The Wisdom Of The King
The High-Queen of the Island of Woods had died in childbirth, and her
child was put to nurse with a woman who lived in a hut of mud and
wicker, within the border of the wood. One night the woman sat
rocking the cradle, and pondering over the beauty of the child, and
praying that the gods might grant him wisdom equal to his beauty.
There came a knock at the door, and she got up, not a little
wondering, for the nearest neighbours were in the dun of the High-
King a mile away; and the night was now late. 'Who is knocking?' she
cried, and a thin voice answered, 'Open! for I am a crone of the grey
hawk, and I come from the darkness of the great wood.' In terror she
drew back the bolt, and a grey-clad woman, of a great age, and of a
height more than human, came in and stood by the head of the cradle.
The nurse shrank back against the wall, unable to take her eyes from
the woman, for she saw by the gleaming of the firelight that the
feathers of the grey hawk were upon her head instead of hair. But the
child slept, and the fire danced, for the one was too ignorant and
the other too full of gaiety to know what a dreadful being stood
there. 'Open!' cried another voice, 'for I am a crone of the grey
hawk, and I watch over his nest in the darkness of the great wood.'
The nurse opened the door again, though her fingers could scarce hold
the bolts for trembling, and another grey woman, not less old than
the other, and with like feathers instead of hair, came in and stood
by the first. In a little, came a third grey woman, and after her a
fourth, and then another and another and another, until the hut was
full of their immense bodies. They stood a long time in perfect
silence and stillness, for they were of those whom the dropping of
the sand has never troubled, but at last one muttered in a low thin
voice: 'Sisters, I knew him far away by the redness of his heart
under his silver skin'; and then another spoke: 'Sisters, I knew him
because his heart fluttered like a bird under a net of silver cords
'; and then another took up the word: 'Sisters, I knew him because
his heart sang like a bird that is happy in a silver cage.' And after
that they sang together, those who were nearest rocking the cradle
with long wrinkled fingers; and their voices were now tender and
caressing, now like the wind blowing in the great wood, and this was
their song:
Out of sight is out of mind:
Long have man and woman-kind,
Heavy of will and light of mood,
Taken away our wheaten food,
Taken away our Altar stone;
Hail and rain and thunder alone,
And red hearts we turn to grey,
Are true till Time gutter away.
When the song had died out, the crone who had first spoken, said: 'We
have nothing more to do but to mix a drop of our blood into his
blood.' And she scratched her arm with the sharp point of a spindle,
which she had made the nurse bring to her, and let a drop of blood,
grey as the mist, fall upon the lips of the child; and passed out
into the darkness. Then the others passed out in silence one by one;
and all the while the child had not opened his pink eyelids or the
fire ceased to dance, for the one was too ignorant and the other too
full of gaiety to know what great beings had bent over the cradle.
When the crones were gone, the nurse came to her courage again, and
hurried to the dun of the High-King, and cried out in the midst of
the assembly hall that the Sidhe, whether for good or evil she knew
not, had bent over the child that night; and the king and his poets
and men of law, and his huntsmen, and his cooks, and his chief
warriors went with her to the hut and gathered about the cradle, and
were as noisy as magpies, and the child sat up and looked at them.
Two years passed over, and the king died fighting against the Fer
Bolg; and the poets and the men of law ruled in the name of the
child, but looked to see him become the master himself before long,
for no one had seen so wise a child, and tales of his endless
questions about the household of the gods and the making of the world
went hither and thither among the wicker houses of the poor.
Everything had been well but for a miracle that began to trouble all
men; and all women, who, indeed, talked of it without ceasing. The
feathers of the grey hawk had begun to grow in the child's hair, and
though, his nurse cut them continually, in but a little while they
would be more numerous than ever. This had not been a matter of great
moment, for miracles were a little thing in those days, but for an
ancient law of Eri that none who had any blemish of body could sit
upon the throne; and as a grey hawk was a wild thing of the air which
had never sat at the board, or listened to the songs of the poets in
the light of the fire, it was not possible to think of one in whose
hair its feathers grew as other than marred and blasted; nor could
the people separate from their admiration of the wisdom that grew in
him a horror as at one of unhuman blood. Yet all were resolved that
he should reign, for they had suffered much from foolish kings and
their own disorders, and moreover they desired to watch out the
spectacle of his days; and no one had any other fear but that his
great wisdom might bid him obey the law, and call some other, who had
but a common mind, to reign in his stead.
When the child was seven years old the poets and the men of law were
called together by the chief poet, and all these matters weighed and
considered. The child had already seen that those about him had hair
only, and, though they had told him that they too had had feathers
but had lost them because of a sin committed by their forefathers,
they knew that he would learn the truth when he began to wander into
the country round about. After much consideration they decreed a new
law commanding every one upon pain of death to mingle artificially
the feathers of the grey hawk into his hair; and they sent men with
nets and slings and bows into the countries round about to gather a
sufficiency of feathers. They decreed also that any who told the
truth to the child should be flung from a cliff into the sea.
