 Preface and Chapter 1 of The King of Elfland's Daughter by Lord Donsaney, first published in 1924. This audio book is a LibriVox offering read by Michelle Fry, Baton Rouge, Louisiana. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, visit the website at LibriVox.org. The book begins with a short preface by Lord Donsaney. I hope that no suggestion of any strange land that may be conveyed by the title will scare readers away from this book. For though some chapters do indeed tell of Elfland, in the greater part of them there is no more to be shown than the face of the fields we know, and ordinary English woods and a common village and a valley, a good twenty or twenty-five miles from the border of Elfland. And now, Chapter 1, The Plan of the Parliament of Earl In their ruddy jackets of leather that reached to their knees, the men of Earl appeared before their lord, a stately white-haired man in his long red room. He leaned on his caravan chair and heard their spokesman, and thus their spokesman said, For seven hundred years the chiefs of your race have ruled as well, and their deeds are remembered by the minor minstrels, living on yet in their little tinkling songs, and yet the generations stream away, and there is no new thing. What would you, said the lord? We would be ruled by a magic lord, they said. So be it, said the lord. It is five hundred years since my people have spoken thus in parliament, and it shall always be as your parliament saith. You have spoken, so be it. And he raised his hand and blessed them, and they went. They went back to their ancient crafts, to the fitting of iron, to the hooves of horses, to work upon leather, to tending flowers, to ministering to the rugged needs of earth. They followed the ancient ways and looked for a new thing. But the old lord sent a word to his eldest son, bidding him come before him. And very soon the young man stood before him in that same caravan chair from which he had not moved, where light growing late from high windows showed the aged eyes looking far into the future beyond the old lord's time. And seated there he gave his son his commandment. Go forth, he said, before these days of mine are over, and therefore go in haste, and go from here eastwards and past the fields we know, till you see the lands that clearly pertain to fairy, and cross their boundary, which is made of twilight, and come to that palace that is only told of in song. It is far from here, said the young man, Alveric. Yes, answered he, it is far, and further still to return, the young man said, for distances in those fields are not as here. Even so, said the father. What do you bid me do, said the son, when I come to that palace? And his father said, to wed the king of Elflin's daughter. The young man thought of her beauty and crown of ice, and the sweetness that fabulous runes had told was hers. Songs were sung of her on wild hills where tiny strawberries grew, at dusk and by early starlight, and if one sought the singer, no man was there. Sometimes only her name was sung softly over and over. Her name was Lyrazel. She was a princess of the magic line. The gods had sent their shadows to her christeny, and the fairies, too, would have gone, but that they were frightened to see on their dewy fields the long dark moving shadows of the gods, so they stayed hidden in crowds of pale pink anemones and fence-blessed Lyrazel. My people demand a magic lord to rule over them. They have chosen foolishly, the old lord said, and only the dark ones that show not their faces know all that this will bring. But we who see not follow the ancient custom and do what our people in the parliaments say. It may be some spirit of wisdom they have not known, may save them even yet. Go then with your face turned toward that light that beats from fairyland, and that faintly illumines the dusk between sunset and early stars, and this shall guide you till you come to the frontier and have passed the fields we know. Then he unbuckled a strap in a girdle of leather and gave his huge sword to his son, saying, This, that has brought our family down the ages unto this day, shall surely guard you always upon your journey, even though you fare beyond the fields we know. The young man took it, though he knew that no such sword could avail him. Near the castle of Earl there lived a lonely witch on high land near the thunder which used to roll in summer along the hills. There she dwelt by herself in a narrow cottage of thatch and roamed the high fields alone to gather the thunderbolts. Of these thunderbolts that had no earthly forging were made with suitable runes such weapons as had to parry unearthly dangers. And alone would roam this witch at certain tides of spring, taking the form of a young girl in her beauty, singing among tall flowers in gardens of Earl. She would go at the hour when hawk moths first passed from bell to bell, and of those few that had seen her was this son of the Lord of Earl. And though it was calamity to love her, though it wrapped men's thoughts away from all things true, yet the beauty of the form that was not hers had lurid him to gaze at her with deep young eyes till, whether fluttery or pity moved her, who knows that is mortal, she spared him whom her arts might have well destroyed, and changing instantly in that garden there showed him the rightful form of a deadly witch. And even then his eyes did not at once forsake her, and in the moments that his glance still lingered upon that withered shape that haunted the hollyhocks, he had her gratitude that may not be bought, nor won by any charms that Christians know. And she had beckoned to him, and he had followed, and learned from her on her thunder-haunted hill that on the day of need a sword might be made of metals not sprung from earth, with runes along it that would weft away, certainly any thrust of earthly sword, and except for three master-rooms could thwart the weapons of elf-land, as he took his father's sword the young man thought of the witch. It was scarcely dark in the valley when he left the castle of Earl, and went so swiftly up the witch's hill that a dim light lingered yet on its highest heaths, when he came near the cottage of the one that he sought, and found her burning bones at a fire in the open. To her he said that the day of his need was come, and she bade him gather thunderbolts in her garden, in the soft earth under her cabbages. And there, with eyes that saw every minute more dimly, and fingers that grew accustomed to the thunderbolts' curious surfaces, he found before darkness came down on him seventeen, and these he heaped into a silken kerchief and carried back to the witch. On the grass beside her he laid those strangers to earth. From wonderful spaces they came to her magical garden, shaken by thunder from paths that we cannot tread, and though not in themselves containing magic were well adapted to carry what magic her runes could give. She laid the thigh-bone of a materialist down and turned to those stormy wanderers. She arranged them in one straight row by the side of her fire, and over them then she toppled the burning logs and the embers, prodding them down with the ebb and stick that is the scepter of witches, until she had deeply covered those seventeen cousins of earth that had visited us from their ethereal home. She stepped back then from her fire and stretched out her hands and suddenly blasted it with a frightful rune. The flames leaped up in amazement, and what had been but a lonely fire in the night, with no more mystery than pertains to all such fires, flared suddenly into a thing that wanderers feared. As the green flames, stung by her runes, leaped up and the heat of the fire grew in tensor, she stepped backwards further and further, and merely uttered her runes a little louder the further she got from the fire. She bade alveric pile-on logs, dark logs of oak that lay there cumbering the heath, and at once as he dropped them on, the heat licked them up, and the witch went on pronouncing her louder runes, and the flames danced wild and green, and down in the embers, the seventeen, whose paths had once crossed earths when they wandered free, knew heat again as great as they had known, even on that desperate ride that had brought them here. And when alveric could no longer come near the fire, and the witch was some yards from it shouting her runes, the magical flames burned all the ashes away, and that poor tent that flared on the hill as suddenly ceased, leaving only a circle that sullenly glowed on the ground like the evil pool that glares when thermite has burst, and flat in the glow, all liquid still, lay the sword. The witch approached it and paired its edges with a sword that she drew from her thigh. Then she sat down beside it on the earth and sang to it while it cooled. Not like the runes that enraged the flames was the song she sang to the sword, she whose curses had blasted the fire till it shriveled big logs of oak, crooned now a melody like a wind in summer, blowing from wild wood gardens that no man tended, down valleys loved once by children, now lost to them but for dreams, a song of such memories as lurk and hide along the edges of oblivion, now flashing from beautiful years of glimpse of some golden moment, now passing swiftly out of remembrance again, to go back to the shades of oblivion, and leaving on the mind those faintest traces of little shining feet, which when dimly perceived by us are called regrets. She sang of old summer noons in the time of hair-bells. She sang on that high dark heath, a song that seemed so full of mornings and evenings preserved with all their dews by her magical craft from days that had else been lost, that Alvarick wondered of each small wandering wing that her fire had lured from the dusk if this were the ghost of some day lost to man, called up by the force of her song from times that were fairer. And all the while the unearthly metal grew harder. The white liquid stiffened and turned red, the glow of the red dwindled, and as it cooled it narrowed, little particles came together, little crevices closed, and as they closed they seized the air about them, and with the air they caught the witch's rune, and ripped it and held it forever. And so it was it became a magical sword. And little magic there is in English woods from the time of anemones to the falling of leaves that was not in that sword. And little magic there is in southern downs that only sheep roamed over and quiet shepherds that the sword had not too. And there was scent of time in it, and sight of lilac, and the chorus of birds that sings before dawn in April, and the deep proud splendor of rhododendrons, and the life-ness and laughter of streams, and miles and miles of may. And by the time the sword was black it was all enchanted with magic. Nobody can tell you about that sword, all that there is to be told of it, for those that know of those paths of space on which its metals once floated till earth caught them one by one as she sailed past on her orbit, have little time to waste on such things as magic, and so cannot tell you how the sword was made, and those who know whence poetry is, and the need that man has for song, or know any one of the fifty branches of magic, have little time to waste on such things as science, and so cannot tell you whence its ingredients came. Enough that it was once beyond our earth, and was now here amongst our mundane stones, that it was once but as those stones, and now had something in it such as soft music has, let those that can define it. And now the witch drew the black blade forth by the hilt, which was thick and on one side rounded, for she had cut a small groove in the soil below the hilt for this purpose, and began to sharpen both sides of the sword by rubbing them with a curious greenish stone, still singing over the sword an eerie song. Alvarick watched her in silence, wondering, not counting time, it may have been for moments, it may have been while the stories went far on their courses, suddenly she was finished. She stood up with the sword lying on both her hands. She stretched it out curtly to Alvarick. He took it, she turned away, and there was a look in her eyes as though she would have kept that sword, or kept Alvarick. He turned to pour out his thanks, but she was gone. He wrapped on the door of the dark house, he called witch, witch, along the lonely heath, till children heard on far farms and were terrified. Then he turned home, and that was best for him. End of chapter one, the plan of the parliament of Earl. Chapter two of The King of Elfland's Daughter by Lord Dunsaney. