The King of Elfland’s Daughter 3

The next couple of chapters have a lot less action, but have useful little bundles of folklore in them. Jason from the Forums has a great set of statistics for the witch, that I hope he’ll include in the comments.

Back to Earth After Many Years

Back through the guarding wood went Alveric and Lirazel, she only looking once more at those flowers and lawns, seen only by the furthest-travelling fancies of poets in deepest sleep, then urging Alveric 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 lustreless unromantic line that Alveric’s sword had smitten, looking queerly as they came at their stricken comrades, whose listless branches drooped without magic or mystery. And as the moving trees came nearer Lirazel would hold up her hand, and they all halted and came on no more; and still she urged upon Alveric to hasten.

The trees here are clearly conscious, rather than puppets. They stop and look at the other trees, and wonder at what has occurred. They obey Lirazel.

She knew her father would climb the brazen stairs of one of those silver spires, she knew he would soon come out on to a high balcony, she knew what rune 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 Alveric 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 Alveric, but at that moment the scent of briar roses came drifting to them from the fields we know.

Lizarel can see tremendous distances, but perhaps only if it’s dramatically necessary. This could be a form of the Faerie Empathy that seems to pervade the land.

Alveric 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 rune 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.

They’ve left the Range of the rune and are no longer legitimate Targets.

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.

Elfland does not need haystacks, because the animals there do not need to be fed during the winter.

A lark was singing and Lirazel spoke to it, and the lark seemed not to understand, but she turned to other glories of our fields, for all were new to her, and forgot the lark.

To quote Sondheim “You can talk to birds?”

It was curiously no longer the season of bluebells, for all the foxgloves were blooming and the may was gone and the wild roses were there. Alveric never understood this.

Foxgloves are yet another faerie plant. The name does lead to stories of foxes using the flowers as gloves, but one theory is that it comes from a Saxon word, “gleow” which means a ring of bells. The foxes were taught, by the fair folk, to ring the bells, to warn their fellows that a hunt was nearby. There are some problems with this theory, the key one being that fox hunting only became popular once the English had killed off anything larger and more edible.

Foxglove lore varies across England. In some areas the flowers are believed to grow on mounds favoured by the faeries. In others, if the stalks of the foxglove are moving but there is no wind, faeries are passing by. In some areas it attracts them to gardens, in others foxglove petals protect children from abduction. The use of foxglove as a heart medicine, and relatedly as a poison, is known in period.

It was early morning and the sun was shining, giving soft colours 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 Earth’s every day. So glad was she, so gay, with her cries of surprise and her laughter, that there seemed thenceforth to Alveric a beauty that he had never dreamed of in buttercups, and a humour in carts that he never had thought of before. Each moment she found with a cry of joyous discovery some treasure of Earth’s that he had not known to be fair. And then, as he watched her bringing a beauty to our fields more delicate even than that the wild roses brought, he saw that her crown of ice had melted away.

Buttercups are likely a time marker here: in researching this I find the plants I call buttercups are not anything like the English buttercup. They are mildly poisonous to humans and animals, but pretty for all of that. There’s not a heap of folklore about the like some of the other flowers mentioned in the story.

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 change but little and only for a while, and came at evening with Alveric to his home.

All was changed in the Castle of Erl. In the gateway they met a guardian whom Alveric 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. Alveric 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 Alveric saw it now? He turned to Lirazel 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 sixpence; time had had no value or meaning to Lirazel, and she was untroubled to hear of the ten lost years. She did not dream what time means to us here.

She doesn’t understand time – she’s congenitally unable to understand human things.

They told Alveric that his father was long since dead. And one told him how he died happy, without impatience, trusting to Alveric to accomplish his bidding; for he had known somewhat of the ways of Elfland, and knew that those that traffic twixt here and there must have something of that calm in which Elfland forever dreams.

The king may be able to foretell the future, which gives him additional assurance that all will be well.

Up the valley, ringing late, they heard the blacksmith’s work. This blacksmith was he who had been the spokesman of those who went once to the long red room to the Lord of Erl. And all these men yet lived; for time though it moved over the Vale of Erl, as over all fields we know, moved gently, not as in our cities.

In Ars Magica terms this is a positive aging modifier due to environment.

Thence Alveric and Lirazel went to the holy place of the Freer. And when they found him Alveric asked the Freer to wed them with Christom rites.

Assuming this is a friar, it places the story as later than the foundation of the mendicant orders, which was in the Twelfth Century. “Christom” is an arachic form of the word “chrism”, which refers to the anointing of the chose. We can take it as “Christian” for all effective purposes.

And when the Freer saw the beauty of Lirazel flash mid the common things in his little holy place, for he had ornamented the walls of his house with knick-knacks that he sometimes bought at the fairs, he feared at once she was of no mortal line. And, when he asked her whence she came and she happily answered “Elfland,” the good man clasped his hands and told her earnestly how all in that land dwelt beyond salvation. But she smiled, for while in Elfland she had always been idly happy, and now she only cared for Alveric. The Freer went then to his books to see what should be done.

Here we come to a matter that’s of interest even in modern theology: are things other than humans saved? The current Vatican position, as described by the Vatican’s astronomer, Guy Consolmagno, is that if there are tentacled Lovecraftian monsters in space, they can be baptised if they want to be. They don’t get their own Squid Jesus, however. The Son of God doesn’t need to tour the universe getting repeatedly nailed to sticks. The medieval belief concerning the salvation of faeries was a bit more complicated, because “faerie” is a category we use to group all kinds of unrelated things together..

