THE KING WITH THE SILVER HAND
I. — THE END OF THE CORANIAID
Once upon a time, before there were any English in Britain, and before Julius Caesar and his Romans ever came here, there was a great king in this island who saved the people from three great troubles. His name was really and truly Lludd Llaw Ereint; that is, Leeth with the Silver Hand. Nowadays people generally call him King Lud, and whether they do that because Lud is much uglier than his real name, or for some other reason, they know best.
Now in the time of King Leeth there were very wonderful things happening, and if you can't understand how such things could be, all I can say is that I read them in a book, and that proves they are true. And perhaps, too, if you could remember what used to happen in the old times, you would not be surprised at them at all, but they would seem quite natural to you. So the best way is to just wonder and wonder about them, and then I think some day you will come to know all about it. At least, you ought to, because even grown-ups do sometimes, and this is one of a whole lot of things that children know more about than grown-ups do. The children haven't had half as much time to forget things in, as the grown-ups have, you see, and that's why it is.
Well then, in those days there were three great sorrows in Britain, and those sorrows were very nearly driving half the people mad, and killing the other half with fright. And although there had been many sorrows in Britain before then, yet those three things seemed to be worse than anything that had ever happened, and though there are greater troubles with us now, the people then felt them more than we feel our troubles, and so, in a sense, they were worse. No one knew how to cure them, and two of them no one knew the causes of, and so every one was very sad, and King Leeth was very sad, too; you never heard people laughing, children forgot how to play their games, and there was no singing anywhere. Think how sad we should be before we stopped singing! And by and bye the sky came to be always cloudy, because the people were so sad, for it is our joy that makes the sun shine. Of course it is! Didn't I tell you that children know more about some things than grown-ups do? Well, that's just one of the things that the poor grown-ups have forgotten, and when they tell you it's all nonsense, you stand up with your hands behind your back and say very politely how sorry you are that they should have forgotten such a nice thing, but hadn't they better wait till they are children again themselves before they make too sure about it? Well, now, one of these sorrows was that there were a lot of people in Britain called the Coraniaid. Very curious and very nasty people they were, too. There are plenty of them about now, only now we can't see them, but they get into our minds, if we will let them, and make us lazy and angry, and upset us in a lot of ways. Some people call them bad thoughts these days, but at that time they were all called the Coraniaid, and people could see them, and many and many a hero went out to fight them-, and that's a lot better than going out to fight human people in other countries, isn't it?
Well, these Coraniaid were terribly clever, and they knew everything the moment it was said, and at least half of what no one said at all, but only thought. And as they hated the human people, and were all the time trying to make them mean, you see what a terrible time it must have been for the old Britons; having to guard against them and to keep their own minds high and grand and noble in spite of all the Coraniaid could do. For if a great hero went out and conquered these Coraniaid, all that happened was that they didn't trouble him any more; if he was very great they might keep out of the way of his friends as well as of himself. But it needed a very great man indeed to free the whole island from them, and even he had to get help before it could be done. That great man was the King, Leeth of the Silver Hand.
But if Leeth was such a great man, you may wonder who on earth was great enough to be able to show him what to do. For Leeth had often tried to save his people from the Coraniaid, but every time they had been too clever for him, and as soon as he had said a word about his plans, the Coraniaid knew just as much of them as he did himself, and so they were always quite ready for him. So at last Leeth had it in his mind that he would go and find out a certain very wise man, and ask him about it.
This wise man was called Llewelys, and the reason why he was so wise was that he had spent all his time helping other people; and if you try that you will become some day just as wise as he was. Llewelys was not living in Britain, and no one knew where he was, but Leeth thought he could find him. So as soon as he had told his people that he was going away, and that it did not matter where he was going, the King went down to the river in London, and in the river was his boat, and into the boat he stepped, and in it he sat down. A wonderful boat it was, for as soon as Leeth was sitting in it, and looking down towards the sea, his chin resting on his two hands and his elbows on his knees, it moved away from the bank and went swiftly down the river, although the tide was coming in, and there was no one rowing, and no sail on the boat, and no wind to fill it if there had been. I think that what made it go so quickly on the clear, beautiful water was that Leeth, as he sat there, was thinking and thinking ever so hard where he wanted it to go, and why he wanted to go there.
