were shouting magic the friar on his homeward way heard that cry of magic he gathered his sacred robe more closely around him and clutched his holy things and set a spell that kept him from sudden demons and the doubtful things of the mist end of chapter 20 a historical fact chapter 21 of the king of elfland's daughter by lord duncany this liber vox recording is in the public domain chapter 21 on the verge of earth and on that day orion rested his hands but the next day he rose early and went to his kennels and loosened the joyous hounds in the shining morning and led them out of the valley and over the downs towards the frontier of twilight again and he took his bow with him no more but only his sword and his whip for he had come to love the joy of his 15 hands when they hunted the one horned monster and felt that he shared the joy of every hand while to shoot one with an arrow would be but a single joy all day he went over the fields greeting some farmer here and there a worker in the field and gaining greetings in return and good wishes for sport but when evening came and he was near the frontier fewer and fewer greeted him as he passed for he was manifestly traveling where none went whence even their thoughts held back so he went lonely yet cheered by his eager thoughts and happy in the comrade ship of his hands and both his thoughts and his hands were all for the chase and so he came to the barrier of twilight again where the hedges ran down to it from the fields of men and turned strange and dim in the glow that is not of our earth and disappeared in the twilight he stood with his hands close in against one of these hedges just where it touched the barrier the light just there on the hedge if like anything of our earth was like the misty dimness that flashes upon a hedge seen only across one field when touched by the rainbow in the sky the rainbow is clear but close across one wide field the rainbow's end scarcely shows yet a heavenly strangeness has touched and altered the hedge in some such light as that glowed the last of the hawthorns that grew in the fields of men and just beyond it like a liquid opal all full of wandering lights lay the barrier through which no man can see and no sound come but the sound of the elfin horns and only that to the ears of very few the horns were blowing now piercing that barrier of dim light and silence with the magical resonance of their silver note that seemed to beat past all things intervening to come to Orion's ear as the sunlight beats through aether to illumine the veils of the moon the horns died down and nothing whispered from Elfland and all the sounds fenced forth were the sounds of an earthly evening even these grew few and still no unicorns came a dog barked far away a cart the soul's sound on an empty road went homeward wearily someone spoke in a lane and then left the silence unbroken for words seemed to offend the hush that was over all the fields and in the hush Orion gazed at the frontier watching for the unicorns that never came expecting each moment to see one step through the twilight but he had done unwisely in coming to the same spot at which he had found the five unicorns only two days before for of all creatures the unicorns are the warriest guarding their beauty from the eye of man with never ceasing watchfulness dwelling all day beyond the fields we know and only entering them rarely at evening when all is still and with the utmost vigilance and venturing even then scarcely beyond the edges to come on such animals twice at the same spot within two days with hounds after hunting and killing one of them was more unlikely than Orion thought but his heart was full of the triumph of his hunt and the scene of it lured him back to it in the way that such scenes have and now he gazed at the frontier waiting for one of these great creatures to come proudly through a great tangible shape out of the dim opalescence and no unicorn came and standing gazing there so long that curious boundary began to lure him till his thoughts went roaming with its wandering lights and he desired the peaks of Elfland and well they knew that lure who dwelt on those farms lying all along the edges of the fields we know and wisely kept their eyes turned ever away from that wonder that lay with its marvel of colors so near to the backs of their houses for there was a beauty in it such as is not in all our fields and it is told those farmers in youth how if they gaze upon those wandering lights they will remain no joy for them in the goodly fields the fine brown furrows or the waves of wheat are in any things of ours but their hearts will be far from here with elfin things yearning always for unknown mountains and for folk not blessed by the friar and standing now while our earthly evening waned upon the very edge of that magical twilight the things of earth rushed swiftly from Orion's remembrance and suddenly all his care was for elfin things of all the folk that trod the paths of men he remembered only his mother and suddenly knew as though the twilight had told him that she was enchanted and he of a magical line and none had told him this but he knew it now for years he had wandered through many an evening and guessed where his mother was gone he had guessed in lonely silence none knew what the child was guessing and now an answer seemed to hang in the air it seemed as though she were only a little way off across the enchanted twilight that divided those farms from Elfland he moved three steps and came to the frontier itself his foot was the furthest that stood in the fields we know against his face the frontier lay like a mist in which all the colors of pearls were dancing gravely a hound stirred as he moved the pack turned their heads and eyed him he stood and they rested again he tried to see through the barrier but saw nothing but wandering lights that were made by the massing of twilight's from the ending of thousands of days which had been preserved by magic to build that barrier there then he called to his mother across that mighty gap those few preserved by magic to build that barrier there then he upon one side earth and the haunts of men and the time that we measure by minutes and hours and years and upon the other Elfland and another way of time he called to her twice and listened and called again and never a cry or a whisper came out of Elfland he felt then the magnitude of the gulf that divided him from her and knew it to be vast and dark and strong like the gulfs that set apart our times from a bygone day or that stand between daily life and the things of dream or between folk tilling the earth and the heroes of song or between those living yet and those they mourn and the barrier twinkled and sparkled as those so area thing never divided lost years from the fleeing hour called now he stood there with the cries of earth faint in the late evening behind him and the mellow glow of the soft earthly twilight and before him close to his face the utter silence of Elfland and the barrier that made that silence gleaming with its strange beauty and now he thought no more of earthly things but only gazed into the wall of twilight as prophets tampering with forbidden lore gaze into cloudy crystals and to all that was elvish in Orion's blood to all that he had of magic from his mother the little lights of the twilight-builded boundary lured and tempted and beckoned he thought of his mother dwelling in lonely ease beyond the rage of time he thought of the glories of Elfland dimly known by magical memories that he had had from his mother the little cries of the earthly evening behind him he heeded no more nor heard and with all these little cries