by Alan Garner
John went back to the king’s daughter, and the Foxy Lad came running.
“How did you get free?” said John.
“Ho! Huth!” said the Foxy Lad. “A man is kind to his life, but I was in the giant’s hand when he began at fencing and slashing, and, ‘I shall cut this oak tree,’ said he, ‘at one blow, which my father cut two hundred years before now with the same sword.’ And he gripped me and swung me, and with the first blow he cut the tree all but a small bit of bark; and the second blow I bent on myself and swept the five heads the five humps and the five throttles off him. And there is not a tooth in the door of my mouth left unbroken for sake of that filth of a blue marvellous bird!”
“What shall be done to your teeth?” said John.
“There is no help for it,” said the Foxy Lad. “So put the saddle of gold on the Yellow Horse, and the silver bridle in her head, and go you yourself riding there, and take the Daughter of the King of the Frang behind you, and the White Sword of Light with its back against your nose. And if you do not go in that way, when your stepmother sees you, she has an eye so evil that you will fall a faggot of firewood. But if the back of the sword is against your nose, and its edge to the Bad Straddling Queen, she will split her glance and fall herself as sticks.”
Upright John did as the Foxy Lad told him. And when he came in sight of the castle, his stepmother, with one foot on the castle and the other on the hall, her front to the face of the tempest, looked at him with an evil eye. But she split her glance on the edge of the White Sword of Light, and she fell as sticks.
Upright John set fire to the sticks, burnt the Bad Straddling Queen, and was free of fear.
He said to the Foxy Lad, “I have got the best wife of the world; the horse that will leave the one wind and catch the other; the falcon that will fetch me game; the sword that will keep off each foe; and I am free of fear.
“And you, you Lad of March, have been my dearest friend since we were on the time of one trotter and a sheep’s cheek. Go now for ever through my ground. No arrow will be let at you. No trap will be set for you. Take any beast to take with you. Go now through my ground for ever.”
“Keep your herds and your flocks to yourself,” said the Foxy Lad. “There is many a one who has trotters and sheep as well as you. I shall get flesh without coming to put trouble here. Peace on you, and my blessing, blessing, blessing, Upright John.”
He went away. The tale was spent.
Rascally Tag
There was a king, and his name was Donald. And in the kingdom there was a poor fisherman, who had a son, and the son took school and learning.
The boy said to his father, “Father, it is time for me to be doing for myself to be a Champion.” So he picked sixteen apples from the garden and threw an apple out into the sea, and he gave a step on it. He threw the next one, and he gave a step on it. He threw one after one, until he came to the last, and the last apple brought him on land again.
When he was on land again he shook his ears, and he thought that it was in no sorry place he would stay.
So he moved as a wave from a wave
And marbles from marbles,
As a wild winter wind,
Sightly and swiftly singing
Right proudly,
Through glens and high tops
And made no stops
Till he came to the city
And court of Donald,
And gave three hops
Over turrets and tops
Of court and of city
Of Donald.
And Donald took much anger and rage that such an unseemly ill stripling should come into the town, with two shoulders through his coat, two ears through his hat, his two squat kickering tattery shoes full of cold roadwayish water, three feet of his sword sideways on the side of his haunch, after the scabbard had ended.
“I will not believe,” said the Champion, “but that you are taking anger and rage, King Donald.”
“Well, then, I am,” said Donald, “if I did but know at what I should be angry.”
“Good king,” said the Champion. “Coming in was no harder than going out would be.”
“You are not going out,” said Donald, “till you tell me where you came from, with two shoulders through your coat, two ears through your hat, two squat kickering tattery shoes full of cold roadwayish water, three feet of sword sideways on the side of your haunch, after the scabbard has ended.”
And the Champion said:
“I come from hurry and skurry,
From the end of endless Spring,
From the loved, swanny glen:
A night in Chester and a night in Man,
A night on cold watching cairns.
On the face of mountains
In the English land
Was I born.
A slim, swarthy Champion am I,
Though I happened upon this town.”
“What,” said Donald, “can you do, o Champion? Surely, with all the distance you have travelled, you can do something.”
“I was once,” said he, “that I could play a harp.”
“Well, then,” said Donald, “it is I myself that have got the best harpers in the five fifths of the world.”
“Let’s hear them playing,” said the Champion.
The harpers played.