So the boat carried him out of London, and on down the river, and where there were great flat marshes stretching away ever so far on each side, with long reeds waving beside broad pools that looked like blue and white, reflecting the blue sky and the clouds; and on the pools and among the reeds there were hundreds of birds, wild ducks and geese, and moor hens, and lapwings that flew round and round in the air and called out when they saw him coming, "Pwee-a-weet? pwee-a-weet? pwee-weet-tee-ee-ee," and that in the old British language means, "Who art thou?" That is what the lapwings always say when they see any one, for they don't learn English when they are little birds, and go to school. And then they saw who he was, and told him how glad they were to see him, and then all the birds looked up, and wished him good luck, and just went about their business. For in those days the birds were very friendly with the human people, and did not fly away when they saw them, as they do now. At least, I suppose they were, or else how would they have been talking like that to the King?
And so Lludd went on down to the sea, and over the green, long waves, and they did not break under his boat, but just gave it a help along when they could. And at last, what with his thinking, and the magic which was in the boat, he came to the country where the great wise man, Llewelys, lived. When Leeth came to him the wise man did not say anything, but he just looked clear into his eyes, and saw the real Leeth that was looking out of them (just as the real you are always looking out of your eyes, except when you go away to your own country, which is called Dreamland). And there Llewelys saw a lot of things; he saw what the King wanted, and that he was not wishing to kill the Coraniaid in order that he might be praised and called a great King, but that he was simply longing to help his people because he loved them and was dreadfully sorry for them; and for that reason Llewelys knew that he would be giving Leeth the power he wanted. So he just took some powder, and said, "Take this, and go and do thy duty."
And now there was a wonderful thing happened! For instead of asking what Llewelys meant, or gaping and wondering about it, Leeth knew just what his duty was, and that without saying a word. So he just came home, and put the powder in some water, and called all the people together, Britons and Coraniaid, and sprinkled them all with the water. Because of the magic in that powder, as soon as the water touched them, the Coraniaid all disappeared, and didn't worry the people any more for a long time. You see, children, these Coraniaid were so clever that you could not tell they were not ordinary people at once. No, and even now we can't see them, and they come to our minds, we can't always tell in a minute that they want to ruin us, and make us think we are mean and wretched, until mean and wretched we do become. They just come into our minds, and there they get busying around, and we very often like them at first. But that wonderful powder that Leeth got from the wise Llewelys knew all about it, and so, although the Britons rather liked it, the wicked Coraniaid were all killed right down dead before they knew where they were, and there were the Britons standing round and saying to each other when they saw what had happened, "And a good thing, too!" And that was how King Leeth made Britain free from the first of the three great sorrows.
II. — THE SCREAM OF TERROR
But if the first sorrow was a dreadful thing for the Britons, at any rate they knew the cause of it, but there was no one dreaming what caused the second one, and so it seemed to be worse than even the Coraniaid. For in the middle of the night of May eve in every year a great and fearful scream went out over the whole island, and so dreadful it was that half of the people went mad with terror when they heard it. Brave, strong men would be weak and helpless for days, and women and little children would die of fright, and the quiet cows would come tearing out of the fields, and charging through the streets of the towns, tossing people right and left, and going on and on as fast as they could until they could go no further, but just dropped down dead. It was so loud that if you had been standing on a mountain in Wales you would have heard it, and if you had been in London you would have heard it, and right up in Scotland they could hear it, too. When they heard that scream, all the winds were filled with the terror of it, and all the waves of the sea around the Island of Britain went mad and wild for fear, so that no boat could go on them for weeks, because they were leaping up as high as mountains nearly, and shaking themselves into foam and trying and trying harder than ever to drown the whole land, and so prevent the scream coming to frighten them again. Even the young leaves that were budding out of the trees turned yellow with fear at that scream, and the pink and white blooms on the apple trees, when the sound of it came on them, would tremble and fall down on the ground like soft slow flakes of snow; and the flowers that were beginning to think how warm and blue-skied the Summer would be, and how beautiful they would make the green land with their blossoms, were filled with terror by it, and were afraid to put out their leaves and their buds, and began thinking that after all it was nicer in the Winter down underground; and so they withered, and the souls of them went down to their roots and slept there for another year. And the beautiful fairies that used to dance and ride over the mountains and through the great lone green places, where the winds go to sleep and where the long-tufted rushes wave and dream about the sky they were always looking at, even the fairies, who are so full of joy, used to hide themselves deep away in the mountain hearts, and put their fingers to their ears when they heard it, and for days after they would go alone and cry and cry for the sorrow that scream filled their hearts with. And so the whole land came to look the same in the Spring, when it should have been full of greenness and beauty, as it did in November when the trees were bare, and the flowers dead, and gray, sad mists over it all.