were lost to him also the ways and the needs of men the things they plan the things they toil for and hope for and all the little things their patience achieves in the new knowledge that had come to him beside this glittering boundary that he was of magical blood he desired at once to cast off his allegiance to time and to leave the lands that lay under time's dominion and were ever scorched by his tyranny to leave them with no more than five short paces and to enter the ageless land where his mother sat with her father while he reigned on his misty throne in that hall of bewildering beauty at which only song has guessed no more was Earl his home no more were the ways of man his ways their fields to his feet no more but the peaks of Elf and mountains were to him now what welcoming eaves of straw are to earthly laborers at evening the fabulous the unearthly were to a ryan home thus had that barrier of twilight too long seen enchanted him so much more magical was it than any earthly evening and there are those that might have gazed long at it and even yet turned away but not easily Orion for though magic has power to charm worldly things they respond to enchantment heavily and slowly while all that was magic in Orion's blood fleshed answer to the magic that shone in the rampart of Elfland it was made of the rarest lights that wander in air and the fairest flashes of sunlight that astonish our fields through storm and the mists of little streams and the glow of flowers in moonlight and all the ends of our rainbows with all their magic and beauty and scraps of the gloaming of evenings long treasured in aged minds into this enchantment he stepped to have done with mundane things but as his foot touched the twilight a hound that had sat behind him under the hedge held back from the chase so long stretched its body a little and uttered one of those low cries of impatience that among the ways of man most nearly resembles a yawn and old habit at that sound made Orion turn his head and he saw the hound and went up to him for a moment and patted him and would have said farewell but all the hounds were around him then nosing his hands and looking up at his face and standing there amongst his eager hounds Orion who but a moment before was dreaming of fabulous things with thoughts that floated over the magical lands and scaled the enchanted peaks of the elfin mountains was suddenly at the call of his earthly lineage it was not that he cared more to hunt than to be with his mother beyond the fret of time in the lands of her father lovelier than anything Song Hath said it was not that he loved his hound so much that he could not leave them but his fathers had followed the chase age after age as his mother's line had timelessly followed magic and the call towards magic was strong while he looked on magical things and the old earthly line was as strong to beckon him to the chase the beautiful boundary of twilight had drawn his desires towards Elfland next moment his hounds had turned him another way it is hard for any of us to avoid the grip of external things for some moments Orion stood thinking among his hounds trying to decide which way to turn trying to weigh the easy lazy ages that hung over untroubled lawns and the listless glories of Elfland with the good brown plow and the pasture and the little hedges of earth but the hounds were around him nosing crying looking into his eyes speaking to him if tales and paws and large brown eyes can speak saying away away to think amongst all that tumult was impossible he could not decide and the hounds had it their way and he and they went together home over the fields we know end of chapter 21 on the verge of earth chapter 22 of the king of Elfland's daughter by Lord Dunseney this Librivox recording is in the public domain chapter 22 Orion appoints a whip and many times again while the winter wore away Orion went back again with his hounds to that wonderful boundary and waited there while the earthly twilight faded and sometimes saw the unicorns come through craftily silently when our fields were still great beautiful shapes of white but he brought back no more horns to the castle of Earl nor hunted again across the fields we know for the unicorns when they came moved into our fields no more than a few bare paces and Orion was not able to cut one off again once when he tried he nearly lost all his hounds some being already within the boundary when he beat them back with his whip another two yards in the sound of his earthly horn could never more have reached them it was this that taught him that for all the power that he had over his hands and even though in that power was something of magic yet one man without help could not hunt hounds so near to that edge over which if one should stray it would be lost forever after this Orion watched the lads at their games in evenings at Earl till he had marked three that in speed and strength seemed to excel the rest and two of these he chose to be whippers in he went to the cottage of one of them when the games were over just as the lights were lit a tall lad with great speed of limb the lad and his mother were there and both rose from the table as the father opened the door and Orion came in and cheerily Orion asked the lad if he would come with the hounds and carry a whip and prevent any from straying and a silence fell all knew that Orion hunted strange beasts and took his hounds to strange places none there had ever stepped beyond the fields we know the lad feared to pass beyond them his parents were full of loath to let him go at length the silence was broken by excuses and muttered sentences and unfinished things and Orion saw that the lad would not come he went then to the house of the other there were two the candles were lit and the table spread there were two old women there and the lad at their supper and to them Orion told how he needed a whipper in and asked the lad to come their fear in that house was more marked the old women cried out together that the lad was too young that he could not run so well as he used to that he was not worthy of so great an honor that dogs never would trust him and much more than this they said till they became incoherent Orion left them and went to the house of the third it was the same here the elders had desired magic for Earl but the actual touch of it or the mere thought of it perturbed the folk in their cottages none would spare their sons to go whether they knew not to have dealings with things that rumor like a large and sinister shadow had so grimly magnified in the hamlet of Earl so Orion went alone with his hands when he took them up from the valley and went eastwards over our fields where earth's folks would not go it was late in the month of March and Orion slept in his tower when there came up to him from far below shrill and clear in the early morning the sound of his peacocks calling the bleat of sheep far up on the downs came to wake him to and cocks were crowing clamorously for spring was singing through the sunny air he rose and went to his hands and soon early laborers saw him go up the steep side of the valley with all his hands behind him tan patches against the green and so he passed over the fields we know and so he was come before the sun had set to that strip of land from which all men turned away where westward stood men's houses among fields of fat brown clay and eastward the elfin mountains shown over the boundary of twilight he went with his hands along the last hedge down to the boundary and no sooner had he come there than he saw a fox quite close slipped out of the twilight between earth and elfland and run a few yards along the edge of our