When dragons shrug in sunlight, their bodies are one long, green, glittering ripple.
“I should be conquered. It is my business to be conquered in this world, where there are two sides to everything, and where one must look for reverses. I tell you frankly, tired man, that all we terrors who keep colorful the road to the Elle Maid are here for the purpose of being conquered. We make the way seem difficult, and that makes you who have souls in your bodies the more determined to travel on it. Our thin queen found out long ago that the most likely manner of alluring men to her striped windmill was to persuade men she is quite inaccessible.”
Said Anavalt:
“That I can understand; but I need no such baits.”
“Aha, so you have not been happy out yonder where people have souls? You probably are not eating enough; so long as one can keep on eating regularly, there is not much the matter. In fact, I see the hunger in your eyes, tired man.”
Anavalt said:
“Let us not discuss anybody’s eyes, for it is not hunger, or indigestion either, which drives me to the Wood of Elfhame. There is a woman yonder, dragon, a woman whom ten years ago I married. We loved each other then, we shared a noble dream. To-day we sleep together and have no dreams. To-day I go in flame-colored satin, with heralds before me, into bright, long halls where kings await my counsel, and my advising becomes the law of cities that I have not seen. The lords of this world accredit me with wisdom, and say that nobody is more shrewd than Anavalt. But when at home, as if by accident, I tell my wife about these things, she smiles not very merrily. For my wife knows more of the truth as to me and my powers and my achievements than I myself would care to know, and I can no longer endure the gaze of her forgiving eyes and the puzzled hurt which is behind that forgiveness. So let us not discuss anybody’s eyes.”
“Well, well,” the dragon returned, “if you come to that, I think it would be more becoming for you not to discuss your married life with strangers, especially when I have just had dinner and am just going to have a nap.”
With that the evil worm turned round three times, his whiskers drooped, and he coiled up snugly about the sign-post which said, “Keep Out Of These Woods.” He was a time-worn and tarnished dragon, as you could see now, with no employment in the world since men had forgotten the myth in which he used to live appallingly; so he had come, in homeless decrepitude, to guard the Wood of Elfhame.
Anavalt thus left this inefficient and out-moded monster. Anavalt went into the wood. He did not think of the tilled meadows or the chests of new-minted coin or the high estate which belonged to Anavalt in the world where people have souls. He thought of quite other matters as he walked in a dubious place. Here to the right of Anavalt’s pathway were seen twelve in red tunics; they had head-dresses of green, and upon their wrists were silver rings. These twelve were alike in shape and age and loveliness; there was no flaw in the appearance of any, there was no manner of telling one from another. All these made a lament with small, sweet voices that followed the course of a thin and tinkling melody. They sang of how much better were the old times than the new, and none could know more thoroughly than did Anavalt the reason of their grieving; but since they did not molest him, he had no need to meddle with these women’s secrets any more. So he went on, and nothing as yet opposed him; at most, a grasshopper started from the path, sometimes a tiny frog made way for him.
He came to a blue bull that lay in the road, blocking it. This beast appeared more lusty and more terrible than other bulls; all his appurtenances were larger and seemed more prodigally ready to give life and death. Courteous Anavalt cried out:
“O Nandi, now be gracious and permit me to pass unhindered toward the striped windmill.”
“To think,” said the bull, “that you should mistake me for Nandi! No, tired man, the Bull of the Gods is white, and nothing of that serene color may ever come into these woods.” And the bull nodded very gravely, shaking the blue curls that were between his cruel horns.
“Ah, then, sir, I must entreat your forgiveness for the not unnatural error into which I was betrayed by the majesty of your appearance.”
While Anavalt was speaking, he wondered why he should be at pains to humor an illusion so trivial as he knew this bull to be. For this, of course, was just the ruler of the Kittle cattle which everywhere feed upon the dew pools. The Queen of Elfhame, in that low estate to which the world’s redemption had brought her, could employ only the most inexpensive of retainers; the gods served her no longer.
