The Green Hero

by Bernard Evslin

  So he thought and thought until his eyes grew blurred with sleep, and the far stars trembled and went out. When he awoke, the first tatters of morning mist were beginning to flush with light. He swung himself out of his bullhide cradle, crept down the tree like a squirrel, and went into the wood. As he went he kept his eyes open, and kept thinking very hard. In the deep of the wood he rested himself under a tree. A strange bird screamed. Finn shivered. It was dark in the wood, not the safe darkness of night, but a green scary dusk of day half hidden. The bird screamed again. In the brush something snarled and pounced; something else spoke in pain, chipmunk perhaps, or rabbit.

  “All the things here eat each other,” he said to himself. “The big ones eat the small ones. An uncomfortable kind of arrangement, especially if you’re small.”

  He felt fuller of sadness than he could hold, and he wept a tear. The tear fell, but did not vanish as tears usually do. It glittered upon the leafmold, grew brighter, rose again toward his face. It was a tiny manikin, rising out of the earth. No bigger than a twig was he, with a squinched-up little nut of a face. Upon his head glistened Finn’s tear, a crystal now, milky white as the moon, lighting up a space about the little man.

  “Who are you?” said Finn.

  “I am the Thrig of Tone.”

  “Are you now?”

  “Have you heard of me?”

  “No, sir.”

  “An ignorant lad you are then, for I am famous.”

  “What for?”

  “Magic mostly. Mischief some. I’m much abused in certain quarters. But I’m a good one to know, I’ll tell you that. Unless I happen to take a dislike to you, in which case you will regret our acquaintance.”

  “I see,” said Finn.

  “I doubt it. The thing about me is I’m not around very often, as it happens. A powerful curse is working upon me, you see. I’m the prisoner of a spell, woven by the wickedest old witch who was ever wooed by the devil and wore a black hat to her wedding—her name is Drabne of Dole. What can I do for you now?”

  “You wish to do something for me?”

  “I must.”

  “Why must you?”

  “A condition of the curse. I’m a prisoner of the dust, you see, until the purest tear happens to fall on me. Then I come to life and wear it as a jewel and must serve the weeper, whoever it is.”

  “Did I weep a pure tear?”

  “I’m here, am I not?”

  “What makes a tear pure?”

  “An extraordinary grief. Something outside the scheme of things, so odd it makes the gods laugh. And that laughter of the gods, which you know as the wind, means that someone somewhere has a grief he cannot handle. But it must be something special; plain things won’t do, you know, not for the gods. They see enough of ordinary misery, they’re no longer amused, they like something special. A crocodile moved to pity, perhaps; that roused me some time ago, and I had an adventure then. Or a king brought low. Yes, they like that. Or something wondrously beautiful made ugly, watching itself become so, and not able to stop. All this will set the night a-howling. What they found special in you, I don’t know. But here I am. And there’s the wind, hear it? What is your problem, lad?”

  “Myself mostly. I come of a family of giants, and am small. I love someone who does not know what love is. And I have a bold deed in mind, but am afraid. Also, something pounced and something screamed, reminding me of the world’s arrangements about big things eating small ones. Well, all this made me weep, Master Thrig of Tone, sir. If you help me I shall be grateful, but I don’t know how you can.”

  “What is this deed you have in mind?”

  “Well, you see, sir, this young lady I admire is much upset by the sight of a worm. Making me think that the sight of a snake would absolutely terrify her and make her feel very affectionate toward her rescuer.”

  “Think you’d be much good at fighting off serpents? They’re very strong, you know, just one long muscle. Makes it awkward when you start to wrestle them. Not only that, but a mouthful of secret weapons. Hollow teeth that squirt poison, making even the smallest serpent deadlier than wolf or bear. You absolutely sure it’s a snake you want to choose for your first bout, young Finn?”

  “I am sure.”

  “Well, this requires a bit of thinking. Let’s see. How can we do this with the most honor to you and the most effect on your little friend, and the least damage to both of you? And the most pleasure to the serpents, too, for they’re the kind of creature that go along with nothing unless they’re pleased. Pleased, yes, that’s a thought. You play any musical instrument? Flute, for instance.”

