The King of Elfland’s Daughter, Lord Dunsany [free books to read .txt] 📗

was sweeping away from the world, with grey dust mournfully turning over and over as it drifted across our fields, going slowly into the darkness that was gathering beyond our coasts.

“Why are you sweeping the world, Mother Witch?” he said.

“There’s things in the world that ought not to be here,” said she.

He looked wistfully then at the rolling grey clouds from her broom that were all drifting towards Elfland.

“Mother Witch,” he said, “can I go too? I have looked for twelve years for Elfland, and have not found a glimpse of the Elfin Mountains.”

And the old witch looked kindly at him, and then she glanced at his sword.

“He’s afraid of my magic,” she said; and thought or mystery dawned in her eyes as she spoke.

“Who?” said Alveric.

And Ziroonderel lowered her eyes.

“The King,” she said.

And then she told him how that enchanted monarch would draw away from whatever had worsted him once, and with him draw all that he had, never supporting the presence of any magic that was the equal of his.

And Alveric could not believe that such a king cared so much for the magic he had in his old black scabbard.

“It is his way,” she said.

And then he would not believe that he had waved away Elfland.

“He has the power,” said she.

And still Alveric would face this terrible king and all the powers he had; but wizard and witch had warned him that he could not go with his sword, and how go unarmed through the grizzly wood against the palace of wonder? For to go there with any sword from the anvils of men was but to go unarmed.

“Mother Witch,” he cried. “May I come no more to Elfland?”

And the longing and grief in his voice touched the witch’s heart and moved it to magical pity.

“You shall go,” she said.

He stood there half despair in the mournful evening, half dreams of Lirazel. While the witch from under her cloak drew forth a small false weight which once she had taken away from a seller of bread.

“Draw this along the edge of your sword,” she said, “all the way from hilt to point, and it will disenchant the blade, and the King will never know what sword is there.”

“Will it still fight for me?” said Alveric.

“No,” said the witch. “But once you are over the frontier take this script and wipe the blade with it on every spot that the false weight has touched.” And she fumbled under her cloak again and drew forth a poem on parchment. “It will enchant it again,” she said.

And Alveric took the weight and the written thing.

“Let not the two touch,” warned the witch.

And Alveric set them apart.

“Once over the frontier,” she said, “and he may move Elfland where he will, but you and the sword will be within his borders.”

“Mother Witch,” said Alveric, “will he be wroth with you if I do this?”

“Wroth!” said Ziroonderel. “Wroth? He will rage with a most exceeding fury, beyond the power of tigers.”

“I would not bring that on you, Mother Witch,” said Alveric.

“Ha!” said Ziroonderel. “What care I?”

Night was advancing now, and the moor and the air growing black like the witch’s cloak. She was laughing now and merging into the darkness. And soon the night was all blackness and laughter; but he could see no witch.

Then Alveric made his way back to his rocky camp by the light of its lonely fire.

And as soon as morning appeared on the desolation, and all the useless rocks began to glow, he took the false weight and softly rubbed it along both sides of his sword until all its magical edge was disenchanted. And he did this in his tent while his followers slept, for he would not let them know that he sought for help that came not from the ravings of Niv, nor from any sayings that Zend had had from the moon.

Yet the troubled sleep of madness is not so deep that Niv did not watch him out of one wild sly eye when he heard the false weight softly rasping the sword.

And when this was secretly done and secretly watched, Alveric called to his two men, and they came and folded up his tattered tent, and took the long pole and hung their sorry belongings upon it; and on went Alveric along the edge of the fields we know, impatient to come at last to the land that so long eluded him. And Niv and Zend came behind with the pole between them, with bundles swinging from it and tatters flying.

They moved inland a little towards the houses of men to purchase the food they needed; and this they bought in the afternoon from a farmer who dwelt in a lonely house, so near to the very edge of the fields we know that it must have been the last house in the visible world. And here they bought bread and oatmeal, and cheese and a cured ham, and other such things, and put them in sacks and slung them over their pole; then they left the farmer and turned away from his fields and from all the fields of men. And as evening fell they saw just over a hedge, lighting up the land with a soft strange glow that they knew to be not of this Earth, that barrier of twilight that is the frontier of Elfland.

“Lirazel!” shouted Alveric, and drew his sword and strode into the twilight. And behind him went Niv and Zend, with all their suspicions flaming now into jealousy of inspirations or magic that were not theirs.

Once he called Lirazel; then, little trusting his voice in that wide weird land, he lifted his hunter’s horn that hung by his side on a strap, he lifted it to his lips and sounded a call weary with so much wandering. He was standing within the edge of the boundary; the horn shone in the light of Elfland.

Then Niv and Zend dropped their pole in that unearthly twilight, where it