fields and then slip back again and of this Orion thought nothing for it is the way of the fox thus to haunt the edge of elfland and to return again to our fields it is thus that he brings us something of which none of our city's guests but soon the fox appeared again out of the twilight and ran a little way and was back in the luminous barrier once more then Orion watched to see what the fox was doing and yet again it appeared in the fields we know and dodged back into the twilight and the hounds watched to and showed no longing to hunt it for they had tasted fabulous blood Orion walked along beside the twilight in the direction in which the fox was going with his curiosity growing the more that the fox dodged in and out of our fields the hounds followed him slowly and soon lost interest in what the fox was doing and all at once the curious thing was explained for Luralu all of a sudden skipped through the twilight and that troll appeared in our fields it was with him that the fox was playing a man said Luralu allowed to himself or to his comrade the fox speaking in troll talk and all at once Orion remembered the troll that had come into his nursery with his little charm against time and had leapt from shelf to shelf and across the ceiling and enraged Zerunderel who had feared for her crockery the troll he said also in troll talk for his mother had murmured it to him as a child when she told him the tales of the trolls and their age old songs who is this that knows troll talk said Luralu and Orion told his name and this meant nothing to Luralu but he squatted down and rummaged a little while and what answers in trolls to our memory and during his ransacking of much trivial remembrance that had eluded the destruction of time in the fields we know and the listless apathy of unchanging ages in Elfland he came all at once on his remembrance of Earl and looked at Orion again and began to cogitate and at this same moment Orion told to the troll the august name of his mother at once Luralu made what is known amongst the trolls of Elfland as the abasement of the five points that is to say he bowed himself to the ground on his two knees his two hands and his forehead then he sprang up again with a high leap into the air for reverence rested not on his spirit long what are you doing in men's fields said Orion playing said Luralu what do you do in Elfland watch time that would not amuse me said Orion you've never done it said Luralu you cannot watch time in the fields of men why not it moves too fast Orion pondered a while on this but could make nothing of it because never having gone from the fields we know he knew only one pace of time and so had no means of comparison how many years have gone over you asked the troll since we spoke in Earl years said Orion a hundred guess the troll nearly 12 said Orion and you it is still today and Orion would not speak any more of time for he cared not for the discussion of a subject of which he appeared to know less than a common troll will you carry a whip he said and run with my hounds when we hunt the unicorn over the fields we know Luralu looked searchingly at the hounds watching their brown eyes the hounds turned doubtful noses towards the troll and sniffed inquiringly they are dogs said the troll as though that were against them yet they have pleasant thoughts will you carry the whip then said Orion hmm yes yes said the troll so Orion gave him his own whip there and then and blew his horn and went away from the twilight and told Luralu to keep the hounds together and to bring them on behind and the hounds were uneasy at the sight of the troll and sniffed and sniffed again but could not make him human and were loath to obey a creature no larger than them they ran up to him through curiosity and ran away in disgust and struggled through disobedience but the boundless resources of that nimble troll were not thus easily thwarted and the whip went suddenly up looking three times as large in that tiny hand and the lash flew forward and cracked on the tip of a hounds nose the hound yelped then looked astonished and the rest were uneasy still they must have thought it an accident but again the last shot forward and cracked on another nose tip and the hounds saw then that it was not chance that guided those stinging shots but a deadly unerring eye and from that time on they reverenced Luralu although he never smelled human so went Orion and his pack of hounds in the late evening homewards and no sheep dog kept the flock on wolf haunted world safer or closer than Luralu kept the pack he was on each flank or behind them wherever a straggler was and could leap right over the pack from side to side and the pale blue elven mountains faded from view before Orion had gone from the frontier as much as a hundred paces for their gloomless peaks were hid by the earthly darkness that was deepening wide over the fields we know homeward they went and soon there appeared above them the wandering multitude of our earth scene stars Luralu now and then looked up to marvel at them as we have all done at some time but for the most part he fixed his attention on the hounds for now that he was in earthly fields he was concerned with things of earth and never one hound loitered but that Luralu's whip would touch him with its tiny explosion perhaps on the tip of its tail scattering a little dust of fragments of hair and whip cord and the hound would yelp and run into the others and all the pack would know that another of those unerring shots had gone home a certain grace with the whip a certain sureness of aim comes when a life is devoted to the carrying of a whip amongst towns comes say in 20 years and sometimes it runs in families and that is better than years of practice but neither years of practice nor the want of the whip in the blood can give the certain aim that one thing can and that one thing is magic the hurl of the lash as immediate as the sudden turn of an eye its flash to a chosen spot as direct as sight were not of this earth and though the cracks of that whip might have seemed to passing men to be no more than the work of an earthly huntsman yet not a hound but knew that there was in it more than this a thing from beyond our fields there was a touch of dawn in the sky when Orion saw again the village of Earl sending up pillars of smoke from early fires below him and came with his hounds and his new whipper in down the side of the valley early windows winked at him as he went down the street and came in the silence and chill to the empty kennels and when the hounds were all curled up on their straw he found a place for Louraloo a moldering loft in which were sacks and a few heaps of hay from a pigeon loft just beyond it some of the pigeons had strayed and dwelt all along the rafters there Orion left Louraloo and went to his tower cold with the want of sleep and food and weary as he would not have been if he had found a unicorn but the noise of the trolls chatter when he had found him on the frontier had made it useless to watch for those wary beasts that evening Orion slept but the troll in the moldering loft sat long on his bundle of hay observing the ways of time he saw through cracks and old shutters the stars go moving by he saw them pale he saw the other light spread he saw the wonder of sunrise he felt the gloom of the loft all full of the coup of the pigeons he watched their restless ways he heard wild birds stir in near elms and men abroad in the morning and horses and carts and cows and everything changing as the morning grew a land of change the decay of the boards in the loft and the moss outside in the mortar and old lumber moldering away all seemed to tell