They played tunes with wings,
Trampling things, tightened strings,
Warriors, heroes, and ghosts on their feet,
Goblins and spectres, sickness and fever,
They set in sound lasting sleep
The whole great world
With the sweetness of the calming tunes
That those harpers could play.
The music did not please the Champion. He caught the harps, and he crushed them under his feet, and he set them on the fire, and made himself a warming, and a sound warming, at them.
Donald took lofty rage that a man had come into his court who should do the like of this to the harps.
“My good man, Donald,” said the slim, swarthy Champion, “I will not believe but that you are taking anger.”
“Well, then, I am,” said Donald, “if I did but know at what I should be angry.”
“It was no harder for me to break your harps than to make them again,” said the Champion. And he seized the fill of his two palms of the ashes, and squeezed them, and made all the harpers their harps and a great harp for himself.
“Let us hear your music,” said Donald. The Champion began to play.
He could play tunes with wings,
Trampling things, tightened strings,
Warriors, heroes, and ghosts on their feet,
Goblins and spectres, sickness and fever,
That set in sound lasting sleep
The whole great world
With the sweetness of the calming tunes
That Champion could play.
“You are melodious, o Champion,” said the king. And he and his harpers took anger and rage that such an unseemly stripling, with two shoulders through his coat, two ears through his hat, two squat kickering tattery shoes full of cold roadwayish water, three feet of his sword sideways on the side of his haunch, after the scabbard was ended, should come to the town and play music as well as they.
“I am going,” said the Champion.
“If you should stir,” said the king, “I should make a sharp sour shrinking for you with this plough in my hand.”
The Champion leapt on the point of his pins, and he went over top and turret of court and city of Donald.
And Donald threw the plough that was in his hand, and he slew four and then twenty of his own people.
Well, what should the Champion meet but the tracking-lad of Donald, and he said to him, “Here’s a little grey weed for you. And go in and rub it on the mouths of the four and then the twenty that were killed by the plough, and bring them back alive again, and earn for yourself from King Donald twenty calving cows. And look behind you when you part from me.”
&n
bsp; And when the tracking-lad did this, and looked, he saw the slim, swarthy Champion thirteen miles off on a hillside already.
He moved as a wave from a wave
And marbles from marbles,
As a wild winter wind,
Sightly and swiftly singing
Right proudly,
Through glens and high tops
And made no stops
Until he reached the town
Of John, the South Earl.
He struck the latch. Said John, the South Earl, “Who’s that in the door?”
“I am Dust, son of Dust,” said the Champion.
“Let in Dust of Dust,” said John, the South Earl. “No one must be in my door without entering.”
They let him in.
“What can you do, Dust of Dust?” said the South Earl.
“There was a time when I could play a juggle,” said the Champion.
“What is the trick you can do, Dust of Dust?” said the South Earl.
“Well,” said the Champion, “There was a time when I could put three straws on the back of my fist and blow them off.”
And he put three straws on the back of his fist, and blew them off.
“Well,” said the Earl’s big son, “if that is a juggle, then I can do no worse than you.”
“Do so,” said the Champion.
And the big son of the South Earl put three straws on his fist, and the Champion blew them off, and the fist with them.
“You are sore, and you will be sore,” said the Earl. “My blessing on the hand that hurt you. And what is the next trick you can do, Dust of Dust?”
“I will do other juggles for you,” said the Champion. And he took hold of his own ear, and lifted it from his cheek, bobbed it on the ground and back again.
“I could do that,” said the middle son of the Earl.
“I shall do it for you,” said the Champion. And he gave a pull at the son’s ear, and the head came away with it.
“I see that the juggling of this night is with you,” said John, the South Earl.
Then the Champion went and set a great ladder against the moon, and in one part of it he put a hound and a hare, and in another part of it he put a man and a woman. And they are alive there till now.
“That is a great trick,” said the Earl.
“And I can not do that trick,” said the Earl’s little son.
“It is a great trick and a juggle,” said the Champion, “and it is not you that can do it.”
“Then what will you do now?” said the Earl.
“I am going away,” said the Champion.
“You will not leave my set of sons,” said the Earl.
But the Champion leapt on the point of his pins, and he went over turret and top of court and town, till he met a man threshing in a barn.
“I will make you a free man for your life,” said the Champion. “There are two of your master’s sons, one with his fist off, one with his head off. Go there and put them on again.”
“With what shall I bring them?” said the man.