And Leeth, wise as he was, could not find out the cause of the scream of terror, so at last he said to himself that he would go again to Llewelys, for surely Llewelys would know, and would help him to make Britain a land of joy and beauty once more.
So he went again in his boat down the river, and between the wide marshes where the reeds and the pools and the birds were, and over the sea, till he came to Llewelys' land; and there he went ashore on a long sandy beach, but the boat he left on the sea, for he knew it would come when he called it. So he went up over the sand until he came to a forest of tall pine trees, and in that forest was Llewelys.
That time the wise man gave him a very large cauldron, and looked at him again till he knew just what to do. When the King was home again in Britain he did it, and a very curious thing it was. For, just as if Llewelys had told him in so many words, Leeth called a lot of clever people together, and made them measure the whole island carefully and find out the exact middle of it. When they had found the spot which was the very middle, the King went there, and told some one to dig a big hole in the ground there — or maybe he digged it himself, for he could dig well — and in that hole he put the cauldron, and filled it with a drink called mead, and when it was full he covered it over with satin. Then he sent everybody away, and began walking up and down near the cauldron and waiting. And presently he heard strange noises over his head, and looking up he saw two great dragons swaying about in the midst of the air and fighting, with their four long wings beating against each other, and their two tails wound around each other, and the sky all red for miles round with the fire they were breathing, and never a star to be seen for the smoke of them. Where those two dragons came from he could not tell. So there he was, waiting and watching them, for he knew quite well that if they should chance to fly over the middle of the cauldron a strange thing would happen. And strange, indeed, it was, too; for when one moment they happened to push each other about till they were over the cauldron, they began to fall down and down and down, and as they fell they became smaller and smaller and smaller, until they both fell plump into the middle of the cauldron. There they were so hot and thirsty that they drank the mead as quickly as ever they could, and it made them sleepy, and as soon as they were fast asleep Lludd called his men, and got a great strong stone chest, and locked these two little dragons up in the chest, and put it away in the middle of a mountain in the strongest place he had. And if some silly person had not dug the chest up and let them out, there would have been no more fighting and quarrelling and hating in all the Island of Britain to this day. But you see, children dear, when people are unbrotherly, what can one expect? So they both got out, and they are both fighting still; and although we cannot see them, nor hear their fearful scream, we are waiting for some one to come who will find out where Llewelys lives, and get the great magic cauldron from him, and catch the two dragons in it once more. And, for all you or I know, children, it may be one of you that will do it. Yes, indeed, and I think that you will all have to do it in your time, and not an easy thing will it be for you, if you try to do it for your own sake, or for any other reason than that everybody may be happier, and that the trees and the flowers themselves may be merrier and more beautiful, and the sky bluer, and the sun shining more often. For remember how it was that Leeth, the great old hero King, managed to do all these wonderful things — by just keeping his own sorrow till the last, and doing what he could with all his might and main to destroy the sorrows of everybody else.
III. — THE VANISHING OF THE FOOD
If you will remember that in the days of the King who was called Leeth of the Silver Hand, there were three sorrows in the Island of Britain, and that though Leeth had freed the land, with the help of the wise man Llewelys, from the wicked race of the Coraniaid, and had imprisoned the two dragons that made the scream of terror in a strong stone chest in the mountain called Eryri Wen. there was still a work for him to do before he and his people could be quite happy. For although the third great sorrow of Britain at that time was one that hurt the King most of all, it did hurt other people, too, as you will hear. For one thing, whatever hurts anybody, hurts everybody; as every child knows quite well, even if they try hard to forget it, and do forget it later on. And this third sorrow was that, however much food there might be in the King's palace over night, there would be none left in the morning. No man or woman had eaten that food, and yet no one knew what had become of it. And as Leeth used to give this food the next day to every one who needed it, and as food that had been on the King's table became very wonderful, and made people better and happier and wiser when they ate it, you see this was really a sad thing for a lot of people. But as it was, after all. mostly hurting himself, as I told you, Leeth resolved that he would not leave his kingdom and ask Llewelys how to conquer this, but would wait, and comfort the people as best he could. But Llewelys knew very well all about it. and when Leeth came to him the second time, and he gave him that wonderful cauldron, Llewelvs said to himself that as soon as the people were freed from the scream of terror, the King should know also how to free himself from the vanishing of the food. And a bird has told me that Llewelys could never have made the King know that if Leeth had been thinking how he could free himself, or had wanted to free himself before he had freed the people. And, indeed, I believe that little bird was quite right, too.