the same story change and nothing abiding he thought of the age old calm that held the beauty of Elfland and then he thought of the tribe of trolls he had left wondering what they would think of the ways of earth and the pigeons were suddenly terrified by wild peels of Lurulu's laughter end of chapter 22 Orion appoints a whip chapter 23 of the king of Elfland's daughter by Lord Dunseney this Learvox recording is in the public domain chapter 23 Lurulu watches the restlessness of earth as the day wore on and still Orion slept heavily and even the hounds lay silent in their kennels a little way off and the coming and going of men and cards below had nothing to do with the troll Lurulu began to feel lonely so thick are the brown trolls in the dels they inhabit that none feels lonely there they sit there silent enjoying the beauty of Elfland or their own impudent thoughts or at rare moments when Elfland is stirred from its deep natural calm their laughter floods the dels they were no more lonely there than rabbits are but in all the fields of earth there was only one troll and that troll felt lonely the door of the pigeon loft was open some 10 feet from the door of the hay loft and some six feet higher a ladder led to the hay loft clamped to the wall with iron but nothing at all communicated with the pigeon loft lest cats should go that way from it came the murmur of abundant life which attracted the lonely troll the jump from door to door was nothing to him and he landed in the pigeon loft in his usual attitude with a look of impudent welcome upon his face but the pigeons poured away on a roar of wings through their windows and the troll was still lonely he liked the pigeon loft as soon as he looked at it he liked the signs that he saw of teeming life the hundred little houses of slate and cluster the myriad feathers and the musty smell he liked the age old ease of the sleepy loft and the huge spider webs that draped the corners holding years and years of dust he did not know what cob webs were never having seen them in Elfland but he admired their workmanship the age of the pigeon loft that had filled the corners with cob webs and broken patches of plaster away from the wall showing ruddy bricks beneath and laid bare the laughs in the roof and even the slates beyond gave to the dreamy place and air not unlike to the calm of Elfland but below it and all around lurl who noted the restlessness of earth even the sunlight through the little ventilation holes that shown on the wall moved presently there came a roar of the pigeon's returning wings and the crash of their feet on the slate roof above him but they did not yet come in again to their homes he saw the shadow of this roof cast on another roof below him and the restless shadows of the pigeons along the edge he observed the gray lichen covering most of the lower roof and the neat round patches of newer yellow lichen on the shapeless mess of the gray he heard a duck call out slowly six or seven times he heard a man come into the stable below him and lead a horse away a hound woke and cried out some jackdaws disturbed from some tower passed over high in the air with boisterous voices he saw big clouds go hurrying along the tops of far hills he heard a wild pigeon call from a neighboring tree some men went by talking and after a while he perceived to his astonishment what he had had no leisure to notice on his previous visit to Earl that even the shadows of houses moved for he saw that the shadow of the roof under which he sat had moved a little on the roof below over the gray and yellow lichen perpetual movement and perpetual change he contrasted it in wonder with the deep calm of his home where the moment moved more slowly than the shadows of houses here and did not pass until all the content with which a moment is stored had been drawn from it by every creature in Elfland and then with a whoring and whining of wings the pigeons began to come back they came from the tops of the battlements of the highest tower of Earl on which they had sheltered a while feeling guarded by its great height and its hoary age from this strange new thing that they feared they came back and sat on the sills of their little windows and looked in with one eye at the troll some were all white but the gray ones had rainbow colored necks that were scarcely less lovely than those colors that made this lender of Elfland and lure Lou as they watched him suspiciously where he sat still in a corner longed for their dainty companionship and when these restless children of the restless air and earth still would not enter he tried to soothe them with the restlessness to which they were accustomed and in which he believed all folk that dwelt in our fields delighted he leaped up suddenly he sprang on to a slight built house for a pigeon high on the wall he darted across to the next wall and back to the floor but there was an outcry of wings and the pigeons were gone and gradually he learned that the pigeons preferred stillness their wings roared back soon to the roof their feet thumped and clicked on the slates again but not for a long time did they return to their homes and the lonely troll looked out of their windows observing the ways of earth he saw a water wagtail light on the roof below him he watched it until it went and then two sparrows came to some corn that had been dropped on the ground he noted them too each was an entirely new genus to the troll and he showed no more interest as he watched every movement of the sparrows than should we if we met with an utterly unknown bird when the sparrows were gone the duck quacked again so deliberately that another 10 minutes passed while lurelou tried to interpret what it was saying and though he desisted then because other interests attracted him he felt sure it was something important then the jackdaws tumbled by again but their voices sounded frivolous and lurelou did not give them much attention to the pigeons on the roof that would not come home he listened long not trying to interpret what they were saying yet satisfied with the case as the pigeons put it feeling that they told the story of life and that all was well and he felt as he listened to the low talk of the pigeons that earth must have been going on for a long time beyond the roofs the tall trees rose up leafless except for evergreen oaks and some laurels and pines and hues and the ivy that climbed up trunks but the buds of the beach were getting ready to burst and the sunlight glittered and flashed on the buds and leaves and the ivy and laurel shone a breeze passed by and some smoke drifted from some near chimney far away lurelou saw a huge gray wall of stone that circled a garden all asleep in the sun and clear in the sunlight he saw a butterfly sail by and swoop when it came to the garden and then he saw two peacocks go slowly past he saw the shadow of the roofs darkening the lower part of the shining trees he heard a cockroach crow somewhere and a hound spoke out again and then a sudden shower rained on the roofs and at once the pigeons wanted to come home they alighted outside their little windows again and all looked sideways at the troll lurelou kept very still this time and after a while the pigeons though they saw that he was by no means one of themselves agreed that he did not belong to the tribe of cat and returned at last to the street of their tiny houses and there continued their age-old tale and lurelou longed to repay them with curious tales of the trolls the treasured legends of Elfland but he found that he could not make them understand troll talk so he sat and listened to them talking till it seemed to him they were trying to lull the