The Lad of the Gad

by Alan Garner

  And Olioll Olom made a wedding night for his three daughters; leeg, leeg and beeg, beeg; solid sound and peg-drawing; gold crushing from the soles of their feet, the length of seven days and seven years.

  The Lad of the Gad

  There was a king once, as there was, and will be, and as grows the fir tree, and he sat with his people on a green hill. And around him were his two sons, his warriors, his lads and his great gentles.

  “Who now,” said his big son, the Prince of Cairns, “in the four brown fourths of the wheel of the world would dare to disgrace you before your people, your sons, your warriors, your lads and your great gentles?”

  “Are you not silly?” said the king. “He could come, the one who should put a disgrace on me. And if he did, you would not pluck the worst hair in his beard.”

  They saw then the shadow of a shower coming from the west and going to the east, and a warrior in a wet cloak and on a black horse was in it.

  As a hero on the mountain,

  As a star over sparklings,

  As a great sea over little pools,

  So would seem he beside other men

  In figure, in face, in form and in riding.

  He reached over his fist and he struck the king between the mouth and the nose, and he drove out three teeth, and caught them and put them in his pouch, and he went away.

  “Did I not tell you,” said the king, “that one might come who should put a disgrace on me, and that you would not pluck the worst hair of his beard?”

  The king’s big son, the Prince of Cairns, said, “I shall not eat and I shall not drink and I shall not hear music till I take off the head of the Warrior in the Wet Cloak.”

  “Well,” said the small son, the Prince of Blades, “the very same is for me, until I take off the fist of the Warrior in the Wet Cloak.”

  The Lad of the Gad was there on the green hill that day, and he said, “The very same is for me, until I take out the heart of the Warrior in the Wet Cloak.”

  “You?” said the Prince of Cairns. “What should bring you with us? You? Why, you, when we go to glory, you will go to weakness and find death in a bog, or in rifts of rock, or in a land of holes or the shadow of a wall.”

  “That may be,” said the Lad of the Gad, “but I will go.”

  The king’s two sons went away.

  The Prince of Cairns looked behind him and saw the Lad of the Gad following.

  “What shall we do to him?” said the Prince of Cairns.

  “Sweep his head off,” said the Prince of Blades.

  “We shall not do that,” said the Prince of Cairns. “But there is a crag of stone up here, and we can bind him to it.”

  They bound the Lad of the Gad to the crag of stone and left him. But when the Prince of Cairns looked behind him he saw the Lad of the Gad following, with the crag on his back.

  “What shall we do to him?” said the Prince of Cairns.

  “Sweep his head off,” said the Prince of Blades.

  “We shall not do that,” said the Prince of Cairns, and he turned and loosed the crag from the back of the Lad of the Gad.

  “Two full heroes,” said the Prince of Cairns, “need a lad to polish their shields or to blow a fire heap or something.”

  So they let him come with them, and they went to their ship and put her out.

  Prow to the sea and

  Stern to the shore,

  Hoisting the speckled flapping bare-topped sail

  In a wind that would bring the heather from the hill,

  Leaf from the wood,

  Willow from the root,

  Using it, taking it, as it might come

  Through plunging and surging, lashing

  The red sea the blue sea

  Fiulpande fiullande

  About the sandy ocean

  The ship that would split

  A hard oat seed on the water

  With her steering.

  And for three days they drove her.

  After the three days, “I,” said the Prince of Cairns, “am tired of this. It is time for news from the mast.”

  “You are yourself the most greatly loved here,” said the Lad of the Gad, “and the honour of going up shall be yours: and the laughter, if you don’t, shall be ours.”

  The Prince of Cairns ran at a rush to the mast, and he fell down clatter on the deck in a faint with the lurch of the ship.

  “That was no good,” said the Prince of Blades.

  “Let us see you,” said the Prince of Cairns. “You show us better: and the laughter, if you don’t, shall be ours.”

  Up went the Prince of Blades, and before he had half the mast he began squealing and squalling, and he could go neither up and neither down.

  “Now you can’t go up, and you can’t go down,” said the Lad of the Gad. “No hero warrior was I, nor half a warrior, and the esteem of a warrior was not mine. I was to find death in a bog, or in rifts of rock, or in a land of holes or the shadow of a wall. But it would be easy for me now to bring news from the mast.”

  “You great hero,” said the Prince of Cairns. “Try it.”

  “I am a great hero today,” said the Lad of the Gad, “though I was not when leaving the town.”

  He measured a spring from the end of his spear to the points of his toes, and he ran up the mast to the crosstrees.

  “What can you see?” said the Prince of Cairns.

  “It is too big for a crow, and too little for land,” said the Lad of the Gad.

  “Keep watching,” the princes said. And, after a while, “What is it now?”