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Chapter two. Alvarick comes in sight of the Elfin Mountains. To the long chamber, sparsely furnished, high in a tower, in which Alvarick slipped, there came a ray direct from the rising sun. He awoke and remembered at once the magical sword, which made all his waking joyous. It is natural to feel glad at the thought of a recent gift, but there was also a certain joy in the sword itself which perhaps could communicate with Alvarick's thoughts all the more easily, just as they came from Dreamland, which was preeminently the sword's own country. But however it be, all those that have come by a magical sword have always felt that joy while it still was new, clearly and unmistakably. He had no farewells to make, but thought it better instantly to obey his father's command than to stay to explain why he took upon his adventure a sword that he deemed to be better than the one his father loved. So he stayed not even to eat but put food in a wallet and slung over him by a strap a bottle of good new leather, not waiting to fill it, for he knew he should meet with streams, and wearing his father's sword, as swords are commonly worn, he slung the other over his back with its rough hilt tied near his shoulder and strut away from the castle and veil of Earl. Of money he took but little, half a handful of copper only, for use in the fields we know, for he knew not what coin or what means of exchange were used on the other side of the frontier of twilight. Now the veil of Earl is very near to the border beyond which there is none of the fields we know. He climbed the hill and strode over the fields and pestered through the woods of Hazel, and the blue sky shown on him merrily as he went by the way of the fields, and the blue was as bright by his feet when he came to the woods, for it was the time of the blue bells. He ate and filled his water-bottle and travelled all day eastwards, and at evening the mountains of Ferry came floating into view the colour of pale forget-me-nots. As the sun set behind Alveric he looked at those pale blue mountains to see with what colour their peaks would astonish the evening, but never a tint they took from the setting sun whose splendour was gilding all the fields we know. Never a wrinkle faded upon their precipices, never a shadow deepened, and Alveric learned that for nothing that happens here is any change in the enchanted lands. He turned his eyes from their serene pale beauty back to the fields we know, and there with their gables lifting into the sunlight above deep hedgerows, beautiful with spring, he saw the cottages of earthly men. Past them he walked while the beauty of evening grew, with songs of birds and scents wandering from flowers, and odours that deepened and deepened, and evening decked herself to receive the evening star. But before that star appeared the young adventurer found the cottage he sought, for flapping above its doorway he saw the sign of a huge brown hide without landish letters and guilt which proclaimed the dweller below to be a worker in leather. An old man came to the door when Alveric knocked, little and bent with age, and he bent more when Alveric named himself, and the young man asked for a scabbard for his sword, yet said not what sword it was. And they both went into the cottage where the old wife was, by her big fire, and the couple did honor to Alveric. The old man then sat down near his thick table, whose surface shone with smoothness, wherever it was not pitted by little tools that had drilled through pieces of leather, all that man's lifetime, and in the times of his father's. And then he laid the sword upon his knees, and wondered at the roughness of hilt and guard, for they were raw unworked metal, and at the huge width of the sword, and then he screwed up his eyes and began to think of his trade. And in a while he thought at what must be done, and his wife brought him a fine hide, and he marked out on it two pieces as wide as the sword, and a bit wider than that. And any questions he asked concerning that wide bright sword, Alveric somewhat parried, for he wished not to perplex his mind by telling him all that it was. He perplexed that old couple enough a little later when he asked them for lodging for the night. And this they gave him with as many apologies, as if it were they that had asked a favor, and gave him a great supper out of their cauldron, in which boiled everything that the old man snared. But nothing that Alveric was able to say prevented them giving up their bed to him, and preparing a heap of skins for their own night's rest by the fire. And after their supper the old man cut out the two wide pieces of leather with a point at the end of each, and began to stitch them together on each side. And then Alveric began to ask him of the way, and the old leather-worker spoke of north and south and west, and even of northeast, but of east or southeast he spoke never a word. He dwelt near the very edge of the fields we know, yet of any hint of anything lying beyond them he or his wife said nothing. Where Alveric's journey lay upon the morrow they seemed to think the world ended. And pondering afterwards in the bed they gave him, all that the old man had said, Alveric sometimes marveled at his ignorance, and yet sometimes wondered if it might have been skilled by which those two had avoided all the evening any word of anything lying to the east or southeast of their home. He wondered if in his early days the old man might have gone there, but he was unable even to wonder what he had found there if he had gone. Then Alveric fell asleep, and dreams gave him hints and guesses of the old man's wanderings in Fairyland, but gave him no better guise than he had already, and these were the pale blue peaks of the Elfin Mountains. The old man woke him after he had slept long. When he came to the day room a bright fire was burning there, his breakfast was ready for him, and the scabbard made, which fitted the sword exactly. The old people waited on him silently and took payment for the scabbard, but would not take ought for their hospitality. Maybe they watched him rise and go, and followed him without a word to the door, and outside it watched him still, clearly hoping that he would turn to the north or west, but when he turned and strode for the Elfin Mountains they watched him no more, for their faces never were turned that way. And though they watched him no longer, yet he waved his hand in farewell, for he had a feeling for the cottages and fields of these simple folk, such as they had not for the enchanted lands. He walked in the sparkling morning through scenes familiar from infancy. He saw the ruddy orcas flowering early, reminding the blue bells they were just past their prime. The small young leaves of the oak were yet a brownish yellow, the new beech leaves shone like brass, where the cuckoo was calling clearly, and a birch tree looked like a wild woodland creature that had draped herself in green gauze. On favoured bushes there were buds of May. Alvarex said over and over to himself, farewell to all these things, the cuckoo went on calling, and not for him, and then as he pushed through the hedge into the field untended, there suddenly close before him in the field was, as his father had told, the frontier of twilight. It stretched across the fields in front of him, blue and dense like water, and things seen through it seemed misshapen and shining. He looked back once over the fields we know, the cuckoo went on calling unconcernedly, a small bird sang about its own affairs, and nothing seeming to answer or heed his farewells, Alvarex strode on boldly into those long masses of twilight. A man in a field not far was calling to horses, there were folk talking in a neighbouring lane, as Alvarex stepped into the rampart of twilight, and once all these sounds grew dim, humming faintly as from great distances. In a few strides he was through, and not a murmur at all came then from the fields we know. The fields through which he had come had suddenly ended, there was no trace of its hedges bright with new green. He looked back, and the frontier seemed lowering, cloudy and smoky. He looked all around and saw no familiar thing. In the place of the beauty of May were the wonders and splendours of Elfland. The pale blue mountains stood august in their glory, shimmering and rippling in the golden light that seemed as though it rhythmically poured from the peaks and flooded all those slopes with breezes of gold, and below them, far off as yet, he saw, going up all silver into the air, the spires of the palace only told of in song. He was on a plain on which the flowers were queer and the shape of the trees monstrous. He started at once toward the silver spires. To those who may have wisely kept their fancies within the boundary of the fields we know, it is difficult for me to tell of the land to which Alvarex had come, so that in their minds they can see that plain with its scattered trees and far off the dark wood out of which the palace of Elfland lifted, those glittering spires, and above them and beyond them that serene range of mountains whose pinnacles took no colour from any light we see. Yet it is for this very purpose that our fancies travel far, and if my reader, through fault of mine, failed to picture the peaks of Elfland, my fancy had better have stayed in the fields we know. Know then that in Elfland are colours more deep than are in our fields, and the very air there glows with so deep illusancy that all things seen there have something of the look of our trees and flowers in June reflected in water. And the colour of Elfland, of which I despair to tell, may yet be told for we have hints of it here, the deep blue of the night in summer just as the gloaming has gone, the pale blue of Venus flooding in evening with light, the deeps of lakes in the twilight, all these are hints of that colour. And while our sunflowers carefully turn to the sun, some forefather of the rhododendrons must have turned a little towards Elfland so that some of that glory dwells with them to this day. And above all, our painters have had many a glimpse of that country so that sometimes in pictures we see a glamour too wonderful for our fields. It is a memory of theirs that intruded from some old glimpse of the pale blue mountains while they sat at easels painting the fields we know. So Alpham extroed on through the luminous air of that land, whose glimpses dimly remembered our inspirations here. And yet once he felt less lonely. For there is a barrier in the fields we know, drawn sharply between men and all other life, so that if we be but a gay away from our kind we are lonely. But once across the boundary of twilight and albric saw this barrier was down. Crows walking on the moor looked whimsically at him, all manner of little creatures peered huriously to see who was come from a quarter when so few ever came, to see who went on a journey when so few ever returned. For the king of Elfland guarded his daughter well, as Albric knew, although he knew not how. There was a merry sparkle of interest in all those little eyes and a look that might mean warning. There was perhaps less mystery here than on our side of the boundary of twilight, for nothing lurked or seemed to lurk behind great bowls of oak, as in certain lights and seasons things may lurk in the fields we know. No strangeness hid on the far side of ridges, nothing haunted deep woods, whatever might possibly lurk was clearly there to be seen, and whatever strangeness might be was spread in full sight of the traveler, whatever might haunt deep woods lived there in the open day. And so strongly the enchantment, deep over all the land, that not only did beasts send men, guess each other's meanings well, but there seemed to be an understanding, even, that reached from men to trees and from trees to men. Lonely pine trees that Albric passed now and then on the moor, their trunks glowing always with the ruddy light that they had got by magic from some old sunset, seemed to stand with their branches akimbo and lean over a little to look at him. It seemed almost as though they had not always been trees, before enchantment had overtaken them. It seemed they would tell him something. But Albric heated no warnings, either from beasts or trees, and strode away towards the enchanted wood. End of Chapter 2. Albric comes in sight of Elfin Mountains. Chapter 3 of The King of Elfland's Daughter by Lloyd Dunsaney. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Chapter 3, The Magical Sword Meets Some of the Swords of Elfland. When Albric came to the enchanted wood, the light in which Elfland glowed had neither grown nor dwindled, and he saw that it came from no radiance that shines on the fields we know, unless the wandering lights of wonderful moments that sometimes astonish our fields and are gone the instant they come are strayed over the border of Elfland by some momentary disorder of magic. Neither sun nor moon made the light of that enchanted day. A line of pine trees, up which Ivy climbed, as high as their lowering black foliage, stood like sentinels at the edge of the wood. The silver spires were shining as though it were they that made all this azure glow in which Elfland swam. And Albric, having by now come far into Elfland, and being now before its capital palace, and knowing that Elfland guarded its mysteries well, drew his father's sword before he entered the wood. The others still hung on his back, slung in its new scabbard over his left shoulder. And the moment he passed by one of those guardian pine trees, the Ivy that lived on it, unfastened its tendrils, and rapidly letting itself down, came straight for Albric and clutched at his throat. The long thin sword of his father was just in time, had it not been drawn he would have scarcely got it out, so swift was the rush of that Ivy. He cut tendril after tendril that grasped his limbs as Ivy grasps old towers, and still more tendrils came for him until he severed its main stem between him and the tree. And as he was doing this he heard a hissing rush behind him, and another had come down from another tree and was rushing at him with all its leaves spread out. The green thing looked wild and angry as it gripped his left shoulder as though it would hold it forever. But Albric severed those tendrils with a blow of his sword and then fought with the rest for the first one was still alive but now too short to reach him and was lashing its branches angrily on the ground. And soon as the surprise of the attack was over and he had freed himself of the tendrils that had gripped him, Albric stepped back till the Ivy could not reach him and he could still fight it with his long sword. The Ivy crawled back then to lure Albric on and sprang at him when he followed it. But terrible though the grip of Ivy is that was a good sharp sword and very soon Albric, all bruised though he was had so lopped his assailant that it fled back up its tree. Then he stepped back and looked at the wood in the light of his new experience choosing way through. He saw at once that in the barrier of pine trees the two in front of him had had their Ivy so shortened in the fight that if he went midway between the two the Ivy of neither would be able to reach him. He then stepped forward but the moment he did so he noticed that one of the pine trees moved closer to the other. He knew then that the time was come to draw his magical sword. So he returned his father's sword to the scabbard by his side and drew out the other over his shoulder and going straight up to the tree that had moved swept at the Ivy as it sprang at him and the Ivy fell all at once to the ground not lifeless but a heap of common Ivy. And then he gave one blow to the trunk of the tree and a chip flew out not larger than a common sword would have made but the whole tree shuttered and with that shutter disappeared at once a certain ominous look that the pine had had and it stood there an ordinary unenchanted tree. Then he stepped on through the wood with his sword drawn. He had not gone many paces when he heard behind him a sound like a faint breeze in the tree tops yet no wind was blowing in that wood at all. He looked round therefore and saw that the pine trees were following him. They were coming slowly after him keeping well out of the way of his sword but to left and right they were gaining on him so that he saw he was being gradually shut in by a crescent that grew thicker and thicker as it crowded amongst the trees that it met on the way and would soon crush him to death. Alvarex saw at once that to turn back would be fatal and decided to push right on relying chiefly on speed for his quick perception had already noticed something slow about the magic that swayed the wood as though whoever controlled it were old or weary of magic or interrupted by other things. So he went straight ahead hitting every tree in his way whether enchanted or not a blow with his magical sword and the runes that ran in that metal from the other side of the sun were stronger than any spells that there were in the wood. Great oak trees with sinister bowls drooped and lost all their enchantment as Alvarex flashed past them with a flick of that magical sword. He was marching faster than the clumsy ponds and soon he left in that weird and eerie wood a wake of trees that were wholly unenchanted that stood there now without hint of romance or mystery even. And all of a sudden he came from the gloom of the wood to the emerald glory of the elf king's lawns. Again, we have hints of such things here. Imagine lawns of ours just emerging from night flashing early lights from their dew drops when all the stars have gone bordered with flowers that just begin to appear. Their gentle colors all coming back after night untrodden by any feet except the tiniest and wildest shut off from the wind and the world by trees in whose fronds is still darkness. Picture these waiting for the birds to sing. There is almost a hint there sometimes of the glow of the lawns of elf land but then it passes so quickly that we can never be sure. More beautiful than ought our wonder guesses more than our hearts have hoped were the dew drop lights and the twilight in which these lawns glowed and shone. And we have another thing by which to hint of them. Those seaweeds are sea mosses that drape Mediterranean rocks and shine out of blue-green water for gazers from dizzy cliffs more like sea floors where these lawns than like any land of ours for the air of elf land is thus deep and blue. At the beauty of these lawns Alvarex stood gazing as they shone through twilight and dew surrounded by the mauve and ruddy glory of the masked flowers of elf land beside which our sunsets pale and our orchids droop. And beyond them lay like night the magical wood and jutting from that wood with glittering portals all open wide to the lawns with windows more blue than our sky on summer's nights as though built of starlight shone that palace that may be only told of in song. As Alvarex stood there with his sword in his hand at the woods edge scarcely breathing with his eyes looking over the lawns at the chiefest glory of elf land through one of the portals alone came the king of elf land's daughter. She walked dazzling to the lawns without seeing Alvarex. Her feet brushed through the dew and the heavy air and gently pressed for an instant the emerald grass which bent and rose as our hair bells when blue butterflies light and leave them roaming carefree along the hills of chalk. And as she passed he neither breathed nor moved nor could have moved if those pines had still pursued him but they stayed in the forest not daring to touch these lawns. She wore a crown that seemed to be carved of great pale sapphires. She shone on those lawns and gardens like a dawn coming unaware out of long night on some planet nearer than us to the sun. And as she passed near Alvarex she suddenly turned her head and her eyes opened in a little wonder. She had never before seen a man from the fields we know. And Alvarex gazed in her eyes all speechless and powerless still. It was indeed the princess Lyrizel in her beauty. And then he saw that her crown was not of sapphires but ice. Who are you? She said. And her voice had the music that of earthly things was most like ice in thousands of broken pieces rocked by the wind of spring upon lakes in some northern country. And he said, I come from the fields that are mapped and known. And then she sighed for a moment for those fields for she had heard how life beautifully passes there and how there are always in those fields young generations. And she thought of the changing seasons and children and age of which elven minstrels had sung when they told of earth. And when he saw her sigh for the fields we know he told her somewhat of that land once he had come. And she questioned him further and soon he was telling her tales of his home and the veil of Earl. And she wondered to hear of it and asked him many questions more. And then he told her all he knew of earth not presuming to tell earth's story from what his own eyes had seen in his bear score of years but telling those tales and fables of the ways of beasts and men that the folk of Earl had drawn out of the ages and which their elders told by the fire at evening when children asked of what happened long ago. Thus on the edge of those lawns whose miraculous glory was framed by flowers we have never known with the magical wood behind them and that palace shining near which may only be told of in song they spoke of the simple wisdom of old men and old women telling of harvests and the blossoming of roses and may of when to plant in gardens of what wild animals knew how to heal, how to sow, how to thatch and of which of the winds in what seasons blow over the fields we know. And then there appeared those knights who guard that palace lest any should come through the enchanted wood four of them they came shining over the lawns in armor their faces not to be seen. In all the enchanted centuries of their lives they had not dared to dream of the princess they had never bared their faces when they knelt armed before her yet they had sworn an oath of dreadful words that no man else should ever speak with her if one should come through the enchanted wood with this oath now on their lips they marched towards Alvareck. Lyrizel looked at them sorrowfully yet could not halt them for they came by command of her father which she could not avert and well she knew that her father might not recall his command for he had uttered ages ago at the bidding of fate. Alvareck looked at their armor which seemed to be brighter than any metal of ours as though it came from one of those buttresses near which are only told of in song then he went towards them drawing his father's sword for he thought to drive its slender point through some joint of the armor the other he put into his left hand. As the first night struck Alvareck parried and stopped the blow but there came a shock like lightning into his