The Dedalus Book of British Fantasy

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by Brian Stableford


  “And by the time we came there the queen was sitting at the top of it, under a throne of purple and gold, with a great band of knights gloriously armed on either side of her; and their many banners floated over them. Then I felt that those two had left me, and that my own right visible nature was returned; yet still did I feel strange, and as if I belonged not wholly to this earth. And I heard one say, in a low voice to his fellow, ‘See, Sir Giles is here after all; yet, how came he here, and why is he not in armour among the noble knights yonder, he who fought so well? How wild he looks too!’ ‘Poor knight,’ said the other, ’he is distraught with the loss of of his brother; let him be; and see, here comes the noble stranger knight, our deliverer.’ As he spoke, we heard a great sound of trumpets, and therewithal a long line of knights on foot wound up the hill towards the throne, and the queen rose up, and the people shouted; and, at the end of all the procession went slowly and majestically the stranger knight; a man of noble presence he was, calm, and graceful to look on; grandly he went amid the gleaming of their golden armour; himself clad in the rent mail and tattered surcoat he had worn on the battle-day; bareheaded, too; for, in that fierce fight, in the thickest of it, just where he rallied our men, one smote off his helmet, and another, coming from behind would have slain him, but that my lance bit into his breast.

  “So, when they had come within twenty paces of the throne, the rest halted, and he went up by himself toward the queen; and she, taking the golden hilted sword in her left hand, with her right hand caught him by the wrist, when he would have knelt to her, and held him so, tremblingly, and cried out, ‘No, no, thou noblest of all knights, kneel not to me: have we not heard of thee even before thou camest hither? how many widows bless thee, how many orphans pray for thee, how many happy ones that would be widows and orphans but for thee, sing to their children, sing to their sisters, of thy flashing sword, and the heart that guides it! And now, O noble one! thou has done the very noblest deed of all, for thou hast kept grown men from weeping shameful tears! Oh truly! the greatest I can do for thee is very little; yet, see this sword, golden hilted, and the stones flash out from it,’ (then she hung it round him) ‘and see this wreath of lilies and roses for thy head; lilies no whiter than thy pure heart, roses no tenderer than thy true love; and here, before all these my subjects, I fold thee, noblest, in my arms, so, so.’ Ay, truly it was strange enough! those two were together again; not the queen and the stranger knight, but the young-seeming knight and the maiden I had seen in the garden. To my eyes they clung together there; though they say, that to the eyes of all else, it was but for a moment that the queen held both his hands in hers; to me also, amid the shouting of the multitude, came an undercurrent of happy song: ‘Oh! truly, very truly, my noblest, a hundred years will not be long after this.’ ‘Hush! Ella, dearest, for talking makes the times speed; think only.’

  “Pressed closed to each other, as I saw it, their bosoms heaved - but I looked away - alas! when I looked again, I saw naught but the stately stranger knight, descending, hand in hand, with the queen, flushed with joy and triumph, and the people scattering flowers before them.

  “And that was long ago, very long ago.” So he ceased; then Osric, one of the two younger men, who had been sitting in awe-struck silence all this time, said, with eyes that dared not meet Giles’s, in a terrified half whisper, as though he meant not to speak, “How long?” Giles turned round and looked him full in the face, till he dragged his eyes up to his own, then said, “More than a hundred years ago.”

  “So they all sat silent, listening to the roar of the south-west wind; and it blew the windows so, that they rocked in their frames.

  “Then suddenly, as they sat thus, came a knock at the door of the house; so Hugh bowed his head to Osric, to signify that he should go and open the door; so he arose, trembling, and went.

  “And as he opened the door the wind blew hard against him, and blew something white against his face, then blew it away again, and his face was blanched, even to his lips; but he plucking up heart of grace, looked out, and there he saw, standing with her face upturned in speech to him, a wonderfully beautiful woman, clothed from her throat till over her feet in long white raiment, ungirt, unbroidered, and with a long veil, that was thrown off from her face, and hung from her head, streaming out in the blast of the wind; which veil was what had struck against his face: beneath her veil her golden hair streamed out too, and with the veil, so that it touched his face now and then. She was very fair, but she did not look young either, because of her statue-like features. She spoke to him slowly and queenly; ‘I pray you give me shelter in your house for an hour, that I may rest, and so go on my journey again.’ He was too much terrified to answer in words, and so only bowed his head; and she swept past him in stately wise to the room where the others sat, and he followed her, trembling.

  “A cold shiver ran through the other men when she entered and bowed low to them, and they turned deadly pale, but dared not move; and there she sat while they gazed at her, sitting there and wondering at her beauty, which seemed to grow every minute; though she was plainly not young, oh no, but rather very, very old, who could say how old? there she sat, and her long, long hair swept down in one curve from her head, and just touched the floor. Her face had the tokens of a deep sorrow on it, ah! a mighty sorrow, yet not so mighty as that it might mar her ineffable loveliness; that sorrow-mark seemed to gather too, and at last the gloriously-slow music of her words flowed from her lips: ’Friends, has one with the appearance of a youth come here lately; one with long brown hair, interwoven with threads of gold, flowing down from out of his polished steel helmet; with dark blue eyes and high white forehead, and mail coat over his breast, where the light and shadow lie in waves as he moves; have you seen such an one, very beautiful?’

