THE
TERRIBLE HEAD
Once
upon a time there was a king whose only child was a girl. Now the King had been
very anxious to have a son, or at least a grandson, to come after him, but he
was told by a prophet whom he consulted that his own daughter's son should kill
him. This news terrified him so much that he determined never to let his
daughter be married, for he thought it was better to have no grandson at all
than to be killed by his grandson. He therefore called his workmen together,
and bade them dig a deep round hole in the earth, and then he had a prison of
brass built in the hole, and then, when it was finished, he locked up his
daughter. No man ever saw her, and she never saw even the fields and the sea,
but only the sky and the sun, for there was a wide open window in the roof of
the house of brass. So the Princess would sit looking up at the sky, and
watching the clouds float across, and wondering whether she should ever get out
of her prison. Now one day it seemed to her that the sky opened above her, and
a great shower of shining gold fell through the window in the roof, and lay
glittering in her room. Not very long after, the Princess had a baby, a little
boy, but when the King her father heard of it he was very angry and afraid, for
now the child was born that should be his death. Yet, cowardly as he was, he
had not quite the heart to kill the Princess and her baby outright, but he had
them put in a huge brass-bound chest and thrust out to sea, that they might
either be drowned or starved, or perhaps come to a country where they would be
out of his way.
So
the Princess and the baby floated and drifted in the chest on the sea all day
and night, but the baby was not afraid of the waves nor of the wind, for he did
not know that they could hurt him, and he slept quite soundly. And the Princess
sang a song over him, and this was her song:
"Child,
my child, how sound you sleep!
Though your mother's care is deep,
You can lie with heart at rest
In the narrow brass-bound chest;
In the starless night and drear
You can sleep, and never hear
Billows breaking, and the cry
Of the night-wind wandering by;
In soft purple mantle sleeping
With your little face on mine,
Hearing not your mother weeping
And the breaking of the brine."
Well,
the daylight came at last, and the great chest was driven by the waves against
the shore of an island. There the brass-bound chest lay, with the Princess and
her baby in it, till a man of that country came past, and saw it, and dragged
it on to the beach, and when he had broken it open, behold! there was a
beautiful lady and a little boy. So he took them home, and was very kind to
them, and brought up the boy till he was a young man. Now when the boy had come
to his full strength the King of that country fell in love with his mother, and
wanted to marry her, but he knew that she would never part from her boy. So he
thought of a plan to get rid of the boy, and this was his plan: A great Queen
of a country not far off was going to be married, and this king said that all
his subjects must bring him wedding presents to give her. And he made a feast
to which he invited them all, and they all brought their presents; some brought
gold cups, and some brought necklaces of gold and amber, and some brought
beautiful horses; but the boy had nothing, though he was the son of a princess,
for his mother had nothing to give him. Then the rest of the company began to
laugh at him, and the King said: "If you have nothing else to give, at
least you might go and fetch the Terrible Head."
The
boy was proud, and spoke without thinking:
"Then
I swear that I _will_ bring the Terrible Head, if it may be brought by a living
man. But of what head you speak I know not."
Then
they told him that somewhere, a long way off, there dwelt three dreadful
sisters, monstrous ogrish women, with golden wings and claws of brass, and with
serpents growing on their heads instead of hair. Now these women were so awful
to look on that whoever saw them was turned at once into stone. And two of them
could not be put to death, but the youngest, whose face was very beautiful,
could be killed, and it was _her_ head that the boy had promised to bring. You
may imagine it was no easy adventure.
When
he heard all this he was perhaps sorry that he had sworn to bring the Terrible
Head, but he was determined to keep his oath. So he went out from the feast,
where they all sat drinking and making merry, and he walked alone beside the sea
in the dusk of the evening, at the place where the great chest, with himself
and his mother in it, had been cast ashore.