arm and the sword flew from his hand and he knew that no earthly sword could meet the weapons of Elf land and took the magical sword in his right hand. With this he parried the strokes of the princess Lurizel's guard for such these four nights were having waited for this occasion through all the ages of Elf land and no more shock came to him from any of those swords but only a vibration in his own sword's metal that passed through it like a song and a kind of a glow that arose in it reaching to Alvareck's heart and cheering it. But as Alvareck continued to parry the swift blows of the guard that sword that was pinned to the lightning grew weary of these defenses for it had in its essence speed and desperate journeys and lifting Alvareck's hand along with it its swept blows at the Elvish knights and the armor of Elf land could not hold it out. Thick and curious blood began to pour through rifts in the armor and soon of that glittering company two were fallen and Alvareck encouraged by the zeal of his sword fought cheerily and soon overthrew another so that only he and one of the guard remained who seemed to have some stronger magic about him than had been given to his fallen comrades. And so it was for when the Elf king had first enchanted the guard he had charmed this Elvish soldier first of all while all the wonder of his ruins were new and the soldier and his armor and his sword had something still of this early magic about them more potent than any inspirations of wizardry that had come later from his master's mind. Yet this night as Alvareck soon was able to feel along his arm and his sword had none of those three master ruins of which the old witch had spoken when she made the sword on the hill for these were preserved unuttered by the king of Elf land himself with which to hedge his own presence to have known of their existence she must have flown by broom to Elf land and spoken secretly alone with the king. And the sword that had visited earth from so far away smoked like the falling of thunderbolts and green sparks rose from the armor and crimson as sword met sword and thick Elvish blood moved slowly from wide slits down Nekiras and Lyrizel gazed in awe and wonder and love. And the combatants edged away fighting into the forest and branches fell on them hacked off by their fight and the runes in Alvareck's far traveled sword exalted and roared at the Elf night until in the dark of the wood amongst branches severed from disenchanted trees with a blow like that of a thunderbolt writhing an oak tree Alvareck slew him. At that crash and at that silence Lyrizel ran to his side. Quick, she said, for my father has three runes she does not speak of them. Whither, said Alvareck, and she said, to the fields you know. End of chapter three the magical sword meets some of the swords of Elf land. Chapter four of the king of Elf land's daughter by Lord Dunseney this sliverbox recording is in the public domain chapter four Alvareck comes back to earth after many years back through the guarding wood went Alvareck and Lyrizel she only looking once more at those flowers and lawns seen only by the furthest traveling fancies of poets in deepest sleep then urging Alvareck on he choosing the way past trees he had disenchanted and she would not let him delay even to choose his path but kept urging him away from the palace that is only told of in song and the other trees began to come lumbering towards them from beyond the lustiless unromantic line that Alvareck's sword had smitten looking clearly as they came at their stricken comrades whose listless branches drooped without magic or mystery and as the moving trees came nearer Lyrizel would hold up her hand and they all halted and came on no more and still she urged upon Alvareck to hasten she knew her father would climb the brazen stairs of one of those silver spires she knew he would soon come out onto the high balcony she knew what ruin he would chant she heard the sound of his footsteps ascending ringing now through the wood they fled over the plain beyond the wood all through the blue everlasting elfin day and again and again she looked over her shoulder and urged Alvareck on the elf king's feet boomed slow on the thousand brazen steps and she hoped to reach the barrier of twilight which on that side was smoky and dull when suddenly as she looked for the hundredth time at the distant balconies of the glittering spires she saw a door begin to open high up above the palace only told of in song she cried alas to Alvareck but at that moment the scent of briar roses came drifting to them from the fields we know Alvareck knew not fatigue for he was young nor she for she was ageless they rushed forward he taking her hand the elf king lifted his beard and just as he began to intone a room that only once may be uttered against which nothing from our fields can avail they were through the frontier of twilight and the rune shook and troubled those lands in which Lirazel walked no longer when Lirazel looked upon the fields we know as strange to her as once they have been to us their beauty delighted her she laughed to see the haystacks and loved their quaintness Alvareck was singing and Lirazel spoke to it and Alvareck seemed not to understand but she turned to other glories of our fields for all were new to her and forgot the lark it was curiously no longer the season of bluebells for all the fox gloves were blooming and the may was gone and the wild roses were there Alvareck never understood this it was the early morning and the sun was shining giving soft colors to our fields and Lirazel rejoiced in those fields of ours at more common things than one might believe there were amongst the familiar sights of earths every day so glad was she so gay with her cries of surprise and her laughter that there seemed thenceforth to Alvareck a beauty that he had never dreamed of in buttercups and a humor in carts that he never had thought of before each moment she found with a cry of joyous discovery some treasure of earths that he had not known to be fair and then as he watched her bringing a beauty to our fields more delicate even than the wild roses brought he saw that her crown of ice had melted away and thus she came from the palace that may only be told of in song over the fields of which I need not tell for they were the familiar fields of earth that the ages changed but little and only for a while and came at evening with Alvareck to his home all was changed in the castle of earl in the gateway they met a guardian whom Alvareck knew the man wondered to see them in the hall and upon the stairway they met some that tended the castle who turned their heads in surprise Alvareck knew them also but all were older and he saw that quite ten years must have passed away during that one blue day he had spent in Elfland who does not know that this is the way of Elfland and yet who would not be surprised if they saw it happen as Alvareck saw it now he turned to Lyrizel and told her how ten or twelve years were gone but it was as though a humble man who had wed an earthly princess should tell her he had lost six pence time had no value or meaning to Lyrizel and she was untroubled to hear of the ten lost years she did not dream what time means to us here they told Alvareck that his father was long since dead and one told him how he died happy without impatience trusting to Alvareck to accomplish his bidding for he had known somewhat of the ways of Elfland and he knew that those that traffic twist here and there must have something of that calm in which Elfland forever dreams up the valley ringing late they heard the blacksmith's work this blacksmith was he who had been the spokesman of all those who went once to the long red room to the lord of Earl and all these men yet lived for time though it moved over the veil of Earl as over all fields we know moved gently not as in our cities since Alvareck and Lyrizel went to the holy place of the friar and when they found him Alvareck asked the friar to wed them with christian rites and where the friar saw the beauty of Lyrizel flash mid the common things in his little holy place for he had ornamented the walls of his house with nicknacks that he sometimes bought at the fairs he feared at once she was of no mortal line and when he asked her when she came and she happily answered Elfland the good man clasped his hands and told her earnestly how all in that land had dwelt beyond salvation but she smiled for while in Elfland she had always been idly happy and now she only cared for Alvareck the friar went then to his books to see what should be done for a long while he read in silence but for his breathing while Alvareck and Lyrizel stood before him and at last he found in his book a form of service for the wedding of a mermaid that had forsaken the sea though the good book told not of Elfland and this he said would suffice for that the mermaids dwelt equally with the elf folk beyond thought of salvation so he sent for his bell and such tapers as are necessary then at turning to Lyrizel he bade her forsake and forswear and solemnly to renounce all things pertaining to Elfland reading slowly out of a book the words to be used on this wholesome occasion good friar Lyrizel answered not said in these fields can cross the barrier of Elfland and well that this is so for my father has three runes that could bless this book when he answered one of its spells where any word able to pass through the frontier of twilight I will spell no spells with my father but I cannot wed a christian man the friar replied with one of the stubborn who dwell beyond salvation then Alvareck implored her and she said the say in the book though my father could bless this spell she added if it ever crossed one of his runes and the bell being now brought and the tapers the good man wedded them in his little house with the rights that are proper for the wedding of a mermaid that hath forsaken the sea end of chapter four Alvareck comes back to earth after many years chapter five of the king of Elfland's daughter by Lord Dunseney this Librivox recording is in the public domain chapter five the wisdom of the parliament of Earl in those bridal days the men of Earl came often to the castle bringing gifts and felicitations and in the evenings they would talk in their houses of the fair things that they hoped for the veil of Earl on account of the wisdom of the thing they had done when they spoke with the old lord in his long red room there was gnarl the blacksmith who had been their leader there was goo hick who first had thought of it after speaking with his wife an upland farmer of clover pastures near Earl there was knee hick a driver of horses there were four vendors of bees or cattle and off a hunter of deer and Vleil the master plowman all these and three men more had gone to the lord of Earl and made that request that had set Alvareck on his wanderings and now they spoke of all the good that would come of it they had all desired that the veil of Earl should be known among men as was they felt its dessert they had looked in histories they had read books treating of pastures yet seldom found mention at all of the veil they loved and one day goo hick had said let all us people be ruled in the future by a magic lord and he shall make the name of the valley famous and there shall be none that have heard not of the name of Earl and all had rejoiced and had made a parliament and it had gone twelve men to the lord of Earl and it had been as I have told so now they spoke over their mead of the future of Earl and its place among other valleys and of the reputation that it should have in the world they would meet and talk in the great forge of Narl and Narl would bring them mead from an inner room and Threl would come in late from his work in the woods the mead was of clover honey heavy and sweet and when they had sat a while in the warm room