No More Learning

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 HEART OF THE SPRING

A VERY old man, whose face was almost as fleshless as the foot of a
bird, sat meditating upon the rocky shore of the flat and hazel-covered
isle which fills the widest part of the Lough Gill. A russet-faced boy
of seventeen years sat by his side, watching the swallows dipping for
flies in the still water.