There
he went and sat down on a rock, looking toward the sea, and wondering how he
should begin to fulfill his vow. Then he felt some one touch him on the
shoulder; and he turned, and saw a young man like a king's son, having with him
a tall and beautiful lady, whose blue eyes shone like stars. They were taller
than mortal men, and the young man had a staff in his hand with golden wings on
it, and two golden serpents twisted round it, and he had wings on his cap and
on his shoes. He spoke to the boy, and asked him why he was so unhappy; and the
boy told him how he had sworn to bring the Terrible Head, and knew not how to
begin to set about the adventure.
Then
the beautiful lady also spoke, and said that "it was a foolish oath and a
hasty, but it might be kept if a brave man had sworn it." Then the boy
answered that he was not afraid, if only he knew the way.
Then
the lady said that to kill the dreadful woman with the golden wings and the
brass claws, and to cut off her head, he needed three things: first, a Cap of
Darkness, which would make him invisible when he wore it; next, a Sword of
Sharpness, which would cleave iron at one blow; and last, the Shoes of
Swiftness, with which he might fly in the air.
The
boy answered that he knew not where such things were to be procured, and that,
wanting them, he could only try and fail. Then the young man, taking off his
own shoes, said: "First, you shall use these shoes till you have taken the
Terrible Head, and then you must give them back to me. And with these shoes you
will fly as fleet as a bird, or a thought, over the land or over the waves of
the sea, wherever the shoes know the way. But there are ways which they do not
know, roads beyond the borders of the world. And these roads have you to
travel. Now first you must go to the Three Gray Sisters, who live far off in
the north, and are so very cold that they have only one eye and one tooth among
the three. You must creep up close to them, and as one of them passes the eye
to the other you must seize it, and refuse to give it up till they have told
you the way to the Three Fairies of the Garden, and _they_ will give you the
Cap of Darkness and the Sword of Sharpness, and show you how to wing beyond
this world to the land of the Terrible Head."
Then
the beautiful lady said: "Go forth at once, and do not return to say
good-by to your mother, for these things must be done quickly, and the Shoes of
Swiftness themselves will carry you to the land of the Three Gray Sisters--for
they know the measure of that way."
So
the boy thanked her, and he fastened on the Shoes of Swiftness, and turned to
say good-by to the young man and the lady. But, behold! they had vanished, he
knew not how or where! Then he leaped in the air to try the Shoes of Swiftness,
and they carried him more swiftly than the wind, over the warm blue sea, over
the happy lands of the south, over the northern peoples who drank mare's milk
and lived in great wagons, wandering after their flocks. Across the wide
rivers, where the wild fowl rose and fled before him, and over the plains and
the cold North Sea he went, over the fields of snow and the hills of ice, to a
place where the world ends, and all water is frozen, and there are no men, nor
beasts, nor any green grass. There in a blue cave of the ice he found the Three
Gray Sisters, the oldest of living things. Their hair was as white as the snow,
and their flesh of an icy blue, and they mumbled and nodded in a kind of dream,
and their frozen breath hung round them like a cloud. Now the opening of the
cave in the ice was narrow, and it was not easy to pass in without touching one
of the Gray Sisters. But, floating on the Shoes of Swiftness, the boy just
managed to steal in, and waited till one of the sisters said to another, who
had their one eye:
"Sister,
what do you see? do you see old times coming back?"
"No,
sister."
"Then
give _me_ the eye, for perhaps I can see farther than you."
Then
the first sister passed the eye to the second, but as the second groped for it
the boy caught it cleverly out of her hand.
"Where
is the eye, sister?" said the second gray woman.
"You
have taken it yourself, sister," said the first gray woman.
"Have
you lost the eye, sister? have you lost the eye?" said the third gray
woman; "shall we _never_ find it again, and see old times coming
back?"
Then
the boy slipped from behind them out of the cold cave into the air, and he
laughed aloud.
When
the gray women heard that laugh they began to weep, for now they knew that a
stranger had robbed them, and that they could not help themselves, and their
tears froze as they fell from the hollows where no eyes were, and rattled on
the icy ground of the cave. Then they began to implore the boy to give them
their eye back again, and he could not help being sorry for them, they were so
pitiful. But he said he would never give them the eye till they told him the
way to the Fairies of the Garden.