talking of daily things of the valley and uplands they would turn their minds to the future seeing as through a golden mist the glory of Earl one praised the beaves another the horses another the good soil and all looked to the time when other lands should know the great mastery among valleys that was held by the valley of Earl and time that brought these evenings bore them away moving over the veil of Earl as over all fields we know and it was spring again and the season of bluebells and one day in the prime of the wild anemones it was told that Alveric and Lerazel had a sun then all the people of Earl lit a fire next night on the hill and danced about it and drank mead and rejoiced all day they had dragged logs and branches from it from the wild wood near and the glow of the fire was seen in other lands only on the pale blue peaks of the mountains of Elfland no gleam of it shone for they are unchanged by ought that can happen here and when they rested from dancing around their fires they would sit on the ground and foretell the fortune of Earl when it should be ruled over by this son of Alveric with all the magic he would have from his mother and some said he would lead them to war and some said to deeper plowing and all foretold a better price for their bees none slept that night for dancing and foretelling a glorious future and for rejoicing at the things they foretold and above all they rejoiced that the name of Earl should be henceforth known and honored in other lands then Alveric sought for a nurse for his child all through the valley and uplands and not easily found any worthy of having the care of one that was of the royal line of Elfland and those that he found were frightened of the light as though not of our earth or sky that seemed to shine at times in the baby's eyes and in the end he went one windy morning up the hill of the lonely witch and found her sitting idly in her doorway having nothing to curse or bless well said the witch did the sword bring you fortune who knows at Alveric what brings fortune since we cannot see the end and he spoke wearily for he was weary with age and never knew how many years had gone over him on the day he traveled to Elfland far more it seemed than had passed on that same day over Earl I said the witch who knows the end but we Mother Witch said Alveric I wedded the king of Elfland's daughter that was a great advancement said the old witch Mother Witch said Alveric we have a child and who shall care for him no human task said the witch Mother Witch said Alveric will you come to the Vale of Earl and care for him and to be the nurse at the castle for none but you in all these fields knows art of the things of Elfland except the princess and she knows nothing of earth and the old witch answered for the sake of the king I will come so the witch came down from the hill with a bundle of queer belongings and thus the child was nursed in the fields we know by one who knew songs and tales of his mother's country and often as they bent together over the baby that aged witch and the princess Lyrizel would talk together and afterwards through long evenings of things about which Alveric knew nothing and for all the age of the witch and the wisdom that she had stored in her hundred years which is all hidden from men it was nevertheless she who learned when they talked together and the princess Lyrizel who talked but of earth in the ways of earth Lyrizel never knew anything and this old witch that watched over the baby so tendered him and so soothed that in all his infancy he never wept for she had a charm for brightening the morning and a charm for cheering the day and a charm for calming a cough and a charm for making the nursery warm and pleasant and eerie when the fire leaped up with the sound of it from logs that she had enchanted and sent large shadows of the things about the fire quivering darkened merry over the ceiling and the child was cared for by Lyrizel and the witch as children are cared for whose mothers are merely human but he knew tombs and runes besides that other children hear not in fields we know so the old witch moved about the nursery with her black stick guarding the child with her runes if a draught on windy nights shrilled in through some crack she had a spell to calm it and a spell to charm the song that the kettle sang till its melody brought hints of strange news from missed hidden places and the child grew to know the mystery of far valleys that his eyes had never seen and at evening she would raise her ebb and stick and standing before the fire amongst all the shadows would enchant them and to make them dance for him and they took all manner of shapes of good and evil dancing to please the baby so that he came to have knowledge not only of the things with which earth is stored pigs trees camels crocodiles wolves and ducks good dogs and the gentle cow but of the darker things also that men have feared and the things they have hoped and guessed through those evenings the things that happen and the creatures that are passed over those nursery walls and he grew familiar with the fields we know and on warm afternoons the witch would carry him through the village and all the dogs would bark at her eerie figure but durst not come too close for a page boy behind her carried the ebb and stick and dogs that know so much that know how far a man can throw a stone and if he would beat them and if he durst not knew also that this was no ordinary stick so they kept far away from that queer black stick in the hand of the page and snarled and the villagers came out to see and all were glad when they saw how magical a nurse the young air had for here they said is the witch Zerunderel and they declared that she would bring him up amongst the true principles of wizardry and that in his time there would be magic that would make all their valley famous and they beat their dogs until they slunk indoors but the dogs clung to their suspicions still so that when the men were gone to the forge of gnarl and their houses were quiet in the moonlight and gnarl's windows glowed and the mead had gone round and they talked of the future of earl more and more voices joining in the tale of its coming glory on soft feet the dogs would come out to the sandy street and howl and to the high sunny nursery Lerazel would come bringing a brightness that the learned witch had not in all her spells and would sing to her boy those songs that none can sing to us here for they were learned the other side of the frontier of twilight and were made by singers all on vexed by time and for all the marvel that there was in those songs whose origin was so far from the fields we know and in times remote from those that historians use and though men wondered at the strangeness of them when from open casements through the summer days they drifted over earl yet none wondered even at those as she wandered at the earthly ways of her child and all the little human things that he did more and more as he grew for all human ways were strange to her and yet she loved him more than her father's realm or the glittering centuries of her ageless youth or the palace that may be told of only in song in those days alveric learned that she would never now grow familiar with earthly things never understand the folk that dwelt in the valley never read wise books without laughter never care for earthly ways never feel more at ease in the castle of earl than any woodland thing that thrill might have snared and kept caged in a house he had hoped that soon she would learn the things that were strange to her till the little differences that there are between things in our fields and in elfland should not trouble her anymore but he saw at last that the things that were strange would always remain so and that all the centuries of her timeless home had not so lightly shaped her thoughts and fancies that they could be altered by our brief years here when he had learned this he had learned the truth between the spirits of alveric and lyrezel lay all the distance there is between earth and elfland and love bridged the distance which can bridge further than that yet when for a moment on the golden bridge he would pause and let his thoughts look down at the gulf all his mind would grow giddy and alveric trembled what of the end he thought and feared lest it should be stranger than the beginning and she she did not see that she should know anything was not her beauty enough had not a lover come at last to those lawns that shone by the palace only told of in song and rescued her from her uncompanioned fate and from that perpetual calm was it not enough that he had come must she needs understand the curious things folk did must she never dance in the road never speak to goats never laugh at funerals never sing at night why what was joy for if it must be hidden must mary meant bow to dullness in these strange fields she had come to and then one day she saw how a woman of earl looked less fair than she had looked a year ago little enough was the change but her swift eyes saw it surely and she went to alveric crying to be comforted because she feared that time in the fields we know might have power to harm that beauty that the long long ages of elf land had never dared to dim and alveric had said that time must have his way as all men know and where was the good of complaining end of chapter five the wisdom of the parliament of url chapter six of the king of elf land's daughter by lord duncany this lever vox recording is in the public domain chapter six the rune of the elf king on the high balcony of his gleaming tower the king of elf land stood below him echoed yet the thousand steps he had lifted his head to chant the rune that should hold his daughter in elf land and in that moment had seen her past the murky barrier which on this side facing toward elf land is all lustrous with twilight and on that side facing towards the fields we know is smoky and angry and dull and now he had dropped his head till his beard lay mingled with his cape of ermine above his cerulean cloak and stood there silently sorrowful while time passed swift as ever over the fields we know and standing there all blue and white against his silver tower aged by the passing of times of which we know nothing before he imposed its eternal calm upon elf land he thought of his daughter amongst our pitiless years for he knew whose wisdom surpassed the confines of elf land and touched our rugged fields knew well the harshness of material things and all the turmoil of time even as he stood there he knew that the years that assailed beauty and the myriad harshnesses that vexed the spirit were already about his daughter and the days that remained to her now seemed scarce more to him dwelling beyond the fret and ruin of time than to us might seem a briar roses hours when plucked and foolishly hawked in the streets of a city he knew that there hung over her now the doom of all mortal things he thought of her perishing soon as mortal things must to be buried amongst the rocks of a land that scorned elf land and that held its most treasured myths to be of little account and were he not the king of all that magical land which held its eternal calm from his own mysterious serenity he had wept to think of the grave in rocky earth gripping that form that was so fair for ever or else he thought she would pass to some paradise far from his knowledge some heaven of which books told in the fields we know for he had heard even of this he pictured her on some apple haunted hill under blossoms of an everlasting April through which flickered the pale gold halos of those that had cursed elf land he saw though dimly for all his magical wisdom the glory that only the blessed clearly see he saw his daughter on those heavenly hills stretch out both arms as he knew well she would towards the pale blue peaks of her elfin home while never one of