“So you consider my appearance majestic! To think of that, now!” observed the flattered bull, and he luxuriously exhaled blue flames. “Well, certainly you have a mighty civil way with you, to be coming from that overbearing world of souls. Still, my duty is, as they say, my duty; fine words are less filling than moonbeams; and, in short, I do not know of any good reason why I should let you pass toward Queen Vae.”
Anavalt answered:
“I must go to your thin mistress because among the women yonder whose bodies were not denied to me there is one woman whom I cannot forget. We loved each other once; we had, as I recall that radiant time, a quaint and callow faith in our shared insanity. Then somehow I stopped caring for these things; I turned to matters of more sensible worth. She took no second lover; she lives alone. Her beauty and her quick laughter are put away, she is old, and the home of no man is glad because of her, who should have been the tenderest of wives and the most merry of mothers. When I see her, there is no hatred in the brown eyes which once were bright and roguish, but only forgiveness and a puzzled grieving. Now there is in my mind no reason why I should think about this woman differently from some dozens of other women who were maids when I first knew them, but there is in my mind an unreason that will not put away the memory of this woman’s notions about me.”
“Well,” said the bull, yawning, “for my part, I find one heifer as good as another; and I find, too, that in seeking Queen Vae one pretext is as good as another pretext, especially from the mouth of such a civil gentleman. So do you climb over my back, and go your way to where there are no longer two sides to everything.”
Thus Anavalt passed the king of the Kittle cattle. Anavalt journeyed deeper into the Wood of Elfhame. No trumpets sounded before him as they sounded when the Anavalt who was a great lord went about the world where people have souls; and the wonders which Anavalt saw to this side and to that side did not disturb him, nor he them. He came to a house of rough-hewn timber, where a black man, clothed in a goat-skin, barked like a dog and made old gestures. This, as Anavalt knew, was the Rago; within the house sat cross-legged at that very moment the Forest Mother, whose living is innocent of every normal vice, and whose food is the red she-goat and men. Yet upon the farther side of the home of perversity were to be seen a rusty nail in the pathway and bits of broken glass, prosaic relics which seemed to show that men had passed this place.
So Anavalt made no reply to the obscene enticements of the Rago. Anavalt went sturdily on to a tree which in the stead of leaves was overgrown with human hands; these hands had no longer any warmth in them as they caught at and tentatively fingered Anavalt, and presently released him.
Now the path descended amid undergrowth that bore small purple flowers with five petals. Anavalt came here upon wolves that went along with him a little way. Running, they could not be seen, but as each wolf leaped in his running, his gray body would show momentarily among the green bushes that instantly swallowed it; and these wolves cried hoarsely, “Abiron is dead!” But for none of these things did Anavalt care any longer, and none of the peculiarities of Elfhame stayed him until his path had led farther downward and the roadway had become dark and moist. Here were sentinels with draggled yellow plumes, a pair of sentinels at whom Anavalt looked only once; then with averted head he passed them, in what could not seem a merry place to Anavalt, for in the world where people have souls he was used to mirth and soft ease and to all such delights as men clutch desperately in the shadow of death’s clutching
hand. In this place Anavalt found also a naked boy whose body was horrible with leprosy. This malady had eaten away his fingers, so that they could retain nothing, but his face was not much changed.
The leper stood knee-deep in a pile of ashes, and he demanded what Anavalt was called nowadays.
When courteous Anavalt had answered, the leper said then:
“You are not rightly called Anavalt. But my name is still Owner of the World.”
Said Anavalt, very sadly:
“Even though you bar my way, ruined boy, I must go forward to the Elle Maid.”
“And for what reason must you be creeping to this last woman? For she will be the last, as I forewarn you, tired man, who still pretend to be Anavalt—she will be the last of all, and of how many!”