  “Then withal as they shook their heads fearfully in answer, a great sigh rose up from her heart, and she said: ‘Then must I go away again presently, and yet I thought it was the last night of all.’

  “And so she sat awhile with her head resting on her hand; after, she arose as if about to go, and turned her glorious head round to thank the master of the house; and they, strangely enough, though they were terrified at her presence, were yet grieved when they saw that she was going.

  “Just then the wind rose higher than ever before, yet through the roar of it they could all hear plainly a knocking at the door again; so the lady stopped when she heard it, and, turning, looked full in the face of Herman the youngest, who thereupon, being constrained by that look, rose and went to the door; and as before with Osric, so now the wind blew strong against him; and it blew into his face, so as to blind him, tresses of soft brown hair mingled with glittering threads of gold; and blinded so, he heard some one ask him musically, solemnly, if a lady with golden hair and white raiment was in that house; so Herman, not answering in words, because of his awe and fear, merely bowed his head; then he was ware of some one in bright armour passing him, for the gleam of it was all about him, for as yet he could not see clearly, being blinded by the hair that had floated about him.

  “But presently he followed him into the room, and there stood such an one as the lady had described; the wavering flame of the light gleamed from his polished helmet, touched the golden threads that mingled with his hair, ran along the rings of his mail.

  “They stood opposite to each other for a little, he and the lady, as if they were somewhat shy of each other after their parting of a hundred years, in spite of the love which they had for each other; at last he made one step, and took off his gleaming helmet, laid it down softly, then spread abroad his arms, and she came to him, and they were clasped together, her head lying on his shoulder; and the four men gazed, quite awe-struck.

  “And as they gazed, the bells of the church began to ring, for it was New-Year’s-eve; and still they clung together, and the bells rang on, and the old year died.

  “And there beneath the eyes of those four men the lovers slowly faded away into a heap of snow-white
ashes. Then the four men kneeled down and prayed, and the next day they went to the priest, and told him all that had happened.

  “So the people took those ashes and buried them in their church, in a marble tomb, and above it they caused to be carved their figures lying with clasped hands; and on the sides of it the history of the cave in the red pike.

  “And in my dream I saw the moon shining on the tomb, throwing fair colours on it from the painted glass; till a sound of music rose, deepened, and fainted; then I awoke”.

  “No memory labours longer from the deep

  Gold mines of thought to lift the hidden ore

  That glimpses, moving up, than I from sleep

  To gather and tell o’er

  Each little sound and sight.”

  GEORGE MACDONALD (1824-1905) is, with William Morris, one of the two central figures in the development of Victorian fantasy. He was a clergyman for some years but resigned his ministry in 1851 because he could not help holding certain heretical views; his literary works can easily be seen as an attempt to explore and come to terms with these heresies. Most of his novels are non-supernatural, but some - like Thomas Wingfold, Curate (1876), which has a character whose spiritual troubles lead him to believe that he is the Wandering Jew - have allegorical intrusions. He was for a while the editor of the children’s periodical Good Words for the Young, in which capacity he first began to produce moralistic fairy tales for children; several of his works in this vein are interpolated in Adela Cathcart (1864) and others were collected in Dealings with the Fairies (1867).

  MacDonald’s first fantastic novel was an extended allegorical fairy tale, Phantastes: A Faerie Romance for Men and Women (1858), quite without precedent in prose fiction, which was in the fullness of time to be a powerful influence on C. S. Lewis. The tale below is included in it as a story encountered by the hero in the course of his travels.

  The allegorical discourse contained in Phantastes is further extrapolated in other works, including several children’s stories. This added depth of meaning helps to give such stories as “The Golden Key”, “The Carasoyn” and “The History of Photogen and Nycteris” (also known as “The Day Boy and the Night Girl”) a place among the most interesting Victorian children’s fantasies, alongside Alice in Wonderland. (MacDonald knew Dodgson, and read Alice in an early manuscript version - he may have been instrumental in persuading Dodgson to publish it.) MacDonald’s longer works for children, all of which have allegorical undertones, are At the Back of the North Wind (1871), The Princess and the Goblin (1872), The Wise Woman (1875), and The Princess and Curdie (1883).

  MacDonald’s later fantasy novels for adults were The Portent (1864), a feverish account of a man accursed; and Lilith (1895), an allegory whose peculiarity and ultimate lack of coherence reveal that MacDonald’s painful doubts were unresolved to the bitter end. A ten-volume set of Works of Fancy and Imagination issued in 1871 includes almost all the fantasies MacDonald wrote before that date.

  MacDonald developed his own theory of the Imagination - influenced like Coleridge’s, by the German Romantics - in his essay “The Imagination its Functions and Culture” (1867), reprinted in Orts (1882).