the blessed heated her yearning and then though he was king of all that land that had its everlasting calm from him he wept and all elf land shivered it shivered as placid water shivers here if something suddenly touches it from our fields then the king turned and left his balcony and went in great haste down his brazen steps he came clanging to the ivory doors that shut the tower below and through them came to the throne room of which only song may tell and there he took a parchment out of a coffer and a plume from some fabulous wing and dipping the plume into no earthly ink wrote out a rune on the parchment then raising two fingers he made the minor enchantment whereby he summoned his guard and no guard came I have said that no time passed at all in elf land yet the happening of events is in itself a manifestation of time and no event can occur unless time pass now it is thus with time in elf land in the eternal beauty that dreams in that hunted air nothing stirs or fades or dies nothing seeks its happiness in movement or change or a new thing but has its ecstasy in the perpetual contemplation of all the beauty that has ever been and which always glows over those enchanted lawns as intense as when first created by incantation or song yet if the energies of the wizard's mind arose to meet a new thing then that power that had laid its calm upon elf land and held back time troubled the calm a while and time for a while shook elf land cast anything into a deep pool from a land strange to it were some great fish dreams and green weeds dream and heavy colors dream and light sleeps the great fish stirs the colors shift and change the green weeds tremble and light wakes a myriad things no slow movement and change and soon the whole pool is still again it was the same when alveric passed through the border of twilight and right through the enchanted wood and the king was troubled and moved and all elf land trembled when the king saw that no guard came he looked into the wood which he knew to be troubled through the deep mass of the trees that were quivering yet with the coming of alveric he looked through the deeps of the wood and the silver walls of his palace for he looked by enchantment and there he saw the four knights of his guard lying stricken upon the ground with their thick elvish blood hanging out through slits in their armor and he thought of the early magic whereby he had made the eldest with a rune all newly inspired before he had conquered time he passed out through the splendor and glow of one of his flashing portals and over a gleaming lawn and came to the fallen guard and saw the trees still troubled there has been magic here said the king of elf land and then though he only had three runes that could do such a thing and though they only could be uttered once and one was already written upon parchment to bring his daughter home he uttered the second of his most magical runes over that elder knight that his magic had made long ago and in the silence that followed the last words of the rune the rinse in the moon bright armor all clicked shut at once and the thick dark blood was gone and the knight rose live to his feet and the elf king now had only one rune left that was mightier than any magic we know the other three knights lay dead and having no souls their magic returned again to the mind of their master he went back then to his palace while he sent the last of his guard to fetch him a troll dark brown of skin and two or three feet high the trolls are a gnomish tribe that inhabit elf land and soon there was a scamper in the throne room that may only be told of ensal and the troll lit by the throne on its two bare feet and stood before its king the king gave it the parchment with the rune written there on say scamper hence and pass over the end of the land until you come to the fields that none know here and find the princess lyrizelle who is gone to the haunts of men and give her this rune and she shall read it and all shall be well and the trolls scampered fence and soon the troll was come with long leaps to the frontier of twilight then nothing moved in elf land anymore and motionless on that splendid throne of which only song may speak sat the old king morning in silence and of chapter six the rune of the elf king chapter seven of the king of elf land's daughter by lord duncany this LibriVox recording is in the public domain chapter seven the coming of the troll when the troll came to the frontier of twilight he skipped nimbly through yet he emerged cautiously into the fields we know for he was afraid of dogs slipping quietly out of those dense masses of twilight he came so softly into our fields that no eye had seen him unless it were gazing already at the spot at which he appeared there he paused for some instance looking to left and right and seeing no dogs he left the barrier of twilight this troll had never before been in the fields we know yet he knew well to avoid dogs for the fear of dogs is so deep and universal amongst all that are less than man that it seems to have passed even beyond our boundaries and to have been felt in elf land in our fields it was now may and the buttercup stretched away before the troll a world of yellow mingled with the brown of the budding grasses when he saw so many buttercups shining there the wealth of earth astonished him and soon he was moving through them yellowing his shins as he went he had not gone far from elf land when he met with a hare who was lying in a comfortable arrangement of grass in which he had intended to pass the time till he should have things to see to when the hare saw the troll he sat there without any movement whatever and without any expression in his eyes and did nothing at all but think when the troll saw the hare he skipped nearer and lay down before it in the buttercups and asked it the way to the haunts of men and the hare went on thinking thing of these fields repeated the troll where are the haunts of men the hare got up then and walked towards the troll which made the hare look very ridiculous for he had none of the grace while walking that he has when he runs or gambles and was much lower in front than behind he put his nose into the troll's face and twitched foolish whiskers tell me the way said the troll when the hare perceived that the troll did not smell of anything like dog he was content to let the troll question him but he did not understand the language of elf land so he lay still again and thought while the troll talked and at last the troll worried of getting no answer so he leaped up and shouted dogs and left the hare and scampered away merrily over the buttercups taking any direction that led away from elf land and though the hare could not quite understand elvish language yet there was a vehemence in the tone in which the troll had shouted dogs which caused apprehension to enter the thoughts of the hare so there very soon he forsook his arrangement of grass and lulloped away through the meadow with one scornful look after the troll but he did not go very fast going mostly on three legs with one hind leg all ready to let down if there should really be dogs and soon he paused and sat up and put up his ears and looked across the buttercups and thought deeply and before the hare had ceased to ponder the troll's meaning the troll was far out of sight and had forgotten what he had said and soon he saw the gables of a farmhouse rise up beyond a hedge they seemed to look at him with little windows up under red tiles a haunt of man said the troll and yet some elvish instinct seemed to tell him that it was not here that princess lyrizel had come still he went nearer the farm and began to gaze at its poultry but just at that moment a dog saw him one that had never seen a troll before and it uttered one canine cry of astonished indignation and keeping all the rest of its breath for the chase sped after the troll the troll began at once to rise and dip over the buttercups as though he had almost borrowed its speed from the swallow and were riding the lower air such speed was new to the dog and he went in a long curve after the troll leaning over as he went his mouth open and silent the wind rippling all the way from his nose to his tail in one wavy current the curve was made by the dog's baffled hopes to catch the troll as he slanted across soon he was straight behind and the troll toyed with speed breathing the flowery air in long fresh drifts above the tops of the buttercups he thought no more of the dog but he did not cease in the flight that the dog had caused because of the joy of the speed and this strange chase continued over those fields the troll driven on by joy and the dog by duty for the sake of novelty then the troll put his feet together as he leaped over the flowers and a lighting with rigid knees fell forwards on his hands and so turned over and straightening his elbows suddenly as he turned shot himself into the air still turning over and over he did this several times increasing the indignation of the dog who knew well enough that that was no way to go over the fields we know but for all his indignation the dog had seen clear enough that he would never catch that troll and presently he returned to the farm and found his master there and went up to him wagging his tail so hard he wagged it that the farmer was sure he had done some useful thing and patted him and there the matter ended and it was well enough for the farmer that his dog had chased that troll from his farm for had it communicated to his livestock any of the wonder of Elfland they would have mocked at man and that farmer would have lost the allegiance of all but his staunch dog and the troll went on gaily over the tips of the buttercups presently he saw rising up all white over the flowers a fox that was facing him with his white chest and chin and watching the troll as it went the troll went near to him and took a look and the fox went on watching him for the fox watches all things he had come back lately to those dewy fields from slinking by night along the boundary of twilight that lies between here and Elfland he even prowls inside the very boundary walking amongst the twilight and it is in the mystery of that heavy twilight that lies between here and there that there clings to him some of the glamour that he brings with him to our fields well no man's dog said the troll for they know the fox in Elfland from seeing him often go dimly along their borders and this is the name they give him well thing over the border said the fox when he answered at all for he knew troll talk are there haunts of men near here said the troll the fox moved his whiskers by slightly wrinkling his lip like all liars he reflected before he spoke and sometimes even let wise silences do better than speech men live here and men live there said the fox i want their haunts said the troll what for said the fox i have a message from the king of Elfland the fox showed no respect or fear at the mention of that dread name but slightly moved his head and eyes to conceal the awe that he felt if it is a message he said their haunts are over there and he pointed with his long thin nose towards earl how shall i know when i get there said the troll by the smell said the fox it is a big haunt of men and the smell is dreadful thanks no man's dog said the troll and he seldom thanked anyone i should never go near them said the fox but for and he paused and reflected silently but for what said the troll but for their poultry and he fell into a grave silence goodbye no man's dog said the troll and turned head over heels and was off on his way to earl passing over the buttercup saw through the dewy morning the troll was far on his way by the afternoon and saw before evening the smoke and the towers of earl it was all sunk in a hollow and gables and chimneys and towers peered over the lip of the valley and smoke hung over them on