Then
they wrung their hands miserably, for they guessed why he had come, and how he
was going to try to win the Terrible Head. Now the Dreadful Women were akin to
the Three Gray Sisters, and it was hard for them to tell the boy the way. But
at last they told him to keep always south, and with the land on his left and
the sea on his right, till he reached the Island of the Fairies of the Garden.
Then he gave them back the eye, and they began to look out once more for the
old times coming back again. But the boy flew south between sea and land,
keeping the land always on his left hand, till he saw a beautiful island
crowned with flowering trees. There he alighted, and there he found the Three
Fairies of the Garden. They were like three very beautiful young women, dressed
one in green, one in white, and one in red, and they were dancing and singing
round an apple tree with apples of gold, and this was their song:
THE
SONG OF THE WESTERN FAIRIES
Round
and round the apples of gold,
Round and round dance we;
Thus do we dance from the days of old
About the enchanted tree;
Round, and round, and round we go,
While the spring is green, or the stream shall
flow,
Or the wind shall stir the sea!
There
is none may taste of the golden fruit
Till the golden new time come
Many a tree shall spring from shoot,
Many a blossom be withered at root,
Many a song be dumb; Broken and still shall be
many a lute
Or ever the new times come!
Round
and round the tree of gold,
Round and round dance we,
So doth the great world spin from of old,
Summer and winter, and fire and cold,
Song that is sung, and tale that is told,
Even as we dance, that fold and unfold
Round the stem of the fairy tree!
These
grave dancing fairies were very unlike the Grey Women, and they were glad to
see the boy, and treated him kindly. Then they asked him why he had come; and
he told them how he was sent to find the Sword of Sharpness and the Cap of
Darkness. And the fairies gave him these, and a wallet, and a shield, and
belted the sword, which had a diamond blade, round his waist, and the cap they
set on his head, and told him that now even they could not see him though they
were fairies. Then he took it off, and they each kissed him and wished him good
fortune, and then they began again their eternal dance round the golden tree,
for it is their business to guard it till the new times come, or till the
world's ending. So the boy put the cap on his head, and hung the wallet round
his waist, and the shining shield on his shoulders, and flew beyond the great
river that lies coiled like a serpent round the whole world. And by the banks
of that river, there he found the three Terrible Women all asleep beneath a
poplar tree, and the dead poplar leaves lay all about them. Their golden wings
were folded and their brass claws were crossed, and two of them slept with
their hideous heads beneath their wings like birds, and the serpents in their
hair writhed out from under the feathers of gold. But the youngest slept
between her two sisters, and she lay on her back, with her beautiful sad face
turned to the sky; and though she slept her eyes were wide open. If the boy had
seen her he would have been changed into stone by the terror and the pity of
it, she was so awful; but he had thought of a plan for killing her without
looking on her face. As soon as he caught sight of the three from far off he
took his shining shield from his shoulders, and held it up like a mirror, so
that he saw the Dreadful Women reflected in it, and did not see the Terrible
Head itself. Then he came nearer and nearer, till he reckoned that he was
within a sword's stroke of the youngest, and he guessed where he should strike
a back blow behind him. Then he drew the Sword of Sharpness and struck once,
and the Terrible Head was cut from the shoulders of the creature, and the blood
leaped out and struck him like a blow. But he thrust the Terrible Head into his
wallet, and flew away without looking behind. Then the two Dreadful Sisters who
were left wakened, and rose in the air like great birds; and though they could
not see him because of his Cap of Darkness, they flew after him up the wind,
following by the scent through the clouds, like hounds hunting in a wood. They
came so close that he could hear the clatter of their golden wings, and their
shrieks to each other: "_here, here,_" "_no, there; this way he
went,_" as they chased him. But the Shoes of Swiftness flew too fast for
them, and at last their cries and the rattle of their wings died away as he
crossed the great river that runs round the world.