restlessness of earth and thought that they might by drowsy incantation be putting some spell against time through which it could not come to harm their nests for the power of time was not made clear to him yet and he knew not yet that nothing in our fields has the strength to hold out against time the very nests of the pigeons were built on the ruins of old nests on a solid layer of crumbled things that time had made in that pigeon loft as outside it the strata are made from the ruins of hills so vast and ceaseless a ruin was not yet clear to the troll for his sharp understanding had only been meant to guide him through the lull and the calm of Elfland and he busied himself with a tinier consideration for seeing that the pigeons seemed now amicable he leapt back to his hay loft and returned with a bundle of hay which he put down in a corner to make himself comfortable there when the pigeons saw all this movement they looked at him sideways again jerking their necks clearly but in the end decided to accept the troll as a lodger and he curled up on his hay and listened to the history of earth which he believed the tale of the pigeons to be though he did not know their language but the day wore on and hunger came on the troll far sooner than ever it did in Elfland where even when he was hungry he had no more to do than to reach up and take the berries that hung low from the trees that grew in the forest that bordered the dels of the trolls and it is because the trolls eat them whenever hunger comes on them which it rarely does that these curious fruits are called troll berries he leaped now from the pigeon loft and scampered abroad looking all around for troll berries and there were no berries at all for there is but one season for berries as we know well it is one of the tricks of time but that all the berries on earth should pass away for a period was to the troll too astounding to be comprehended at all he was all among farm buildings and presently he saw a rat humping himself slowly along through a dark shed he knew nothing of rat talk but it is a curious thing that when any two folk are after the same thing each somehow knows what the other is after at once as soon as he sees him we are all partially blind to other folks occupations but when we meet anyone engaged in our own pursuit then somehow we soon seem to know without being told at the moment that lure loose saw the rat in the shed he seemed to know that it was looking for food so he followed the rat quietly and soon the rat came up to a sack of oats and to open that took him no longer than it goes to shell a row of peas and soon he was eating the oats are they good said the troll and troll talk the rat looked at him dubiously noting his resemblance to man and on the other hand his unlikeness to dogs but on the whole the rat was dissatisfied and after a long look he turned away in silence and went out of the shed then lure lou ate the oats and found they were good when he had had enough oats the troll returned to the pigeon loft and sat a long while there at one of the little windows looking out across the roof set the strange new ways of time and the shadows upon the trees went higher and the glitter was gone from the laurels and all the lower leaves and then the light of the ivy leaves and the holem oaks turned from silvery to pale gold and the shadow went higher still all the world full of change an old man with a narrow long white beard came slowly to the kennels and opened the door and went in and fed the hounds with meat that he brought from a shed all the evening rang with the hounds outcry and presently the old man came out again and his slow departure seemed to the watchful troll yet more of the restlessness of earth and then a man came slowly leading a horse to the stable below the pigeon loft and went away again and left the horse eating the shadows were higher now on walls and roofs and trees only the treetops in the tip of a high belfry had the light any longer the ruddy buds on high beaches were glowing now like dull rubies and a great serenity came in the pale blue sky and small clouds leisurely floating there turned to a flaming orange past which the rooks went homewards to some clump of trees under the downs it was a peaceful scene and yet to the troll as he watched in the musty loft amongst generations of feathers the noise of the rooks and their multitude thronging the sky the dull continual sound of the horse eating the leisurely sound now and then of homeward feet and the slow shutting of gates seemed to be proof that nothing ever rested in all the fields we know and the sleeping lazy village that dreamed in the veil of earl and that knew no more of other lands than their folk knew of its story seemed to that simple troll to be a vortex of restlessness and now the sunlight was gone from the highest places and a moon a few days old was shining over the pigeon loft out of sight of lure loose window but filling the air with a strange new tint and all these changes bewildered him so that he thought a while of returning to Elfland but the whim came again to his mind to astonish the other trolls and while this whim was on him he slipped down from the loft and went to find Orion end of chapter 23 luraloo watches the restlessness chapter 24 of the king of Elfland's daughter by Lord Dunsaney this LibriVox recording is in the public domain chapter 24 luraloo speaks of earth and the ways of men the troll had found Orion in his castle and had laid his plan before him briefly the plan was to have more whips for the pack for one alone could not always guard every hound from stray when they went to the boundary of twilight where about a few yards away lay spaces from which if a hound ever came home as lost towns do at evening it would come home all worn and bedraggled with age for its half hour of straying each hound said luraloo should have its troll to guide it and to run with it when it hunted and be its servant when it came home hungry and muddy and Orion had seen at once the unequaled advantage of having each hound controlled by an alert of tiny intelligence and had told luraloo to go for the trolls so now while the hounds were sleeping on boards in a doggie mass in each of their kennels for the dogs and the bitches dwelt each in a separate house the troll was scurrying over the fields we know through twilight trembling on the verge of moonlight with his face turned toward Elfland he passed a white farmhouse with a little window towards him that shone bright yellow out of a wall pale blue with a tint that it had from the moon two dogs barked at him and rushed out to chase him and this troll would have tricked them and mocked them one any other day but now his mind was full to the brim with his mission and he heated them no more than a thistle down would have heated them on a windy day of September and went on bouncing over the tips of the grasses till the pursuing dogs were far behind and pending and long before the stars had paled from any touch of the dawn he came to the barrier that divides our fields from the home of such things as him and leaping forward out of the earthly night and high through the barrier of twilight he arrived on all fours on his natal soil in the ageless day of Elfland through the gorgeous beauty of that heavy air that outshines our legs at sunrise and leaves all our colors pale he scampered full of the news he had with which to astonish his kith he came to the moors of the trolls where they dwell in their queer habitations and uttered the squeaks as he went whereby the trolls summoned their folk and he came to the forest in which the trolls have made dwellings in bowls of enormous trees and there