the dreamy air the haunts of men said the troll then he sat down amongst the grasses and looked at it presently he went nearer and looked at it again he did not like the look of the smoke and that crowd of gables certainly it's melted deathly there had been some legend in elf land of the wisdom of man and whatever respect that legend had gained for us in the light mind of a troll now all blew lightly away as he looked at the crowded houses and as he looked at them there passed a child of four a small girl on a footpath over the fields going home in the evening to earl they looked at each other with round eyes hello said the child hello child of men said the troll he was not speaking troll talk now but the language of elf land that grander tongue that he had had to speak when he was before the king for he knew the language of elf land although it was never used in the homes of the trolls who preferred troll talk this language was spoken in those days also by men for there were fewer languages then and the elves and the people of earl both used the same what are you said the child a troll of elf land answered the troll so I thought said the child where are you going child of men the troll asked to the houses the child replied we don't want to go there said the troll no said the child come to elf land said the troll the child thought for a while other children had gone and the elves always sent a changeling in their place so that nobody quite missed them and nobody really knew she thought a while of the wonder and wildness of elf land and then of her own home no said the child why not said the troll mother made a jam roll this morning said the child and she walked on gravely home had it not been for that chance jam roll she had gone to elf land jam said the troll contemptuously and thought of the tarns of elf land the great lily leaves lying flat upon their solemn waters the huge blue lilies towering into the elf light above the green deep tarns for jam this child had forsaken them then he thought of his duty again the role of parchment and the elf king's ruin for his daughter he had carried the parchment in his left hand when he ran in his mouth when he somersaulted over the buttercups was the princess here he thought or were there other haunts of men as evening drew in he crept nearer and nearer the homes to here without being seen end of chapter seven the coming of the troll chapter eight of the king of elf land's daughter by lord dunsaney this lever vox recording is in the public domain chapter eight the arrival of the rune on a sunny may morning in url the witch is a runder well sat in the castle nursery by the fire cooking a meal for the baby the boy was now three years old and still luiselle had not named him for she feared lest some jealous spirit of earth or air should hear the name and if so she would not say what she feared then and alvarick had said he must be named and the boy could bowl a hoop for the witch had gone one misty night to her hill and had brought him a moon halo which she had got by enchantment at moonrise and had hammered it into a hoop and had made him a little rod of thunderbolt iron with which to beat it along and now the boy was waiting for his breakfast and there was a spell across the threshold to keep the nursery snug which is a runder well had put there with a wave of her ebb and stick and it kept out rats and mice and dogs nor could bats sail across it and the watchful nursery cat it kept at home no lock that black smiths made was any stronger suddenly over the threshold and over the spell the troll jumped summer salting through the air and came down sitting the crude wooden nursery clock hanging over the fire stopped its loud tick as he came for he bore with him a little charm against time with strange grass around one of his fingers that he might not be withered away in the fields we know for well the elf king knew the flight of our hours four years had swept over the fields of ours while he had boomed down his brazen steps and sent for his troll and given him that spell to bind around one of his fingers what's this said the runder well that troll knew well when to be impudent but looking in the witch's eyes saw something to be afraid of and well he might for those eyes had looked in the elf king's own therefore he played as we say in these fields his best card and answered a message from the king of elf land is that so said the old witch yes yes she added more lowly to herself that would be for my lady yes that would come the troll sat still on the floor fingering the role of parchment inside of which was written the room of the king of elf land then over the end of his bed as he waited for his breakfast the baby saw the troll and asked him who he was and where he came from and what he was able to do when the baby asked him what he was able to do the troll jumped up and skipped about the room like a moth on a lamp lit ceiling from floor to shelves and back and up again he went with leaps like flying the baby clapped his hands the cat was furious the witch raised her ebb and stick and made a charm against the leaping but it could not hold the troll he leaped and bounced and bounded while the cat hissed all the curses that the feline language knows and zarunderel was wrath not only because her magic was thwarted but because with mere human alarm she feared for her cups and saucers and the baby shouted all the while for more and all at once the troll remembered his errand and the dread parchment he bore where is the princess lyra's l he said to the witch and the witch pointed the way to the princess's tower for she knew that there was no means nor power she had by which to hinder a rune from the king of elf land and as the troll turned to go lyra's l entered the room he bowed all low before this great lady of elf land and with all his impudence in a moment lost kneeled on one knee before the blaze of her beauty and presented the elf king's rune the boy was shouting to his mother to demand more leaps from the troll as she took the scroll in her hand the cat with her back to a box was watching alertly zarunderel was all silent and then the troll thought of the weed green tarnes of elf land in the woods that the trolls knew he thought of the wonder of the unwithering flowers that time has never touched the deep deep color and the perpetual calm his errand was over and he was weary of earth for a moment nothing moved there but the baby shouting for new troll antics and waving his arms lyra's l stood with the elf and scroll in her hand the troll knelt before her the witch never stirred the cat stood watching fiercely even the clock was still then the princess moved and the troll rose to his feet the witch sighed and the cat gave up her watchfulness as the trolls scampered away and though the baby shouted for the troll to return it never heated but twisted down the long spiral stairs and slipping out through the door was off towards elf land as the troll passed over the threshold the wooden clock ticked again lyra's l looked at the scroll and looked at her boy and did not unroll the parchment but turned and carried it away and came to her chamber and locked the scroll in a casket and left it there on red for her fears told her well the most potent ruin of her father that she had dreaded so much as she fled from his silver tower and heard his feet go booming up the brass had crossed the frontier of twilight written upon the scroll and would meet her eyes the moment she unrolled it and waft her fence when the ruin was safe in the casket she went to alvarick to tell him of the peril that had come near her but alvarick was troubled because she would not name the baby and asked her at once about this and so she suggested a name at last to him and it was one that no one in these fields could pronounce an elvish name full of wonder and made of syllables like birds cries at night alvarick would have none of it and her whim in this came as all whim she had from no customary thing of these fields of ours but sheer over the border from elfland sheer over the border with all wild fancies that rarely visit our fields and alvarick was vexed with these whims for there had been none like them of old in the castle of earl none could interpret them to him and none advise him he looked for her to be guided by old customs she looked only for some wild fancy to come from the southeast he reasoned with her with the human reason that folks at much store by here but she did not want reason and so when they parted she had not after all told anything of the peril that had sought her from elfland which she had come to alvarick to tell she went instead to her tower and looked at the casket shining there in the low late light and turned from it and often looked again while the light went under the fields and the glow mean came and all glimmered away she sat then by the casement open towards eastern hills above whose darkening curves she watched the stars she watched so long that she saw them change their places for more than all things else that she had seen since she came to these fields of ours she had wondered at the stars she loved their gentle beauty and yet she was sad as she looked wistfully at them for alvarick had said that she must not worship them how if she might not worship them could she give them their due could she thank them for their beauty could she praise their joyful calm and then she thought of her baby then she saw a ryan then she defied all jealous spirits of air and looking toward a ryan whom she must never worship she offered her baby's days to that belted hunter naming her baby after those splendid stars and when alvarick came to the tower she told him of her wish and he was willing the boy should be named a ryan for all in that valley set much store by hunting and the hope came back to alvarick which she would not put away that being reasonable at last in this she would now be reasonable in all other things and be guided by custom and do what others did and forsake wild whims and fancies that came over the border from elf land and he asked her to worship the holy things of the friar for never had she given any of these things their due and knew not which was the holier his candlestick or his bell and never would learn for art that alvarick told her and now she answered him pleasantly and her husband thought all was well but her thoughts were far with a ryan nor did they ever tarry with grave things long nor could tarry longer amongst them than butterflies do in the shade all that night the casket was locked on the rune of the king of elf land and next morning lyrizel gave little thought to the rune for they went with the boy to the holy place of the friar and ze rune de rel came with them but waited without and the folk of earl came too as many as could leave the affairs of man with the fields and all were there of those that had made the parliament when they went to alvarick's sire in the long red room and all of these were glad when they saw the boy and marked his strengthened growth and muttering low together as they stood in the holy place they foretold how all should be as they had planned and the friar came forth and standing amongst his holy things he gave to the boy before him the name of orion though he sooner had given some name of those that he knew to be blessed and he rejoiced to see the boy and to name him there for by the family that dwelt in the castle of earl all these folk marked the generations and watched the ages pass as sometimes we watch the seasons go over some old known tree and he bowed himself before alvarick and was full courteous to lyrizel yet his courtesy to the princess came not from his heart for in his heart he held her in no more reverence than he held a mermaid that had forsaken the sea and the boy came even so by the name of orion and all the folk rejoiced as he came out with his parents