No More Learning

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.