  “Don’t even know what it is. Sometimes, though, I shake my rattle a certain way that makes my blood dance. And Murtha sits there dancing without moving her legs.”

  “Rhythm section’s all very well, but what snakes like is melody.”

  He broke off a reed from a nearby clump, took out a knife no longer than a thorn and notched the reed, then gave it to Finn.

  “What’s this?”

  “A reed, doctored according to me lights.”

  “What’s it for?”

  “Well, reeds have a hard life. You must understand that in the vegetable kingdom they’re nowhere. Very bottom of the list. No leaves, no scent, not even any nuisance value like weeds. They are frail stalks, bowing before every wind. And yet, this is their magic. Their courtesy to the wind is a very special quality. For they are the first to recognize this cruel laughter of the gods, and so are attuned to human misery. Their weakness gives strength its meaning; their lowliness makes fame shine; their pity is the best description in all the world of cruelty. The owl hitting the mouse, a wasp stinging a beetle to death, the young boy drowned in the pride of swimming, the bride realizing that she has married wrong and that her mistake has become her life—all these things that make the gods laugh and the winds howl, the reeds know first. They bow to it. And as the wind seethes through them, they rustle in a kind of music. It all becomes music in them. Music, which is the essence of all man cannot say in words. And, if you take a reed and notch it in a certain way—like this—and give it to one who will whisper his own story to it, why then a most exquisite music is made. And now happens the greatest joke of all, a joke on the gods themselves, those jesters. For hearing this music out of the reed, why Evil itself, the simplified shape of evil, the snake, becomes enraptured and dances in slow loops of ecstasy. And a slight pause comes to evil arrangements. Strength is diverted from cruelty. The blackness of death is split for a moment, and a crystal light streams, making pictures in the head, and it seems to those listening that things might be different, might be better. But only for a split second. Then the music stops and all goes back to the way it was before. But in that moment the snakes have danced and the victim forgotten fear. D’you follow me, boy?”

  “Will you teach me to play this thing?”

  “Let me hear you whistle a tune. I can do nothing if you have no ear.”

  Finn whistled. He could do that. He had amused himself in his cradle, imitating birds. The Thrig nodded.

  “Not entirely tone-deaf, I’m glad to hear. Perhaps I can … maybe so. Very well, let us begin.”

  “Now?”

  “Always now when it comes to learning, especially something difficult.”

  “But I’m hungry, I’m cold, I’m sleepy.”

  “Tell it to the reed.”

  Now it is said that the Thrig of Tone and young Finn stayed under that oak tree a week of days and a week of nights piping duets. It rained sometimes, and the nights were cold. Nor did they stop for food. Nixies don’t eat the stuff, and the Thrig had forgotten that humans do. All Finn had during this time was three mushrooms that happened to grow near where he was sitting. For his thirst he drank the rain. Oh, it was a difficult time he had, but it wasn’t allowed to matter. The Thrig was a strict teacher, and kept Finn at it. What happened then was that the lad’s hunger and thirst and sleepiness and loneliness wove themselves into the music, an
d the reeds added their own notes of pity and joy. And at the end of their time together under the oak tree you could not tell who was teacher and who was pupil; they played equally well.

  They played so beautifully that the birds stopped their own singing to listen. Even the owl left off hunting, forgot her bloody hunger for a bit, and stood on a limb listening, hooting the tune softly to herself. The deer came, and wolves. Weasels, foxes, stoats, rabbits, bears, badgers, chipmunks, wild pigs. They came and stood in silent ranks at night, forgetting their enmity and fear as the moonlight sifted through the leaves and touched different fur with silver. Finally, two huge snakes came slithering out of their fearful nest and sat among their coils, weaving a slow dance.

  “Enough!” cried the Thrig of Tone. “Lesson’s over, young Finn. You’ve learned what I can teach. You can pipe and the devil can dance.”

  “Thank you, sir,” said Finn.

  “I have done my good deed without interruption, and am free at last, I hope, from the wicked enchantment which binds me to the dust and allows me to see the sun only once every thousand years.”

  “I hope so indeed,” said Finn. “My thanks to you, O Thrig of Tone. Perhaps I can return the favor one day. Farewell.”