  “We have raised an island,” said the Lad of the Gad, “and a hoop of fire around it, flaming. And I think that there is not one warrior in the great world that will go over such a fire.”

  “Unless two heroes go over it such as we,” said the Prince of Cairns and the Prince of Blades.

  “I think it was easier for you to bring news from the mast than to go in there,” said the Lad of the Gad.

  “It is no reproach,” said the Prince of Cairns.

  “It is not,” said the Lad of the Gad. “It is truth.”

  They reached the windward side of the fire, and they went on shore, and they drew up the painted ship, the proud woman, her own seven lengths on grey grass, with her mouth under her. Then they blew a fire heap, and they gave three days and nights to resting their weariness.

  At the end of three days and nights they began at sharpening their weapons.

  “I,” said the Prince of Cairns, “am tired of this. It is time for news from the island.”

  “You are yourself the most greatly loved here,” said the Lad of the Gad. “Go the first, and try what is the best news you can bring to us.”

  The Prince of Cairns went and he reached the fire, and he tried to jump over it, and he went down into it to the knees, and he turned back, and there was not a slender hair or skin between the knees and the ankles that was not in a crumpled fold about the mouth of the shoes.

  “He is bad, he is bad,” said the Prince of Blades.

  “Let us see if you are better yourself,” said the Lad of the Gad. “Show that you shall have the greater honour: or we the laughter of it.”

  The Prince of Blades went and he reached the fire, and he tried to jump over it, and he went down into it to the thick end of the thigh, and he turned back, and there was not a slender hair or skin between the thick end of the thigh and the ankles that was not in a crumpled fold about the mouth of the shoes.

  “Well,” said the Lad of the Gad, “no warrior was I, nor half a warrior, and the esteem of a warrior was not mine. I was to find death in a bog, or in rifts of rock, or in a land of holes or the shadow of a wall. But if I had my choice of arms and armour of all that there is in the great world, it would be easy for me now to bring news from the island.”

  “If we had that arms and armour,” said the Prince of Cairns, “you should have them.”

  “Your own arms and armour are the second that I would rather be mine in t
he great world,” said the Lad of the Gad, “though you yourself are not the second best warrior in it.”

  “But my own arms and armour are the easiest for you to get,” said the Prince of Cairns, “and you shall have them. Now tell me what arms and armour are better than mine.”

  “The arms and armour of the Big Son of the Son of All are better,” said the Lad of the Gad. “And he struck the fist on your father.”

  The Prince of Cairns put off his arms and armour, and the Lad of the Gad put them on.

  He went into his belts of thongs

  And his thongs of warrior,

  He went with leaping strides,

  Driving spray from puddle,

  Spark from pebble,

  His hero hard slasher in his hand,

  A sharp sure knife against his waist,

  Springing he sprung

  From the point of his spear

  To the points of his toes

  Over the fire of the island.

  It was the very finest island he saw then, from the start of the world to the end of time, and he saw a yellow bare hill in the middle of it.

  He raised himself up against the hill.

  There was a treasure of a woman sitting on the hill, and a big youth with his head on her knee, asleep.

  “If I had a right to you,” said the woman, “you should not leave the island.”

  “What is the waking for that youth?” said the Lad of the Gad to her.

  “It is to cut the top joint off his little finger,” said the woman.

  The Lad of the Gad took the sharp sure knife that was against his waist and cut the little finger off the sleeping youth at the root. That made the youth neither shrink nor stir.

  “Tell me what is waking for the youth,” said the Lad of the Gad.

  “Waking for him,” said the woman, “is a thing that you cannot do; you, nor any one warrior in the great world but the Warrior of the Red Shield. And of him it was foretold that he should come to this island and strike the crag of stone here on this youth in the rock of his chest; and he is asleep until then.”

  The Lad of the Gad heard this, and a fist upon manhood, a fist upon strengthening, a fist upon power went into him. He raised the crag of stone in his two hands, and he struck it on the youth in the rock of his chest.

  And the one who was asleep gave a slow stare of his two eyes, and looked at him.

  “Have you come,” said the one who was asleep, “have you come, Warrior of the Red Shield? Today and from now you shall own that name. But you will not stand long to me.”

  “Two thirds of the fear be upon yourself,” said the Warrior of the Red Shield, “and a little third on me.

  They went into each other’s grasps, and they fought till the mouth of dusk and lateness. The Warrior of the Red Shield thought then that he was far from his friends and close to his foe, and he gave him a light lift and threw him against the earth: the thumb of his foot gave a warning to the root of his ear, and he swept the head off him.

  “Though it is I who have done this, it was not I who promised it,” said the Lad of the Gad, the Warrior of the Red Shield.

  He took the hand from the shoulder, and he took the heart from the chest, and he took the head from the neck. He put his hand in the dead one’s pouch, and there were three teeth of an old horse in it. He carried them with him. And he went to a tuft of a wood, and he gathered a withy, and he tied on it the hand and the heart and the head.