be trolls of the forest and trolls of the moor two tribes that are friendly and kin and there he uttered again the squeaks of the trolls summons and soon there was a rustling of flowers throughout the deeps of the forest as though all four winds were blowing and the rustling grew and grew and the trolls appeared and sat down one by one near Louraloo and still the rustling grew troubling the whole wood and the brown trolls poured on and sat down around Louraloo from many a tree bowl and hollows thick with fern they came tumbling in and from the high thin gomak safar on the moors to name as are named in Elfland those queer habitations for which there is no earthly name the odd gray cloths like material draped tentwise about a pole they gathered about him in the dim but glittering light that floated amongst the fronds of those magical trees whose soaring trunks out distanced our eldest prines and shown on the spikes of cacti of which our world little dreams and when the brown mass of the trolls was all gathered there till the floor of the forest looked as though an autumn had come to Elfland strayed out of the fields we know and when all the rustling had ceased and the silence was heavy again as it had been for ages Louraloo spoke to them telling them tales of time never before had such tales been heard in Elfland trolls had appeared before in the fields we know it had come back wondering but Louraloo amongst the houses of Earl had been in the midst of men and time as he told the trolls moved in the village with more wonderful speed than ever it did in the grass of the fields of earth he told how the light moved he told of the shadows he told how the air was white and bright and pale he told how for a little while earth began to grow like Elfland with a kinder light in the beginning of colors and then just as one thought of home the light would blink away and the colors be gone he told of stars he told of cows and goats and the moon three horned creatures that he found curious he had found more wonder in earth than we remember though we also saw these things once for the first time and out of the wonder he felt at the ways of the fields we know he made many a tale that held the inquisitive trolls and gripped them silent upon the floor of the forest as though they were indeed a fall of brown leaves in October that a frost had suddenly bound they heard of chimneys and carts for the first time with a thrill they heard of windmills they listened to spellbound to the ways of men and every now and then as when he told of hats they ran through the forest a wave of little yelps of laughter then he said that they should see hats and spades and dog kennels and look through casements and to get to know the windmill and a curiosity arose in the forest among that brown mass of trolls for their race is profoundly inquisitive and Luralu stopped not here relying on curiosity alone to draw them from elf land into the fields we know but he drew them also with another emotion for he spoke of the haughty reserved high glittering unicorns who tarry to speak to trolls no more than cattle when they drink in pools of ours trouble to speak to frogs they all knew their haunts they should watch their ways then tell of these things to man and the outcome of it would be that they should hunt the unicorns with nothing less than dogs now however slight their knowledge of dogs the fear of dogs is as i have said universal amongst dog creatures that run and they laughed gustily to think of the unicorns being hunted with dogs thus Luralu lured them toward earth with spite and curiosity and knew that he was succeeding and inwardly chuckled till he was well warmed within for amongst the trolls none goes in higher repute than one that is able to astound the others or even to show them any whimsical thing or to trick or perplex them humorously Luralu had earth to show whose ways are considered amongst those able to judge to be fully as quaint and whimsical as the curious observer could wish then up spake a grizzled toll one that had crossed too often earth's border of twilight to watch the ways of men and while watching their ways too long time had grizzled him shall we go he said from a woods that all folk know and the pleasant ways of the land to see a new thing and be swept away by time and there was a murmur among the trolls that hummed away through the forest and died out as on earth the sound of beetles going home is it not today he said but there they call it today yet none knows what it is come back through the border again to look at it and it is gone time is raging there like the dogs that stray over our frontier barking or frightened and angry and wild to be home it is even so said the trolls though they did not know but this was a troll whose words carried weights in the forest let us keep today said that weighty troll while we have it and not be lured where today is too easily lost for every time men lose it their hair grows whiter their limbs grow weaker and their faces sadder and they are nearer still to tomorrow so gravely he spoke when he uttered that word tomorrow that the brown trolls were frightened what happens tomorrow one said they die said the grizzled troll and the others dig in their earth and put them in as I have seen them do and then they go to heaven as I have heard them tell and a shutter went through the trolls far over the floor of the forest and lure Lou who had sat angry all this while to hear the weighty trolls speak ill of earth where he would have them come to astonish them with its quaintness spoke now in defense of heaven heaven is a good place he blurted hotly though any tales he had heard of it were few all the blessed are there the grizzled troll replied and it is full of angels what chance would a troll have there the angels would catch him for they say on earth that the angels all have wings they would catch a troll and smack him forever and ever and all the brown trolls in the forest wept we are not so easily caught lure Lou said they have wings said the grizzled troll and all were sorrowful and shook their heads for they knew the speed of wings the birds of elfland mostly soared on the heavy air and eyed ever lustingly the fabulous beauty which to them was food and nest and of which they sometimes sang but trolls playing along the border peering into the fields we know had seen the darts and the swoop of earthly birds wondering at them as we wonder at heavenly things and knew that if wings were after him a poor troll would scarcely escape well a day said the trolls the grizzled trolls said no more and had no need to for the forest was full of their sadness as they sat thinking of heaven and feared that they soon might come there if they dare to inhabit earth and lure Lou argued no more it was not a time for argument for the trolls were too sad for reason so he spoke gravely to them of solemn things uttering learned words and standing in reverent attitude now nothing rejoices the trolls as learning does and solemnity and they will laugh for hours at a reverent attitude or any semblance of gravity thus he won them back again to the levity that is their natural mood and when this was accomplished he spoke again of earth telling whimsical stories of the ways of man i do not wish to write the things that lure Lou said of man lest i should hurt my reader's self-esteem and thereby injure him or her whom i seek only to entertain but all the forest rippled and squealed with laughter and the grizzled troll was able to say no more to check the curiosity which was growing in all that multitude to see who it was that lived in houses and had a hat immediately above him and a chimney higher up