“Take a tuft of grass, hold it in water, shake it on them, and you will heal them,” said the Champion. And he heard a loud voice in a bush.
“What is that?” said the man.
“I must go,” said the Champion, “to the King of the Stars, whose foot no doctor or leech has healed in seven years.”
And he moved as a wave from a wave
And marbles from marbles,
As a wild winter wind,
Sightly and swiftly singing
Right proudly,
Through glens and high tops
And made no stops
Until he reached the castle
Of the King of the Stars.
He struck palm on door. “Who is that?” said the porter.
“I am a doctor and a leech,” said the Champion.
“Many a doctor and a leech has come,” said the porter. “There is not a spike on the town without a doctor’s head, but one: perhaps it is for your head it shall be.”
The Champion went in.
“Rise up, King of the Stars,” he said. “You are free from your wound.”
The King of the Stars rose up, and there was not a man swifter or stronger than he.
“Lie down, King of the Stars,” said the slim, swarthy Champion. “You are full of wounds.”
The King of the Stars lay down, and he was worse than he ever was.
“You did wrong,” he said, “to heal me then spoil me again.”
“I was showing that I could heal you,” said the Champion. “Now fetch all the doctors of the earth.”
And word was sent by running-lads to all the doctors and leeches of the earth. And they came riding, that they would get pay. And when they came riding, the slim, swarthy Champion went out, and he said to them, “What made you spoil the leg of the King of the Stars?”
“Well, then,” they said, “if we were to earn the worth of our ointment and the worth of our trouble, we could not leave him with the worth of his leg in this world.”
“I will lay you a wager,” said the Champion, “the full of my cap in gold, to be set at the end of the dale. And there is none here that will be sooner at it than the King of the Stars.”
He set the cap full of gold at the end of the dale, and the doctors laid the wager that it could never be, and put their lives on it.
The Champion went in where the King of the Stars was, and he said to him, “Arise, whole, King of the Stars. I have laid a wager on you.”
The King of the Stars got up whole and healthy, and he went out, and in three springs he was at the cap of gold, leaving the doctors behind him.
Then the doctors and leeches asked that they might get their lives, and promise of that they did not get.
The Champion put his hat on his head, his holly in his fist, and he seized the grey adze that hung from his haunch, and he took under them, over them, through and amongst them, and left no man to tell a tale or earn bad tidings.
When the King was healed, he sent word for the nobles and for the great gentles to the wedding of his daughter and the slim, swarthy Champion.
“What company is here?” said the Champion.
“The company of your own wedding, and they are gathering from each half and from each side of the golden great white speckled universe,” said the King to him.
“Be this from me!” said the Champion. And he went swifter out of the town than a year old hare.
He leapt on the point of his pins
And moved as a wave from a wave
And marbles from marbles,
As a wild winter wind,
Sightly and swiftly singing
Right proudly,
Through glens and high tops
And made no stops
Until he reached the shack
Of Rascally Tag.
“What young lad is this,” said Rascally Tag, “his two shoulders through his coat, his two ears through his hat, his two squat kickering tattery shoes full of cold roadwayish water, three feet of his sword sideways on the side of his haunch, after the scabbard has ended?”
“Have you need of a man?” said the Champion.
“And where are you from?” said Rascally Tag.
“From many a place,” said the Champion.
“What wages will you take?” said Rascally Tag.
“The wages I will take is that you shall not drink first before me until the end of a day and a year,” said the Champion.
“That is your wages,” said Rascally Tag. And he took the slim, swarthy Champion raiding.
The raiding was upon John, the South Earl, in the court and the city of Donald. And though the Champion had spared them before, he did not spare them twice.
He broke in the house wall, his holly in his fist, and he seized the grey adze that hung from his haunch, and he took under them, over them, through and amongst them, and left no man to tell a tale or earn bad tidings.
The Champion was hot, and went in
to the dairy, and saw Rascally Tag drinking a bucket of milk and water.
“You have broken your promise,” said the Champion.
“That bucket is no better than another bucket,” said Rascally Tag.
“That selfsame bucket did you promise to me,” said the Champion.
And he took anger and wrath at Rascally Tag, and went away thirsty back to the King of the Stars. And the daughter of the King of the Stars picked sixteen green apples from the sea and made the slim, swarthy Champion a drink from the juice of them. And the drink from that juice choked him.