So, after he had seen the stone chest with the two dragons in it laid safe away in the heart of Eryri Wen mountain, Leeth had the cauldron brought to London, and one evening he put it in the hall, where he used to feast with his great lords and all the great queens and ladies of the Island of Britain, and had it filled with cold water, and cold enough it was, for it was the middle of Winter, and no one could see the ground anywhere for the white of the snow that was on it. That night they feasted in the hall, and many were the noble old tales that were told, and many were the songs that were sung. When the feast was over and all the great lords and warriors and ladies had gone to their rest, Leeth, the King, put his golden breast-plate over his breast, and his shield on his arm, and he took his long shining sword in his hand, and waited. Then, as the night wore on, he began to feel fearfully sleepy, and it came into his mind that of all the great battles he had ever fought, the battle with sleep that night was the greatest and hardest and most terrible. For all the time sleep was coming over him, and round him there was the sweetest and most delicate music sounding in the hall, and every note of that music had such power that it would lull ten strong men to sleep, if they heard it now. Now it seemed to him as if there were white birds singing in the hall, and such a song they sung as one might listen to for a thousand years, and think that it was only a minute or two he was listening. Then it seemed to be harps, which were being played by the most wonderful harpers in the whole world; and then it was the sound of a stream dashing and tumbling over the stones high up on the side of a mountain, and as he listened he seemed to come down with the foam on the stream, and down and down from the mountain into a green quiet valley, fully of wonderfully bright and sweet-smelling flowers, and there were bees humming and buzzing among the flowers, and then he lost the sound of the stream, and could only hear the buzzing' of those bees, and it seemed to him that he would like to He and listen to those bees till the world came to an end, such an exquisite music it was; and the scent of the flowers came over his whole soul, and — Splash! Just as he was beginning to forget everything but the valley of the bees, the memory of the magic cauldron came to him, and he jumped right into it, just in time to save himself from going fast off to sleep. So there he sat in the water, shivering and aching, but wide awake. For the coldness of that water was not like the coldness of anything else. First it was only just fearfully cold, but when he had been in it two minutes the coldness of it got inside him, and made him ache all over his body, and then it got into his mind, and never so sad had he been in all his life as he was then. After that the coldness of the water became to him like a burning heat, and it burnt into him till the fire of it came into his heart, and in his heart there were many things that it burnt away. But for all the pain, that would have killed a less noble man than he was, he sat still in the cauldron, and the music that had before sounded so sweet to him, gave him no more pleasure while he was there, but rather sounded to him like the knocking together of two old tin pans. So there he was, miserable and freezing, and burning and aching, but wide awake, and watching" carefully all the time.
And then a strange thing happened, for there came into the hall a great black man, the blackest and ugliest in the whole wide world. So tall he was that the top of the King's head, when he was standing up, did not reach higher than his waist. Black armor was on him, and a long, black, crooked sword at his side. On his back was a black basket. He set the basket down on the floor, and into it he put all the food in the whole hall; though it was a small basket, and though he put heaps of food into it, it did not seem to be a bit fuller. Very quiet in the water was Leeth while he watched all this, and it was not until the great black man had taken all the food there, and put it in his basket, that the King moved. Then he jumped up, and ran after the black man, and bade him give back the food and fight for his life, for the King of the Isles of the Mighty was not to be oppressed by such a man as that black wizard was. So those two fought, and it is said that flames, and not mere sparks, flashed from the clashing together of their two swords, and those flames leaped up so high that the black marks of them were to be seen on the rafters of the roof of the King's great hall, and that although the strongest man in the island could not shoot an arrow from the floor high enough for it to stick in the roof at that time. But at last Leeth conquered, and I think that it was by the magic strength he gained while he was shivering and burning in the cauldron that he did it. For wonderful are the powers of that cauldron, children dear, as you will know when, like Leeth, you have been in it. If a dead man is put in it, he comes to life again, if he is brave and noble enough; if not, he disappears, and no one knows what has become of him. Indeed it is a wonderful cauldron.
Then King Leeth, having conquered the black man, made him his own servant. The color of his skin, that had been black, became white, and none of the servants Leeth had served their lord better than he did.
And after that the King was always as wise and strong as the great Llewelys himself. No enemy could hurt his people while he lived, and there was no other sorrow for him, and none for them until he died.
And that is the story of Leeth with the Silver Hand, and a true story it is, and what he was, may you be, and what he did, may you also do.