The Washer of the Ford: Legendary moralities and barbaric tales. Sharp William

old desert king bowed his head. Then he took a blade of grass, and played upon it. It was a wild, strange air that he played.

      “Iosa mac Dhe, tell the woman what song that is,” cried the desert king.

      “It is the secret speech of the Wind that is my Brother,” cried the child, clapping his hands for joy.

      “And what will this be?” and with that the old man took a green leaf, and played a lovely whispering song.

      “It is the secret speech of the leaves,” cried Jesus the little lad, laughing low.

      And thereafter the desert king played upon a handful of dust, and upon a drop of water, and upon a flame of fire; and the Child laughed for the knowing and the joy. Then he gave the secret speech of the singing bird, and the barking fox, and the howling wolf, and the bleating sheep: of all and every created kind.

      “O King of the Elements,” he said then, “for sure you knew much; but now I have made you to know the secret things of the green Earth that is Mother of you and of Mary too.”

      But while Jesus pondered that one mystery, the old man was gone: and when he got to his people, they put him alive into a hollow of the earth and covered him up, because of his shining eyes, and the green youth that was about him as a garland.

      And when Christ was nailed upon the Cross, Deep Knowledge went back into the green world, and passed into the grass and the sap in trees, and the flowing wind, and the dust that swirls and is gone.

      All this is of the wisdom of the long ago, and you and I are of those who know how ancient it is, how remoter far than when Mary, at the bidding of her little son, threw up into the firmament the tears of an old man.

      It is old, old —

      “Thousands of years, thousands of years,

      If all were told.”

      Is it wholly unwise, wholly the fantasy of a dreamer, to insist, in this late day, when the dust behind and the mist before hide from us the Beauty of the World, that we can regain our birthright only by leaving our cloud-palaces of the brain, and becoming consciously at one with the cosmic life of which, merely as men, we are no more than a perpetual phosphorescence?

      THE WASHER OF THE FORD

      WHEN Torcall the Harper heard of the death of his friend, Aodh-of-the-Songs, he made a vow to mourn for him for three seasons – a green time, an apple time, and a snow time.

      There was sorrow upon him because of that death. True, Aodh was not of his kindred, but the singer had saved the harper’s life when his friend was fallen in the Field of Spears.

      Torcall was of the people of the north – of the men of Lochlin. His song was of the fjords, and of strange gods, of the sword and the war-galley, of the red blood and the white breast, of Odin and Thor and Freya, of Balder and the Dream-God that sits in the rainbow, of the starry North, of the flames of pale blue and flushing rose that play around the Pole, of sudden death in battle, and of Valhalla.

      Aodh was of the south isles, where these shake under the thunder of the western seas. His clan was of the isle that is now called Barra, and was then Iondû; but his mother was a woman out of a royal rath in Banba, as men of old called Eiré. She was so fair that a man died of his desire of her. He was named Ulad, and was a prince. “The Melancholy of Ulad” was long sung in his land after his end in the dark swamp, where he heard a singing, and went laughing glad to his death. Another man was made a prince because of her. This was Aodh the Harper, out of the Hebrid Isles. He won the heart out of her, and it was his from the day she heard his music and felt his eyes flame upon her. Before the child was born, she said, “He shall be the son of love. He shall be called Aodh. He shall be called Aodh-of-the-Songs.” And so it was.

      Sweet were his songs. He loved, and he sang, and he died.

      And when Torcall that was his friend knew this sorrow, he arose and made his vow, and went out for evermore from the place where he was.

      Since the hour of the Field of Spears he had been blind. Torcall Dall he was upon men’s lips thereafter. His harp had a moonshine wind upon it from that day, it was said: a beautiful strange harping when he went down through the glen, or out upon the sandy machar by the shore, and played what the wind sang, and the grass whispered, and the tree murmured, and the sea muttered or cried hollowly in the dark.

      Because there was no sight to his eyes, men said he saw and he heard. What was it he heard and he saw that they saw not and heard not? It was in the voice that was in the strings of his harp, so the rumour ran.

      When he rose and went away from his place, the Maormor asked him if he went north, as the blood sang; or south, as the heart cried; or west, as the dead go; or east, as the light comes.

      “I go east,” answered Torcall Dall.

      “And why so, Blind Harper?”

      “For there is darkness always upon me, and I go where the light comes.”

      On that night of the nights, a fair wind blowing out of the west, Torcall the Harper set forth in a galley. It splashed in the moonshine as it was rowed swiftly by nine men.

      “Sing us a song, O Torcall Dall!” they cried.

      “Sing us a song, Torcall of Lochlin,” said the man who steered. He and all his company were of the Gael: the Harper only was of the Northmen.

      “What shall I sing?” he asked. “Shall it be of war that you love, or of women that twine you like silk o’ the kine; or shall it be of death that is your meed; or of your dread, the Spears of the North?”

      A low sullen growl went from beard to beard.

      “We are under geas, Blind Harper,” said the steersman, with downcast eyes because of his flaming wrath; “we are under bond to take you safe to the mainland, but we have sworn no vow to sit still under the lash of your tongue. ’Twas a wind-fleet arrow that sliced the sight out of your eyes: have a care lest a sudden sword-wind sweep the breath out of your body.”

      Torcall laughed a low, quiet laugh.

      “Is it death I am fearing now – I who have washed my hands in blood, and had love, and known all that is given to man? But I will sing you a song, I will.”

      And with that he took his harp, and struck the strings.

      There is a lonely stream afar in a lone dim land:

      It hath white dust for shore it has, white bones bestrew the strand:

      The only thing that liveth there is a naked leaping sword;

      But I, who a seer am, have seen the whirling hand

      Of the Washer of the Ford.

      A shadowy shape of cloud and mist, of gloom and dusk, she stands,

      The Washer of the Ford:

      She laughs, at times, and strews the dust through the hollow of her hands.

      She counts the sins of all men there, and slays the red-stained horde —

      The ghosts of all the sins of men must know the whirling sword

      Of the Washer of the Ford.

      She stoops and laughs when in the dust she sees a writhing limb:

      “Go back into the ford,” she says, “and hither and thither swim;

      Then I shall wash you white as snow, and shall take you by the hand,

      And slay you here in the silence with this my whirling brand,

      And trample you into the dust of this white windless sand – ”

      This is the laughing word

      Of the Washer of the Ford

      Along that silent strand.

      There was silence for a time after Torcall Dall sang that song. The oars took up the moonshine and flung it hither and thither like loose shining stones. The foam at the prow curled and leaped.

      Suddenly one of