Anavalt answered:
“I must go to this last love because of my first love. Once I lay under her girdle, I was a part of the young body of my first love. She bore me to her anguish, even then to her anguish. I cannot forget the love that was between us. But I outgrew my childhood and all childishness; I became, they say, the chief of Manuel’s barons, and my living has got me fine food and garments and tall servants and two castles and a known name, and all which any reasonable mother could hope for her son. Yet I cannot forget the love that was between us or our shared faith in what was to be. To-day I visit this ancient woman now and then, and we make friendly talk together about everything except my wife, and our lips touch, and I go away. That is all. And it seems strange that I was once a part of this woman, I who have never won to or desired real intimacy with any one; and it seems strange to hear people applauding my wisdom and high deeds of statecraft and in all matters acclaiming the success of Anavalt. I think that this old woman also finds it strange. I do not know, for we can understand each other no longer. I only know that, viewing me, there is in this old woman’s filmed eyes a sort of fondness even now, and a puzzled grieving. I only know that her eyes also I wish never to see any more.”
“Still, still, you must be talking Oedipean riddles,” the leper answered. “I prefer simplicity; I incline to the complex no longer. So, very frankly, I warn you, who were Anavalt, that you are going, spent and infatuate, toward your last illusion.”
Anavalt replied:
“Rather do I flee from the illusions of others. Behind me I am leaving the bright swords of adversaries and the more deadly malice of outrivaled friends and the fury of some husbands, but not because I fear these things. Behind me I am leaving the puzzled eyes of women that put faith in me, because I fear these unendurably.”
“You should have feared them earlier, tired man, in a sunlit time when I, who am Owner of the World, would wonderfully have helped you. Now you must go your way, as I go mine. There is one who may, perhaps, yet bring us together once again; but now we are parted, and you need look for no more reverses.”
As he said this, the ruined boy sank slowly into the ash-heap and so disappeared, and Anavalt went on through trampled ashes into the quiet midst of the wood. Among the bones about the striped windmill that is supported by four pillars the witless Elle Maid was waiting.
She rose and cried:
“You are very welcome, Sir Anavalt. But what will you give Maid Vae?”
Anavalt answered:
“All.”
“Then we shall be happy together, dear Anavalt, and for your sake I am well content to throw my bonnet over the windmill.”
She took the red bonnet from her head and turned. She flung her bonnet fair and high. So was courteous Anavalt assured that the Queen of Elfhame was as he had hoped. For when seen thus, from behind, the witless queen was hollow and shadow-colored, because Maid Vae is just the bright, thin mask of a woman, and, if looked at from behind, she is like any other mask. So when she faced him now and smiled, and, as if in embarrassment, looked down and pushed aside a thigh-bone with her little foot, then Anavalt could see that the Elle Maid was, when properly regarded, a lovely and most dear illusion.
He kissed her. He was content. Here was the woman he desired, the woman who did not exist in the world where people have souls. The Elle Maid had no mortal body that time would parody and ruin, she had no brain to fashion dreams of which he would fall short, she had no heart that he would hurt. There was an abiding peace in this quiet Wood of Elfhame wherein no love could enter, and nobody could, in consequence, hurt anybody else very deeply. At court the silken ladies wept for Anavalt, and three women were not ever to be healed of their memories; but in the Wood of Elfhame, where all were soulless masks, there were no memories and no weeping, there were no longer two sides to everything, and a man need look for no reverses.
“I think we shall do very well here,” said courteous Anavalt as yet again he kissed Maid Vae.
The Woman of the Wood
by A. Merritt
Tolkien is unlikely to have known of “The Woman of the Wood” by A. Merritt, an American writer, but would have sympathized with the impulse behind the story, which tells of how trees might defend themselves. In a letter published in the newspaper Daily Telegraph on 4 July 1972, Tolkien wrote that “in all my works I take the part of trees as against all their enemies.” And Tolkien’s Ents in The Lord of the Rings embody this same desire.
“The Woman of the Wood” was first published in the August 1926 issue of the American pulp magazine Weird Tales.
McKay sat on the balcony of the little inn that squatted like a brown gnome among the pines that clothed the eastern shore of the lake.
It was a small and lonely lake high up on the Vosges; and yet the word “lonely” is not just the one to tag its spirit; rather was it aloof, withdrawn. The mountains came down on every side, making a vast tree-lined bowl that seemed filled, when McKay first saw it, with a still wine of peace.