Now
when the horrible creatures were far in the distance, and the boy found himself
on the right side of the river, he flew straight eastward, trying to seek his
own country. But as he looked down from the air he saw a very strange sight--a
beautiful girl chained to a stake at the high-water mark of the sea. The girl
was so frightened or so tired that she was only prevented from falling by the
iron chain about her waist, and there she hung, as if she were dead. The boy
was very sorry for her and flew down and stood beside her. When he spoke she
raised her head and looked round, but his voice only seemed to frighten her.
Then he remembered that he was wearing the Cap of Darkness, and that she could
only hear him, not see him. So he took it off, and there he stood before her,
the handsomest young man she had ever seen in all her life, with short curly
yellow hair, and blue eyes, and a laughing face. And he thought her the most
beautiful girl in the world. So first with one blow of the Sword of Sharpness
he cut the iron chain that bound her, and then he asked her what she did there,
and why men treated her so cruelly. And she told him that she was the daughter
of the King of that country, and that she was tied there to be eaten by a
monstrous beast out of the sea; for the beast came and devoured a girl every
day. Now the lot had fallen on her; and as she was just saying this a long
fierce head of a cruel sea creature rose out of the waves and snapped at the
girl. But the beast had been too greedy and too hurried, so he missed his aim
the first time. Before he could rise and bite again the boy had whipped the
Terrible Head out of his wallet and held it up. And when the sea beast leaped
out once more its eyes fell on the head, and instantly it was turned into a
stone. And the stone beast is there on the sea-coast to this day.
Then
the boy and the girl went to the palace of the King, her father, where everyone
was weeping for her death, and they could hardly believe their eyes when they
saw her come back well. And the King and Queen made much of the boy, and could
not contain themselves for delight when they found he wanted to marry their
daughter. So the two were married with the most splendid rejoicings, and when
they had passed some time at court they went home in a ship to the boy's own
country. For he could not carry his bride through the air, so he took the Shoes
of Swiftness, and the Cap of Darkness, and the Sword of Sharpness up to a
lonely place in the hills. There he left them, and there they were found by the
man and woman who had met him at home beside the sea, and had helped him to
start on his journey.
When
this had been done the boy and his bride set forth for home, and landed at the
harbor of his native land. But whom should he meet in the very street of the
town but his own mother, flying for her life from the wicked King, who now
wished to kill her because he found that she would never marry him! For if she
had liked the King ill before, she liked him far worse now that he had caused
her son to disappear so suddenly. She did not know, of course, where the boy
had gone, but thought the King had slain him secretly. So now she was running
for her very life, and the wicked King was following her with a sword in his
hand. Then, behold! she ran into her son's very arms, but he had only time to
kiss her and step in front of her, when the King struck at him with his sword.
The boy caught the blow on his shield, and cried to the King:
"I
swore to bring you the Terrible Head, and see how I keep my oath!"
Then
he drew forth the head from his wallet, and when the King's eyes fell on it,
instantly he was turned into stone, just as he stood there with his sword
lifted!
Now
all the people rejoiced, because the wicked King should rule them no longer.
And they asked the boy to be their king, but he said no, he must take his
mother home to her father's house. So the people chose for king the man who had
been kind to his mother when first she was cast on the island in the great
chest.
Presently
the boy and his mother and his wife set sail for his mother's own country, from
which she had been driven so unkindly. But on the way they stayed at the court
of a king, and it happened that he was holding games, and giving prizes to the
best runners, boxers, and quoit-throwers. Then the boy would try his strength
with the rest, but he threw the quoit so far that it went beyond what had ever
been thrown before, and fell in the crowd, striking a man so that he died. Now
this man was no other than the father of the boy's mother, who had fled away
from his own kingdom for fear his grandson should find him and kill him after
all. Thus he was destroyed by his own cowardice and by chance, and thus the
prophecy was fulfilled. But the boy and his wife and his mother went back to
the kingdom that was theirs, and lived long and happily after all their
troubles.
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