  And he went piping off through the woods, followed by various beasts.

  But it’s not so easy to get away with a good deed on this spinning egg of a world. Evil has lidless eyes and does not sleep. At the very moment that Finn was ending his lesson, Drabne of Dole, deep in her hole, a thousand miles down, was gazing at a hand mirror, combing her snaky hair with the backbone of a fish. Then the mirror darkened; she could not see herself. And she knew that somewhere on earth a good deed was being born. For good, the mere breath of it, always darkened her mirror. She gnashed her teeth and stamped her foot, crying:

  Oh grief, oh woe

  I’ll not have it,

  No, no, no.

  Not a shred of kindness

  Not a ray of joy.

  I’ll bend him, rend him,

  Tame him, maim him,

  Whatever he be,

  Large or wee,

  Man or boy.

  So saying, she flapped her bat-wing sleeves and flew a thousand miles in a wink of an eye to the old oak tree where the Thrig of Tone stood gazing after Finn. She snatched him up and stuffed him into her purse, and flew back a thousand miles to her den. She took him to the stool where she sat to do her sewing, and bound him with thread, and stabbed him with a needle.

  Stab and jab

  jab and stab.

  Better talk,

  better gab

  “No,” groaned the Thrig.

  “Been doing good deeds again, haven’t you? Let you out of my sight for a minute every thousand years, and up you pop into the light trying to help some poor fool do the right thing instead of taking life as it is. Well, you’ll tell me now what you did, and I’ll undo it.”

  “Never,” said the Thrig.

  “Never’s a long time, little one, especially when there’s pain attached. You’ll tell me, for I’ll torment you till you do.

  I come and I go,

  I fly and I spy.

  I am Drabne of Dole

  I live in a hole,

  And I need to know.

  “That’s what witch means, small fool, Woman Who Knows. Now hear what I intend, Thrig of Tone, if you don’t tell me straight. I’ll round off your edges a bit and use you as a pincushion for the next thousand years. And it’ll be pain, pain, pain all the time. I have plenty of tatters that need mending. My master’s socks need doing too. His hooves, you know, they wear right through.”

  Thereupon she poked and prodded and jabbed and stabbed the poor little fellow until he could bear it no longer, and told her what he had done.

  “Aha,” she said. “It’s a very good deed, indeed, but not too late to stop.”

  She threw him into her workbasket and stomped off to her big iron pot where it boiled over on its fire of brambles. She cast in the scale of a fishy thing that lives at the bottom of the sea and has neither sight nor touch nor any sense at all but is one blind suck. Henbane she added, and nightshade, wormwood, drearweed, and various poison fats that clog the sense, whispering all the while:

  In this cauldron

  stew and roast.

  Hearing ail,

  Music fail.

  Make him then

  Deaf as post.

  A smoke arose from the witch’s brew, curling in the spirals of a most evil spell, and wafted itself out of her den and up the long way into the world. Flew into the wood and fumed around the flat head of one of the serpents who were following Finn, drawn by his music. This serpent straightway fell deaf, heard nothing any more, but followed along anyway, no longer dancing, only crawling, filling with stupefied wrath.

  Finn knew nothing. He went skipping and piping through the wood until he came to his own village, silent now, for it was the hot golden after-lunch hour when giants nap. He climbed into his bullhide cradle and gazed upon young Murtha, sleeping sweetly as a folded flower.

  “Sleep, little beauty,” he said. “Sleep, my flower. Dream whatever dreams you do, and I shall sit here and my music shall steal through your ears and into your dreams, and when you awake you will hear the same music and not know whether you are awake or asleep, seeing me or dreaming still. And when the snakes come and frighten you, it will be with the slowness of nightmare, and in the darkened enchantment of that half dream you will hear me play and see me do, and watch the writhing evil dance to my tune. So you will know me for what I am, and love me forever. Sleep then, sleep until you awake.”

  He sat cross-legged and began to pipe again. The wolves came, and the deer. Bear, fox, badger, rabbit, weasel. They stood at the foot of the tree, listening. Then, sure enough, he saw the serpents unreeling themselves through the branches of the tree, winding down toward his cradle.

