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

eily-ayah-a-ho,

      Singeth the Sword

      Eily-a-ho, ayah-a-ho, eily-ayah-a-ho,

      Of the Washer of the Ford!

      And at that all ceased from rowing. Standing erect, they lifted up their oars against the stars, and the wild voices of them flew out upon the night —

      Yo, eily-a-ho, ayah-a-ho, eily-ayah-a-ho,

      Singeth the Sword

      Eily-a-ho, ayah-a-ho, eily-ayah-a-ho,

      Of the Washer of the Ford!

      Torcall Dall laughed. Then he drew his sword from his side and plunged it into the sea. When he drew the blade out of the water and whirled it on high, all the white shining drops of it swirled about his head like a sleety rain.

      And at that the steersman let go the steering-oar and drew his sword, and clove a flowing wave. But with the might of his blow the sword spun him round, and the sword sliced away the ear of the man who had the sternmost oar. Then there was blood in the eyes of all there. The man staggered, and felt for his knife, and it was in the heart of the steersman.

      Then because these two men were leaders, and had had a blood-feud, and because all there, save Torcall, were of one or the other side, swords and knives sang a song.

      The rowers dropped their oars; and four men fought against three.

      Torcall laughed, and lay back in his place. While out of the wandering wave the death of each man clambered into the hollow of the boat, and breathed its chill upon its man, Torcall the Blind took his harp. He sang this song, with the swirling spray against his face, and the smell of blood in his nostrils, and the feet of him dabbling in the red tide that rose there.

      Oh, ’tis a good thing the red blood, by Odin his word!

      And a good thing it is to hear it bubbling deep.

      And when we hear the laughter of the Sword,

      Oh, the corbies croak, and the old wail, and the women weep!

      And busy will she be there where she stands,

      Washing the red out of the sins of all this slaying horde;

      And trampling the bones of them into white powdery sands,

      And laughing low at the thirst of her thirsty sword —

      The Washer of the Ford!

      When he had sung that song there was only one man whose pulse still beat, and he was at the bow.

      “A bitter black curse upon you, Torcall Dall!” he groaned out of the ooze of blood that was in his mouth.

      “And who will you be?” said the Blind Harper.

      “I am Fergus, the son of Art, the son of Fergus of the Dûns.”

      “Well, it is a song for your death I will make, Fergus mac Art mhic Fheargus: and because you are the last.”

      With that Torcall struck a wild sob out of his harp, and he sang —

      Oh, death of Fergus, that is lying in the boat here,

      Betwixt the man of the red hair and him of the black beard,

      Rise now, and out of thy cold white eyes take out the fear,

      And let Fergus mac Art mhic Fheargus see his weird!

      Sure, now, it’s a blind man I am, but I’m thinking I see

      The shadow of you crawling across the dead.

      Soon you will twine your arm around his shaking knee,

      And be whispering your silence into his listless head.

      And that is why, O Fergus —

      But here the man hurled his sword into the sea, and with a choking cry fell forward; and upon the white sands he was, beneath the trampling feet of the Washer of the Ford.

      II

      It was a fair wind that blew beneath the stars that night. At dawn the mountains of Skye were like turrets of a great Dûn against the east.

      But Torcall the Blind Harper did not see that thing. Sleep, too, was upon him. He smiled in that sleep, for in his mind he saw the dead men, that were of the alien people, his foes, draw near the stream that was in a far place. The shaking of them, poor, tremulous frostbit leaves they were, thin and sere, made the only breath there was in that desert.

      At the ford – this is what he saw in his vision – they fell down like stricken deer with the hounds upon them.

      “What is this stream?” they cried in the thin voice of rain across the moors.

      “The River of Blood,” said a voice.

      “And who are you that are in the silence?”

      “I am the Washer of the Ford.”

      And with that each red soul was seized and thrown into the water of the ford; and when white as a sheep-bone on the hill, was taken in one hand by the Washer of the Ford and flung into the air, where no wind was and where sound was dead, and was then severed this way and that, in four whirling blows of the sword from the four quarters of the world. Then it was that the Washer of the Ford trampled upon what fell to the ground, till under the feet of her was only a white sand, white as powder, light as the dust of the yellow flowers that grow in the grass.

      It was at that Torcall Dall smiled in his sleep. He did not hear the washing of the sea; no, nor any idle plashing of the unoared boat. Then he dreamed, and it was of the woman he had left, seven summer-sailings ago, in Lochlin. He thought her hand was in his, and that her heart was against his.

      “Ah, dear, beautiful heart of woman,” he said, “and what is the pain that has put a shadow upon you?”

      It was a sweet voice that he heard coming out of sleep.

      “Torcall, it is the weary love I have.”

      “Ah, heart o’ me, dear! sure ’tis a bitter pain I have had, too, and I away from you all these years.”

      “There’s a man’s pain, and there’s a woman’s pain.”

      “By the blood of Balder, Hildyr, I would have both upon me to take it off the dear heart that is here.”

      “Torcall!”

      “Yes, white one.”

      “We are not alone, we two in the dark.”

      And when she had said that thing, Torcall felt two baby arms go round his neck, and two leaves of a wild rose press cool and sweet against his lips.

      “Ah! what is this?” he cried, with his heart beating, and the blood in his body singing a glad song.

      A low voice crooned in his ear: a bitter-sweet song it was, passing-sweet, passing-bitter.

      “Ah, white one, white one,” he moaned; “ah, the wee fawn o’ me! Baby o’ foam, bonnie wee lass, put your sight upon me that I may see the blue eyes that are mine too and Hildyr’s.”

      But the child only nestled closer. Like a fledgling in a great nest she was. If God heard her song, He was a glad God that day. The blood that was in her body called to the blood that was in his body. He could say no word. The tears were in his blind eyes.

      Then Hildyr leaned into the dark, and took his harp, and played upon it. It was of the fonnsheen he had learned, far, far away, where the isles are.

      She sang: but he could not hear what she sang.

      Then the little lips, that were like a cool wave upon the dry sand of his life, whispered into a low song: and the wavering of it was like this in his brain —

      Where the winds gather

      The souls of the dead,

      O Torcall, my father,

      My soul is led!

      In Hildyr-mead

      I