and rejoined the runderelle at the edge of the holy garden and alvarick lyrizel the runderelle and orion all walked back to the castle and all that day lyrizel did nothing that caused anybody to wonder but let herself be governed by custom and the ways of the fields we know only when the stars came out and orion shown she knew that their splendor had not received its due and her gratitude to orion yearned to be said she was grateful for his bright beauty that cheered our fields and grateful for his protection of which she felt sure for her boy against jealous spirits of air and all her unsaid thanks so burned in her heart that all of a sudden she rose and left her tower and went out to the open starlight and lifted her face to the stars in the place of orion and stood all dumb though her thanks were trembling upon her lips for alvarick had told her one must not pray to the stars with face upturned to all that wandering host she stood long silent obedient to alvarick then she lowered her eyes and there was a small pool glimmering in the night in which all the faces of the stars were shining to pray to the stars she said to herself in the night is surely wrong these images in the water are not the stars i will pray to their images and the stars will know and on her knees amongst the iris leaves she prayed at the edge of the pool and gave thanks to the images of the stars for the joy she had had of the night when the constellations shone in their myriad majesty and moved like an army dressed in silver male marching from unknown victories to conquer in distant wars she blessed and thanked and praised those bright reflections shimmering down in the pool and made them tell her thanks and her praise to orion to whom she might not pray it was thus that alvarick found her kneeling bent down in the dark and reproached her bitterly she was worshiping the stars he said which were there for no such purpose and she said she was only supplicating their images we may understand his feelings easily the strangeness of her her unexpected acts her contrariness to all established things her scorn for custom her wayward ignorance jarred on some treasured tradition every day the more romantic she had been far away over the frontier as told of by legend and song the more difficult it was for her to fill any place once held by the ladies of that castle who reversed in all the lore of the fields we know and alvarick looked for her to fulfill duties and follow customs which were all as new to her as the twinkling stars but liressel felt only that the stars had not their due and that custom or reason or whatever men set store by should demand that thanks be given them for their beauty and she had not thanked them even but had supplicated only their images in the pool that night she thought of elf land where all things were matched with her beauty where nothing changed and there were no strange customs and no strange magnificences like these stars of ours to whom none gave their due she thought of the elfin lawns and the towering banks of the flowers and the palace that may not be told of but only in song still locked in the dark of the casket the rune bided its time end of chapter eight the arrival of the rune chapter nine of the king of elf land's daughter by lord danceni this libra vox recording is in the public domain chapter nine liressel blows away and the days went by the summer passed over earl the sun that had traveled northward fared south again it was near to the time when the swallows left those eaves and liressel had not learned anything she had not prayed to the stars again or supplicated their images but she had learned no human customs and could not see why her love and gratitude must remain unexpressed to the stars and alveric did not know that the time must come when some simple trivial thing would divide them utterly and then one day hoping still he took her with him to the house of the friar to teach her how to worship his holy things and gladly the good man brought his candle and bell and the eagle of brass that held up his book when he read and a little symbolic bowl that had scented water and the silver snuffers that put his candle out and he told her clearly and simply as he had told her before the origin meaning and mystery of all these things and why the bowl was of brass and the snuffer of silver and what the symbols were that were carved on the bowl with fitting courtesy he told her these things even with kindness and yet there was something in his voice as he told a little distant from her and she knew that he spoke as one that walked safe on shore calling far to a mermaid amid dangerous seas as they came back to the castle the swallows were grouped to go sitting in lines along the battlements and liressel had promised to worship the holy things of the friar like the simple bell-fearing folk of the valley of earl and the late hope was shining in alvarex mind that even yet all was well and for many days she remembered all that the friar had told her and one day walking late from the nursery past tall windows to her tower and looking out on the evening remembering that she must not worship the stars she called to mind the holy things of the friar and tried to remember all she was told of them it seems so hard to worship them just as she should she knew that before many hours the swallows would all be gone and often when they left her her mood would change and she feared that she might forget and never remember more how she ought to worship the holy things of the friar so she went out into the night again over the grasses to where the thinburg ran and drew out some great flat pebbles that she knew where to find turning her face away from the images of the stars by day the stones shone beautifully in the water already and mauve now they were all dark she drew them out and laid them in the meadow she loved these smooth flat stones for somehow they made her remember the rocks of elfland she laid them all in a row this for the candlestick this for the bell that for the holy bowl if i can worship these lovely stones as things ought to be worshiped she said i can worship the things of the friar then she knelt down before the big flat stones and prayed to them as though they were christian things and alveric seeking her in the wide night wondering what wild fancy had carried her with her heard her voice in the meadow ruining such prayers as are offered to holy things when he saw the four flat stones to which she prayed bowed down before them in the grass he said that no worse than this were the darkest ways of the heathen and she said i am learning to worship the holy things of the friar it is the art of the heathen he said now of all things that men feared in the valley of earl they feared most the arts of the heathen of whom they knew nothing but that their ways were dark and he spoke with the anger which men always used when they spoke there of the heathen and his anger went to her heart for she was but learning to worship his holy things to please him and yet he had spoken like this and alveric would not speak the words that should have been said to turn aside anger and soothe her for no man he foolishly thought should compromise in matters touching on heathen s so lyrizel went alone all sadly back to her tower and alveric stayed to cast the four flat stones afar and the swallows left and unhappy days went by and one day alveric bade her worship the holy things of the friar and she had quite forgotten how and he spoke again of the arts of heathen s the day was shining and the poplars golden and all the aspen's red then lyrizel went to her tower and opened the casket that shone in the morning with the clear autumnal light and took in her hand the rune of the king of alfland and carried it with her across the high vaulted hall and came to another tower and climbed its steps to the nursery and there all day she stayed and played with her child with the scroll still tied in her hand and merrily though she played at wiles yet there were strange calms in her eyes which zarunderel watched while she wondered and when the sun was low and she had put the child to bed she sat beside him all solemn as she told him childish tales and zarunderel the wise which watched and for all her wisdom only guessed how it would be and knew not how to make it otherwise and before sunset lyrizel kissed the boy and unrolled the elf king scroll it was but a petulance that had made her take it from the coffer in which it lay and the petulance might have passed and she might not have unrolled the scroll only that it was there in her hand partly petulance partly wonder partly whims do idle to name do her eyes to the elf king's words in their cold black curious characters and whatever magic there was in the rune of which i cannot tell and dreadful magic there was the rune was written with love that was stronger than magic till those mystical characters glowed with the love that the elf king had for his daughter and there were blended in that mighty rune two powers magic and love the greatest power there is beyond the boundary of twilight with the greatest power there is in the fields we know and if alvarex love could have held her he should have trusted alone in that love for the elf king's rune was mightier than the holy things of the friar no sooner had lyrizel read the rune on the scroll than fancies from elf land began to pour over the border some came that would make a clerk in the city today leave his desk at once to dance on the seashore and some would have driven all the men in a bank to leave doors and coffers open and wander away till they came to green open land and the heathery hills and some would have made a poet of a man all of a sudden as he sat at his business they were mighty fancies that the elf king summoned by the force of his magical rune and lyrizel sat there with the rune in her hand helpless among this massive tumultuous fancies from elf land and as the fancies raged and sang and called more and more over the border all crowding on one poor mind her body grew lighter and lighter her feet half rested half floated upon the floor earth scarcely held her down so fast was she becoming a thing of dreams no love of hers for earth or of the children of earth for her had any longer power to hold her there and now came memories of her ageless childhood beside the tarns of elf land by the deep forest border by those delirious lawns are in the palace that may not be told of except only in song she saw those things as clearly as we see small shells in water looking through clear ice down to the floor of some sleeping lake a little dimmed in that other region across the barrier of ice so to her memory shown a little dimly from across the frontier of elf land little queer sounds of elephant creatures came to her since swim from those miraculous flowers that glowed by the lawns she knew faint sounds of enchanted songs blew over the border and reached her seated there voices and melodies and memories came floating through the twilight all elf land was calling then measured in resonant and strangely near she heard her father's voice she rose at once and now earth had lost on her the grip that it only has on material things and a thing of dreams and fancy and fable and fantasy she drifted from the room and zarunderel had no power to hold her with any spell nor had lyra zeal herself the power even to turn even to look at her boy as she drifted away and at that moment a wind came out of the northwest and entered the woods and bared the golden branches and danced on over the downs and led a company of scarlet and golden leaves that had dreaded this day but dance now it had come and away with a riot of dancing and glory of color high in the light of the sun that had set from the side of the fields went wind and leaves together with them went lyra zeal end of chapter nine lyra zeal blows away