and spoke to dogs and would not speak to pigs and whose gravity was funnier than anything trolls could do and the whim was on all those trolls to go at once to earth and see pigs and carts and windmills and laugh at men and lure Lou who had told a rhyme that he would bring a score of trolls was hard set to keep the whole brown mess from coming so quickly changed the moods and whims of the trolls had he let them all have their way there would be no trolls left in elf land for even the grizzled troll had changed his mind with the rest fifty he chose and led them towards earth's perilous frontier and away they scurried out of the gloom of the forest as a whirl of brown oak leaves scurries on days of november's worst end of chapter 24 lure Lou speaks of earth and the ways of men chapter 25 of the king of elf land's daughter by lord dunsaney this libra vox recording is in the public domain chapter 25 lyrazel remembers the fields we know as the trolls scurried earthwards to laugh at the ways of man lyrazel stirred where she sat on her father's knee whose grave and calm on his throne of mist and ice had hardly moved for 12 of our earthly years she sighed and the sigh rippled over the fells of dream and lightly troubled elf land and the dawns and the sunsets and twilight and the pale blue glow of stars that are blended together forever to be the light of elf land felt a faint touch of sorrow and all their radiance shook for the magic that caught these lights and the spells that bound them together to illumine forever the land that owes no allegiance to time were not so strong as a sorrow rising dark from a royal mood of a princess of the elvish line she sighed for through her long content and across the column of elf land there had floated a thought of earth so that in the midmost splendors of elf land of which song can barely tell she called to mind the common cow slips and many a trivial weed of the fields we know and walking in those fields she saw infancy o' ryan upon the other side of the boundary of twilight remote from her by she knew not what waste of years and the magical glories of elf land and its beauty beyond our dreaming and the deep deep calm in which ages slept unhurt unhurried by time and the art of her father that guarded the least of the lilies from fading and the spells by which he made daydreams and yearnings true held her fancy no longer from roving nor contented her anymore and so her sigh blew over the magical land and slightly troubled the flowers and her father felt her sorrow and knew that it troubled the flowers and knew that it shook the calm that lay upon elv land though no more than a bird would shake a regal curtain fluttering against its folds when wandering lost upon a summer's night and though he knew too it was but for earth that she sorrowed preferring some mundane way to the midmost glories of elv land as she sat with him on the throne that may only be told of in song yet even this moved nothing in his magical heart but compassion as we might pity a child who in feigns that to us seems sacred might be found to be sighing for some trivial thing and the more that earth seemed to him unworthy of sorrow being soon come soon gone the helpless prey of time an evanescent appearance seen off the coasts of elv land too brief for the graver care of a mind weighted with magic the more he pitted his child for her errant whim that had rashly wandered here and become entangled alas with the things that pass away ah well she was not content he felt no wrath against earth that had lured her fancies away she was not content with the innermost splendors of elv land but she sighed for something more his tremendous art should give it so he raised his right arm up from the thing whereon it rested a part of his mystical throne that was made of music and mirage he raised his right arm up and a hush fell over elv land the great leaves ceased from their murmur through the green deep of the forest siland as carven marble were fabulous bird and monster and the brown trolls scampering earthwards all halted suddenly hushed then out of the hush rose little murmurs of yearning little sounds as of longing for things that no songs can say sounds like the voices of tears if each little salt drop could live and be given a voice to tell of the ways of grief then all these little rumors danced gravely into a melody that the master of elv land called up with his magical hand and the melody told of dawn coming up over infinite marshes far away upon earth or some planet that elv land did not know growing slowly out of deep darkness and starlight and bitter cold powerless chili and cheerless scarce overcoming the stars obscured by shadows of thunder and hated by all things dark enduring growing and glowing until through the gloom of the marshes and across the chill of the air came all in a glorious moment the splendor of color and dawn went onward with this triumphant thing and the blackest clouds turned slowly rose and rode in a sea of lilac and the darkest rocks that had guarded night shone now with a golden glow and when his melody could say no more of this wonder that had forever been foreign to all the elvish dominions then the king moved his hand where he held it high as one might beckon to birds and called up a dawn over elv land luring it from some planet of those that are nearest the sun and fresh and fair though it came from beyond the born of geography and out of an age long lost and beyond histories can a dawn glowed upon elv land that had no no dawn before and the dew drops of elv land slung from the bended tips of the grasses gathered in that dawn to their tiny spheres and held their shining and wonderful that glory of skies such as ours the first they had ever seen and the dawn grew strangely and slowly over those unwanted lands pouring upon them the colors that day after day our daffodils and day after day our wild roses through all the weeks of their season drink deep with voluptuous assemblies in utterly silent riot and a gleam that was new to the forest appeared on the long strange leaves and shadows unknown to elv land slipped out from the monstrous tree bowls and stole over grasses that had not dreamed of their advent and the spires of that palace perceiving a wonder less lovely indeed than they yet knew that the stranger was magic and uttered an ensuing gleam from their sacred windows that flashed over elvish fells like an inspiration and mingled a flush of rose with the blue of the elven mountains and watchers on wonderful peaks that gazed from their crags for ages lest from earth or from any star should come a stranger to elvland saw the first blush of the sky as it felt the coming of dawn and raised their horns and blew that call that warned elvland against a stranger and the guardians of savage valleys lifted horns of fabulous bulls and blew the call again in the dark of their awful precipices and echo carried it on from the monstrous marble faces of rocks that repeated the call to all their barbarous company so elvland rang with the warning that a strange thing troubled her coasts and to the land thus expectant thus watchful with magical sabers elate along lonely crags summoned from blackened scabbards by those horns to repel an enemy dawn came now wide now golden the old old wonder we know and the palace with every marvel and with all its charms and enchantments flashed out of its ice blue radiance a glory of welcome or rivalry adding to elvland a splendor of which only song may say it was then that the elven king moved his hand again where he held it high by the crystal spars of his crown and waved away through the walls of his magical palace and showed to lyrizel the