McKay had worn the wings with honor in the World War. And as a bird loves the trees, so did McKay love them. They were to him not merely trunks and roots, branches and leaves; they were personalities. He was acutely aware of character differences even among the same species—that pine was jolly and benevolent; that one austere, monkish; there stood a swaggering bravo and there a sage wrapped in green meditation; that birch was a wanton; the one beside her virginal, still adream.
The war had sapped McKay, nerve, brain, and soul. Through all the years that had passed the wound had kept open. But now, as he slid his car down the side of the great green bowl, he felt its peace reach out to him, caress and quiet him, promise him healing. He seemed to drift like a falling leaf through the cathedraled woods, to be cradled by the hands of the trees.
McKay had stopped at the little gnome of an inn, and there he had lingered, day after day, week after week.
The trees had nursed him; soft whisperings of the leaves, slow chant of the needled pines, had first deadened, then driven from him the re-echoing clamor of the war and its sorrow. The open wound of his spirit had closed under their healing, had closed and become scars; and then even the scars had been covered and buried, as the scars on Earth’s breast are covered and buried beneath the falling leaves of autumn. The trees had laid healing hands upon his eyes. He had sucked strength from the green breasts of the hills.
As that strength flowed back to him, McKay grew aware that the place was—troubled, that there was ferment of fear within it.
It was as though the trees had waited until he himself had become whole before they made their own unrest known to him. But now they were trying to tell him something; there was a shrillness as of apprehension, of anger, in the whispering of the leaves, the needled chanting of the pines.
And it was this that had kept McKay at the inn—a definite consciousness of appeal. He strained his ears to catch words in the rustling branches, words that trembled on the brink of his human understanding. Never did they cross that brink.
Gradually he had focused himself, so he believed, to the point of the valley’s unease.
On all the shores of the lake there were but two dwellings. One was the inn, and around the inn the t
rees clustered protectively, confidingly, friendly. It was as though they had not only accepted it, but had made it part of themselves.
Not so was it of the other habitation. Once it had been the hunting lodge of long-dead lords; now it was half ruined, forlorn. It lay across the lake almost exactly opposite the inn and back upon the slope a half mile from the shore. Once there had been fat fields around it and a fair orchard.
The forest had marched down upon fields and lodge. Here and there scattered pines and poplars stood like soldiers guarding some outpost; scouting parties of saplings lurked among the gaunt, broken fruit trees. But the forest had not had its way unchecked; ragged stumps showed where those who dwelt in the old house had cut down the invaders; blackened patches showed where they had fired the woods.
Here was the center of the conflict. Here the green folk of the forest were both menaced and menacing, at war.
The lodge was a fortress beleaguered by the trees, a fortress whose garrison sallied forth with ax and torch to take their toll of their besiegers.
Yet McKay sensed a slow, inexorable pressing on of the forest; he saw it as an army ever filling the gaps in its enclosing ranks, shooting its seeds into the cleared places, sending its roots out to sap them, and armed always with a crushing patience. He had the impression of constant regard, of watchfulness, as though night and day the forest kept myriads of eyes upon the lodge, inexorably, not to be swerved from its purpose. He had spoken of this impression to the innkeeper and his wife, and they had looked at him, oddly.
“Old Polleau does not love the trees, no,” the old man had said, “No, nor do his two sons. They do not love the trees—and very certainly the trees do not love them.”
Between the lodge and the shore, marching down to the verge of the lake was a singularly beautiful little coppice of silver birches and firs. This coppice stretched for perhaps a quarter of a mile; it was not more than a hundred feet or two in depth, and not alone the beauty of its trees but also their curious grouping vividly aroused McKay’s interest. At each end were a dozen or more of the glistening, needled firs, not clustered but spread out as though in open marching order; at widely spaced intervals along its other two sides paced single firs. The birches, slender and delicate, grew within the guard of these sturdier trees, yet not so thickly as to crowd one another.
Tales Before Tolkien Page 41