The years passed, and the child grew from childhood into boyhood and
from boyhood into manhood, and from being curious about all things he
became busy with strange and subtle thoughts which came to him in
dreams, and with distinctions between things long held the same and
with the resemblance of things long held different. Multitudes came
from other lands to see him and to ask his counsel, but there were
guards set at the frontiers, who compelled all that came to wear the
feathers of the grey hawk in their hair. While they listened to him
his words seemed to make all darkness light and filled their hearts
like music; but, alas, when they returned to their own lands his
words seemed far off, and what they could remember too strange and
subtle to help them to live out their hasty days. A number indeed did
live differently afterwards, but their new life was less excellent
than the old: some among them had long served a good cause, but when
they heard him praise it and their labour, they returned to their own
lands to find what they had loved less lovable and their arm lighter
in the battle, for he had taught them how little a hair divides the
false and true; others, again, who had served no cause, but wrought
in peace the welfare of their own households, when he had expounded
the meaning of their purpose, found their bones softer and their will
less ready for toil, for he had shown them greater purposes; and
numbers of the young, when they had heard him upon all these things,
remembered certain words that became like a fire in their hearts, and
made all kindly joys and traffic between man and man as nothing, and
went different ways, but all into vague regret.
When any asked him concerning the common things of life; disputes
about the mear of a territory, or about the straying of cattle, or
about the penalty of blood; he would turn to those nearest him for
advice; but this was held to be from courtesy, for none knew that
these matters were hidden from him by thoughts and dreams that filled
his mind like the marching and counter-marching of armies. Far less
could any know that his heart wandered lost amid throngs of
overcoming thoughts and dreams, shuddering at its own consuming
solitude.
Among those who came to look at him and to listen to him was the
daughter of a little king who lived a great way off; and when he saw
her he loved, for she was beautiful, with a strange and pale beauty
unlike the women of his land; but Dana, the great mother, had decreed
her a heart that was but as the heart of others, and when she
considered the mystery of the hawk feathers she was troubled with a
great horror. He called her to him when the assembly was over and
told her of her beauty, and praised her simply and frankly as though
she were a fable of the bards; and he asked her humbly to give him
her love, for he was only subtle in his dreams. Overwhelmed with his
greatness, she half consented, and yet half refused, for she longed
to marry some warrior who could carry her over a mountain in his
arms. Day by day the king gave her gifts; cups with ears of gold and
findrinny wrought by the craftsmen of distant lands; cloth from over
sea, which, though woven with curious figures, seemed to her less
beautiful than the bright cloth of her own country; and still she was
ever between a smile and a frown; between yielding and withholding.
He laid down his wisdom at her feet, and told how the heroes when
they die return to the world and begin their labour anew; how the
kind and mirthful Men of Dea drove out the huge and gloomy and
misshapen People from Under the Sea; and a multitude of things that
even the Sidhe have forgotten, either because they happened so long
ago or because they have not time to think of them; and still she
half refused, and still he hoped, because he could not believe that a
beauty so much like wisdom could hide a common heart.
There was a tall young man in the dun who had yellow hair, and was
skilled in wrestling and in the training of horses; and one day when
the king walked in the orchard, which was between the foss and the
forest, he heard his voice among the salley bushes which hid the
waters of the foss. 'My blossom,' it said, 'I hate them for making
you weave these dingy feathers into your beautiful hair, and all that
the bird of prey upon the throne may sleep easy o' nights'; and then
the low, musical voice he loved answered: 'My hair is not beautiful
like yours; and now that I have plucked the feathers out of your hair
I will put my hands through it, thus, and thus, and thus; for it
casts no shadow of terror and darkness upon my heart.' Then the king
remembered many things that he had forgotten without understanding
them, doubtful words of his poets and his men of law, doubts that he
had reasoned away, his own continual solitude; and he called to the
lovers in a trembling voice. They came from among the salley bushes
and threw themselves at his feet and prayed for pardon, and he
stooped down and plucked the feathers out of the hair of the woman
and then turned away towards the dun without a word. He strode into
the hall of assembly, and having gathered his poets and his men of
law about him, stood upon the dais and spoke in a loud, clear voice:
'Men of law, why did you make me sin against the laws of Eri? Men of
verse, why did you make me sin against the secrecy of wisdom, for law
was made by man for the welfare of man, but wisdom the gods have
made, and no man shall live by its light, for it and the hail and the
rain and the thunder follow a way that is deadly to mortal things?
Men of law and men of verse, live according to your kind, and call
Eocha of the Hasty Mind to reign over you, for I set out to find my
kindred.' He then came down among them, and drew out of the hair of
first one and then another the feathers of the grey hawk, and, having
scattered them over the rushes upon the floor, passed out, and none
dared to follow him, for his eyes gleamed like the eyes of the birds
of prey; and no man saw him again or heard his voice. Some believed
that he found his eternal abode among the demons, and some that he
dwelt henceforth with the dark and dreadful goddesses, who sit all
night about the pools in the forest watching the constellations
rising and setting in those desolate mirrors.
-THE END-
William Butler Yeats' short story: The Wisdom Of The King
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