  “Strange,” he thought to himself, “they were mottled green, both of them, but now one has changed color. It’s a dull gray, like lead. Oh, well, I suppose he has changed his skin. Snakes do, I hear. What’s the difference? I’ll play and they shall dance.”

  The green snake was already dancing, slowly winding fold upon mottled fold on the limb from which the cradle swung. But the gray snake had crawled into the cradle itself, filling it with great coils of dully glimmering metal hide.

  Murtha was awake now, staring with stark-wide violet eyes at what had come into her sleep. And Finn thought that he was locked in nightmare. For this snake was not dancing. Its tiny eyes were poison-red and seemed to be spinning, making Finn’s head whirl with fear. Not dancing, this serpent, but oozing toward Finn. He curled the tip of his tail around the lad’s ribs and began to squeeze. Finn felt his bones cracking. He could do nothing else, so he kept playing. He sat there piping although the breath was being choked out of him. As his sight darkened he saw the snake above still dancing. And Finn, knowing that he was being killed, put all his pain and all his fear and all his loneliness into the pipe, and the pipe answered.

  Now the green snake above danced on, filled with the wild sleepy magic of this music. The last exquisite strains of Finn’s fluting plaited the snake’s loops with slow joy, so that the coils he wove were made of living cable, stronger than steel. And when he heard the music growing dim and saw the gray serpent throttling Finn, he simply cast a loop about the strangler and pressed the life out of its body, all without ceasing his dance.

  Finn felt the coils lose their deathly grip; his breath came free. In the huge joy of breathing he blew so loud a blast upon his reed that the giants awoke and came running to see.

  What they saw was young Finn sitting in his bullhide cradle piping a tune, and a huge green serpent dancing, and another metal-colored snake hanging limp and dead, while violet-eyed little Murtha shook her shoulders and snapped her fingers and smiled like the sun upon water.

  “Finn!” cried his mother, snatching him up and hugging him to her. “Are you all right? Has the murdering bea
st harmed you, child?”

  “I’m fine, Mother. Put me back and let me play.”

  Finn’s mother was not much for weeping, but she wept then.

  “Don’t cry, Mother. Take the silver one, and skin off his hide and make yourself a belt.”

  “I’ll do that, son. And know it for the finest girdle in all the world.”

  The giants were whispering to each other. “ ’Tis a wonder now. A proud mother she is this day. Young Finn’s a hero for all his small bones.”

  “Save a bit of the hide to make a drum for Murtha here,” said Finn. “Do that, Mother, and she will drum to my fluting, and all will be well.”

  “Do it I will,” said his mother. “As soon as the beast can be peeled.”

  “Answer me, darlin’,” said Finn to Murtha. “Will you have a silver drum and beat the measure as I play?”

  The giants shouted their pride. The animals bayed and bellowed and trumpeted. A muffled shriek of pain came from Drabne of Dole, for witches suffer when wickedness fails. And the birds in the trees made a racket of glee.

  Young Murtha though said nothing at all; she wasn’t one for answering questions. Besides, she was doing something new. She stood among the snake’s coils and danced along with him. He swayed, casting his green loops about her like a garland come to life. The giants then began to dance too, stomping the earth mightily, shaking the trees.

  And Drabne of Dole, deep underground, whimpered and moaned and screamed, but no one heard her, for the day was full of joyful noise.

  As for the Thrig of Tone, the witch’s grief was his chance. He undid his bonds and escaped from her workbasket and made his way back to the wood. There he lives to this day, they say, doing sometimes good and sometimes mischief according to his mood, but mostly good nowadays for the balance is so much the other way. Children still get lost in that wood, and when they are found, say that a manikin with a face like a nut taught them to take music out of a reed. He wears a crown, they say, which is a single crystal, tear-shaped, full of moon-fire. Their parents laugh and tell them they were never lost at all but only asleep, dreaming. The children do not argue, but they know what they know. And it’s a fact that children so lost and so found grow up fond of strange places and adventure. They go about the world confusing wind and laughter, tears and moon-crystals, teasing music out of reeds, heroes out of shadows, stories out of grief.