unmeasured leagues of his kingdom and she saw by magic for so long as his fingers made that spell the dark green forests and all the fells of elvland and the solemn pale blue mountains and the valleys that weird folk guarded and all the creatures of fable that crept in the dark of huge leaves and the riotous trolls as they scampered away towards earth she saw the watchers lift their horns to their lips while they're flashed a light on the horns that was the proudest triumph of the hidden art of her father the light of a dawn lured over unthinkable spaces to appease his daughter and comfort her whims and recall her fancies from earth she saw the lawns where on time had idled for centuries withering not one bloom of all the boundary of flowers and the new light coming upon the lawns she loved through the heavy color of elvland gave them a beauty that they had never known until dawn made this boundless journey to meet the enchanted twilight and all the while they're glowed and flashed and glittered those palace spires of which only song may tell from that bewildering beauty he turned his eyes away and looked in his daughter's face to see the wonder with which she would welcome her glorious home as her fancies came back from the fields of age and death whither alas they had wondered and though her eyes were turned to the elven mountains whose mystery and whose blue they strangely matched yet as the elf king looked in those eyes for which alone he had lured the dawn so far from its natural courses he saw in their magical deeps a thought of earth a thought of earth though he had lifted his arm and made a mystical sign with all his might to bring a wonder to elvland that should content her with home and all his dominions had exalted in this and the watchers on awful crags had blown strange calls and monster and insect and bird and flower had rejoiced with a new joy and there in the center of elvland his daughter thought of earth had he shown her any wonder but dawn he might have lured home that fancy but in bringing this exotic beauty to elvland to blend with its ancient wonders he awoke memories of mourning coming over fields that he knew not and lyrizo played in fancy in fields once more with a ryan where grew the unenchanted earthly flowers amongst the english grasses is it not enough he said in his strange rich magical voice and pointed across his wide lands with the fingers that summoned wonder she sighed it was not enough and sorrow came upon that enchanted king he had only his daughter and she sighed for earth there had been once a queen that had reigned with him over elvland but she was mortal and being mortal died for she would often stray to the hills of earth to see the may again or to see the beachwoods in autumn and though she stayed but a day when she came to the fields we know and was back in the palace beyond the twilight before our son had set yet time found her whenever she came and so she wore away and soon she died in elvland for she was only immortal and wondering elves had buried her as one buries the daughters of men and now the king was all alone with his daughter and she had just sighed for earth sorrow was on him but out of the dark of that sorrow arose as often with men and went up singing out of his mourning mind an inspiration gleaming with laughter and joy he stood up then and raised up both his arms and his inspiration broke over elvland in music and with the tide of that music there went like the strength of the sea an impulse to rise and dance which none in elvland resisted gravely he waved his arms and the music floated from them and all that stalked through the forest and all that crept upon leaves all that leaped among craggy heights or browsed upon acres of lilies all things in all manner of places yay the sentinel guarding his presence the lonely mountain watchers and the trolls as they scampered towards earth all danced to a tune that was made of the spirit of spring arrived on an earthly morning amongst happy herds of goats and the trolls were very near to the frontier now their faces already puckered to laugh at the ways of men they were hurrying with all the eagerness of small vain things to be over the twilight that lies between elvland and earth now they went forward no longer but only glided in circles and intricate spirals dancing some such dance as the gnats in summer evenings dance over the fields we know and grave monsters of fable in deeps of the ferny forest danced minuets that witches had made of their whims and their laughter long ago long ago in their youth before cities had come to the world and the trees of the forest heavily lifted slow roots out of the ground and swayed upon them uncouthly and then danced as on monstrous claws and the insects danced on huge waving leaves and in the dark of long caverns weird things in enchanted seclusion rose out of their age-long sleep and danced in the damp and beside the wizard king stood swaying slightly to the rhythm that had set dancing all magical things the princess lyrizel with that faint gleam on her face had shown from a hidden smile for she secretly smiled forever at the power of her great beauty and all in a sudden moment the elf king raised one hand higher and held it high and stilled all that dancing in elvland and gripped by a sudden awe all magical things and sent over elvland a melody all made of notes he had caught from wandering inspirations that sing and stray through limpid blue beyond our earthly coasts and all the land lay deep in the magic of that strange music and the wild things that earth had guessed at and the things hidden even from legend were moved to sing age-old songs that their memories had forgotten and fabulous things of the air were lured downwards out of great heights and emotions unknown and unthought of troubled the calm of elvland the flood of music beat with wonderful waves against the slopes of the grave blue elven mountains till their precipices uttered strange bronze-like echoes on earth no noise was heard of music or echo not a note came through the narrow border of twilight not a sound not a murmur elsewhere those notes ascended and passed like rare strange moths through all the fields of heaven and hummed like untraceable memories about the souls of the blessed and the angels heard that music but were forbidden to envy it and though it came not to earth and though never our fields have heard the music of elvland yet there were then as there have been in every age less despair should overtake the peoples of earth those that make songs for the need of our grief and our laughter and even they heard never a note from elvland across the border of twilight that kills their sound but they felt in their minds the dance of those magical notes and wrote them down and earthly instruments played them then and never till then have we heard the music of elvland for a while the elf king held all things that owed him allegiance and all their desires and wonders and fears and dreams floating drowsy on tides of music that was made of no sounds of earth but rather of that dim substance in which the planets swim with many another marvel that only magic knows and then as all elvland was drinking the music in as our earth drinks in soft rain he turned again to his daughter with that in his eyes that said what land is so fair as ours and she turned towards him to say here is my home forever her lips were parted to say it and love was shining in the blue of her elven eyes she was stretching her fair hands out towards her father when they heard the sound of the horn of a tired hunter wearily blowing by the border of earth end of chapter 25 lyriezel remembers the fields we know