For a long while he read in silence but for his breathing, while Alveric and Lirazel 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, turning to Lirazel, 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 Freer,” Lirazel answered, “nought said in these fields can cross the barrier of Elfland. And well that this is so, for my father has three runes that could blast this book when he answered one of its spells, were any word able to pass through the frontier of twilight. I will spell no spells with my father.”

“But I cannot wed Christom man,” the Freer replied, “with one of the stubborn who dwell beyond salvation.”

Then Alveric implored her and she said the say in the book, “though my father could blast 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 rites that are proper for the wedding of a mermaid that hath forsaken the sea.

Lirazel here reaches the secular standard for marriage, but in a religious sense, she’s not reaching the required understanding to be married here. It’s pretty clear she does not understand the nature of the sacrament, and is just repeating words because it pleases Alveric. The priest should stop here, in theory, but the role of consent in marriage is sometimes not well enforced by the Church.

CHAPTER V
The Wisdom of the Parliament of Erl

In those bridal days the men of Erl 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 Vale of Erl 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 Narl the blacksmith, who had been their leader; there was Guhic, who first had thought of it, after speaking with his wife, an upland farmer of clover pastures near Erl; there was Nehic a driver of horses; there were four vendors of beeves; and Oth, a hunter of deer; and Vlel the master-ploughman: all these and three men more had gone to the Lord of Erl and made that request that had set Alveric on his wanderings. And now they spoke of all the good that would come of it. They had all desired that the Vale of Erl should be known among men, as was, they felt, its desert. They had looked in histories, they had read books treating of pasture, yet seldom found mention at all of the vale they loved. And one day Guhic 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 the name of Erl.”

As a quick explanation, “beeves” is an archaic plural of “beef”. The habit of the men going to one man’s house to drink, rather than a tavern, is normal in the C13th. Taverns are for areas where people travel, or there’s a lot of leftover grain. The people of Erl drink mead, made of fermented clover honey, instead.

And all had rejoiced and had made a parliament; and it had gone, twelve men, to the Lord of Erl. And it had been as I have told.

So now they spoke over their mead of the future of Erl, 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 awhile 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 Erl. One praised the beeves, 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 Erl.

And Time that brought these evenings bore them away, moving over the Vale of Erl 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 Lirazel had a son.

Then all the people of Erl 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 for it from a 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 round their fires they would sit on the ground and foretell the fortune of Erl, 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 ploughing; and all foretold a better price for their beeves. 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 Erl should be thenceforth known and honoured in other lands.

Deeper ploughing increases yields by changing the water retention characteristics of the tilled ground. In modern times there’s a reaction against it because it causes topsoil loss, but this was likely unknown to the folk of Erl.

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.

This is the Faerie Eyes virtue, as part of the Strong Faerie Blood package.

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,” said 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 travelled to Elfland; far more it seemed than had passed on that same day over Erl.

He’s suffered some sort of long term Fatigue, or an Aging crisis.

“Aye,” 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 Erl and care for him and be the nurse at the castle? For none but you in all these fields knows ought 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 she’s back…Jason Tondoro has done a great set of statistics for the Witch.

And often, as they bent together over the baby, that aged witch and the Princess Lirazel 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 man, it was nevertheless she who learned when they talked together, and the Princess Lirazel who taught. But of Earth and the ways of Earth Lirazel never knew anything.

Lirazel’s unable to learn Folk Lore, but the witch can rack up Faerie Lore by Exposure.

And this old witch that watched over the baby so tended him and so soothed, that in all his infancy he never wept.

Faerie children are often described as having a sort of insular clam. There’s some thought behind the idea that many changeling children were on the autistic spectrum, and the charms used against them are a sort of ableism that forces masking.

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 at the sound of it, from logs that she had enchanted, and sent large shadows of the things about the fire quivering dark and merry over the ceiling.

And the child was cared for by Lirazel and the witch as children are cared for whose mothers are merely human; but he knew tunes and runes besides, that other children hear not in fields we know.

So, he is raised as a spellcaster and an enchanter.

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 mist-hidden places, and the child grew to know the mystery of far valleys that his eyes had never seen.

For Magonomia players – her General Divination is triggered by boiling a kettle. Does she make a nice cup of tea? You know she does.

And at evening she would raise her ebon stick and, standing before the fire amongst all the shadows, would enchant them and 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 ebon stick.

She has the Gift, or is at least the Offensive to Animals. Flaw.

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, this is likely ebony then. Ebony has a natural shine, is very hard, and sinks in water.

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 heir had, “for here,” they said, “is the witch Ziroonderel,” 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 Narl, and their houses were quiet in the moonlight and Narl’s windows glowed, and the mead had gone round, and they talked of the future of Erl, 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 Lirazel 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 unvexed 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 Erl; yet none wondered even at those as she wondered 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 Erl than any woodland thing that Threl 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 any more; but he saw at last that the things that were strange would always so remain, 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.

There’s a version of this in the Raised by Faeries flaw.

Between the spirits of Alveric and Lirazel 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 merriment bow to dulness in these strange fields she had come to? And then one day she saw how a woman of Erl looked less fair than she had looked a year ago. Little enough was the change, but her swift eye 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 Elfland 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?

It’s easy to feel sorry for Lirazel here: she’s just discovered she’s now mortal, theoretically. It’s her potential for mortality which has spurred her father to his various acts that seem like imprisonment. There are hints he’s not quite fae, in origin, himself. He may have undergone the Mystery of Becoming.