  “Would you stay here, or come with me?” he said to the woman.

  “I would rather go with you yourself,” said the woman, “than with all the men of earth’s mould together.”

  The Warrior of the Red Shield lifted her onto the shower top of his shoulder on the burden part of his back, and he went to the fire and gave a dark spring across.

  The Prince of Cairns and the Prince of Blades were waiting, rage and fury in their eyes.

  “What great warrior was that,” they said, “chasing you, and you running away, till he saw such heroes as us?”

  “There’s for you,” said the Warrior of the Red Shield, “a treasure of a woman, and the three teeth of your father, and the head, hand and heart of the one that struck the fist on him. Make a little stay for me, and I shall go back, and I shall not leave the tatter of a tale in the island.”

  He went away back, and at the end of a while he saw the speckled ship sailing from him, leaving him on the island.

  “Death wrappings upon you,” said the Warrior of the Red Shield, “a tempest of blood about your eyes, the ghost of your hanging haunt you. To leave me in an island of fire, and that I should not know what is to be done this night.”

  He went forward about the island, and saw neither house nor tower in any place. But at last there was an old castle in the lowest part of the ground of the island. And he saw three young men coming, heavily, wearily, tired to the castle.

  They came in words of the olden time upon each other. And the three young men were his three true foster-brothers, and they went in pleasure of mind to the town.

  They raised up music, laid down woe,

  With soft drunken drinks

  And harsh stammering drinks

  And tranquil toasts,

  Music between fiddles

  That would set in sound lasting sleep

  Wounded men and travailing women

  Withering away for ever

  With the sweetness of the calming tunes

  That the warriors did play.

  Then they went to lie down. And in the morning the Warrior of the Red Shield took his meat.

  He heard the clashing of arms and men going into their array. It was his own true foster-brothers making the din.

  “What are you doing?” the Warrior of the Red Shield said to them.

  “We have been the length of a day and a year in this island,” they said to him, “holding battle against Dark, son of Dim. And all we kill today will be alive tomorrow. Spells are on us that we may not leave this for ever until we kill them every one.”

  “I shall go with you today,” said the Warrior of the Red Shield, “and you will be the better for me.”

  “Spells are on us,” they said, “that no man may go with us unless he goes there alone.”

  “Stay inside today,” he said, “and I shall go there alone.”

  He left his true foster-brothers, and he hit upon the people of Dark of Dim, and he did not leave a head on a trunk that they had.

  He hit upon Dark of Dim himself, and Dark of Dim said, “Are you here, Warrior of the Red Shield?”

  “I am,” said he.

  “Well, then,” said Dark of Dim, “you will not stand long for me.”

  They went into each other’s grasps, and they fought till the mouth of dusk and lateness. Then the Warrior of the Red Shield gave that cheery little lift to Dark of Dim and put him under and threw off his head.

  Now there was Dark of Dim dead with his thirteen sons, and the battle of a hundred was on the hand of each of them.

  The Warrior of the Red Shield was spoilt and torn so much that he could not leave the battlefield. He let himself down among the dead the length of the day.

  There was a great strand under him below, and he heard the sea coming as a blazing brand of fire, as a destroying serpent, as a bellowing bull. He looked from him, and he saw coming from the waves a toothy woman, whose like was never seen.

  The least tooth in her mouth would have been a staff for her hand and a stirring stick for embers. There was a turn of her nails about her elbows, a twist of her hair about her toes. She was not lovely to look on.

  The hag came up the battlefield and there were two corpses between her and the Warrior of the Red Shield. She put her finger in their mouths, and she brought them alive, and they rose up whole as best as they ever were.

  She reached the Warrior of the Red Shield and she put her finger in his mouth, and he snapped it off her from the joint. She struck him a blow with the point of her foot and kicked him over seven ri
dges.

  “You pert little nothing,” she said. “You are the last I shall ever bring alive on this field.”

  And she came towards him.

  But the Warrior of the Red Shield took the short spear of Dark of Dim and drove the head off the hag. And that was well, for only by her son’s spear could she have been killed.

  Then the Warrior of the Red Shield was stretched there, blood and sinews and bones in torment. He saw a musical harper walking on the battlefield.

  “What are you looking for?” he asked the harper.

  “I am sure that you are weary,” said the harper. “Come up and set your head on this little hillock, and sleep.”

  He went up and he lay down. He drew a snore: and then he was on his feet, brisk, swift and active.

  “You are dreaming,” said the harper.

  “I am,” said he.

  “What did you see?” said the harper.

  “A musical harper, taking a rusty old sword to lift off my head.”

  Then he seized the harper, and he drove the brain in fiery slivers through the back of his head.