  THE WOMAN IN THE MIRROR

  By George MacDonald

  Cosmo von Wehrstahl was a student at the University of Prague. Though of a noble family, he was poor, and prided himself upon the independence that poverty gives; for what will not a man pride himself upon, when he cannot get rid of it? A favourite with his fellow students, he yet had no companions; and none of them had ever crossed the threshold of his lodging in the top of one of the highest houses in the old town. Indeed, the secret of much of that complaisance which recommended him to his fellows, was the thought of his unknown retreat, whither in the evening he could betake himself and indulge undisturbed in his own studies and reveries. These studies, besides those subjects necessary to his course at the University, embraced some less commonly known and approved; for in a secret drawer lay the works of Albertus Magnus and Cornelius Agrippa, along with others less read and more abstruse. As yet, however, he had followed these researches only from curiosity, and had turned them to no practical purpose.

  His lodging consisted of one large low-ceiled room, singularly bare of furniture; for besides a couple of wooden chairs, a couch which served for dreaming on both by day and night, and a great press of black oak, there was very little in the room that could be called furniture. But curious instruments were heaped in the corners; and in one stood a skeleton, half-leaning against the wall, half-supported by a string about its neck. One of its hands, all of fingers, rested on the heavy pommel of a great sword that stood beside it. Various weapons were scattered about over the floor. The walls were utterly bare of adornment; for the few strange things, such as a large dried bat with wings dispread, the skin of a porcupine, and a stuffed sea-mouse, could hardly be reckoned as such. But although his fancy delighted in vagaries like these, he indulged his imagination with far different fare. His mind had never yet been filled with an absorbing passion; but it lay like a still twilight open to any wind, whether the low breath that wafts but odours, or the storm that bows the great trees till they strain and creak. He saw everything as through a rose-coloured glass. When he looked from his window on the street below, not a maiden passed but she moved as in a story, and drew his thoughts after her till she disappeared in the vista. When he walked in the streets, he always felt as if reading a tale, into which he sought to weave every face of interest that went by; and every sweet voice swept his soul as with the wing of a passing angel. He was in fact a poet without words; the more absorbed and endangered, that the springing waters were dammed back into his soul, where, finding no utterance, they grew, and swelled, and undermined. He used to lie on his hard couch, and read a tale or a poem, till the book dropped from his hand; but he dreamed on, he knew not whether awake or asleep, until the opposite roof grew upon his sense and turned golden in the sunrise. Then he arose too; and the impulses of vigorous youth kept him ever active, either in study or in sport, until again the close of the day left him free; and the world of night, which had lain drowned in the cataract of the day, rose up in his soul, with all its stars, and dim-seen phantom shapes. But this could hardly last long. Some one form must sooner or later step within the charmed circle, enter the house of life, and compel the bewildered magician to kneel and worship.

  One afternoon, towards dusk, he was wandering dreamily in one of the principal streets, when a fellow student roused him by a slap on the shoulder, and asked him to accompany him into a little back alley to look at some old armour which he had taken a fancy to possess. Cosmo was considered an authority in every matter pertaining to arms, ancient or modern. In the use of weapons, none of the students could come near him; and his practical acquaintance with some had principally contributed to establish his authority in reference to all. He accompanied him willingly. They entered a narrow alley, and thence a dirty little court, where a low arched door admitted them into a heterogeneous assemblage of everything musty, and dusty, and old, that could well be imagined. His verdict on the armour was satisfactory, and his companion at once concluded the purchase. As they were leaving the place, Cosmo’s eye was attracted by an old mirror of an elliptical shape, which leaned against the wall, covered with dust. Around it was some curious carving, which he could see but very indistinctly by the glimmering light which the owner of the shop carried in his hand. It was this carving that attracted his attention; at least so it appeared to him. He left the place, however, with his friend, taking no further notice of it. They walked together to the main street, where they parted and took opposite directions.

  No sooner was Cosmo left alone, than the thought of the curious old mirror returned to him. A strong desire to see it more plainly arose within him, and he directed his steps once more towards the shop. The owner opened the door when he knocked, as if he had expected him. He was a little, old, withered man, with a hooked nose, and burning eyes constantly in a slow rest
less motion, and looking here and there as if after something that eluded them. Pretending to examine several other articles, Cosmo at last approached the mirror, and requested to have it taken down.

  “Take it down yourself, master; I cannot reach it,” said the old man.

  Cosmo took it down carefully, when he saw that the carving was indeed delicate and costly, being both of admirable design and execution; containing withal many devices which seemed to embody some meaning to which he had no clue. This, naturally, in one of his tastes and temperament, increased the interest he felt in the old mirror; so much, indeed, that he now longed to possess it, in order to study its frame at his leisure. He pretended, however, to want it only for use; and saying he feared the plate could be of little service, as it was rather old, he brushed away a little of the dust from its face, expecting to see a dull reflection within. His surprise was great when he found the reflection brilliant, revealing a glass not only uninjured by age, but wondrously clear and perfect (should the whole correspond to this part) even for one newly from the hands of the maker. He asked carelessly what the owner wanted for the thing. The old man replied by mentioning a sum of money far beyond the reach of poor Cosmo, who proceeded to replace the mirror where it had stood before.

 

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