Have you heard of the fame and the name that belong to Lusca, son of Dolvath, son of Libren, son of Loman, son of Cas, son of Tag of the kindred of Irrua?
One day the hero, the warrior son, went hunting on the Isle of Birds, to the north side of Irrua. He looked at the sea, and there was a boat coming to him with many striped sails on it. Lusca gripped his spear against the war hosts of the boat, but there came down a woman, alone, the most beautiful of women, and a red gold pin blazed at her shoulder.
The woman said, “I set it as crosses and as spells, and as the decay of the year on you, that you put neither stop to your foot nor pillow to your head till you search all that is high and all that is low in the seven red rungs of eternity to find the place where I am in.”
Then the woman went to the boat, and the boat moved away over the back-ridge of the waves and the strong waves of ocean and the mane of the sea, so that Lusca did not know into what part of water or of sky that woman had gone from him. He himself went home from the Isle of Birds to the Town of the Heads in Irrua and sat in his chair. He gave a sigh, and the chair split around him and broke.
“It was the sigh of a man under crosses and spells broke that chair,” said his father.
“It was,” said Lusca.
“What is the cause of the sigh?” said his father.
“The cause of the sigh is that a thing in a boat came over the sea today. And,” said Lusca, “I am in cow fetters to find her.”
“I shall go with you,” said the big brother of Lusca.
“I shall go, too,” said the little brother.
“Let us meet our crosses and our spells,” said Lusca, “and put neither stop to our foot nor pillow to our head till we search all that is high and all that is low in the seven red rungs of eternity to find the place where the woman is in.”
Lusca and his brothers built a ship:
Every other plank
Blue plank
Red plank
Green plank
Black plank
Yellow plank
White plank:
Tent to the deck
Tent to the prow
Tent to the stern:
Weapons in the place of throwing,
Gold in the place of giving.
They took the good and the ill of it upon themselves, and put her out, and faced the flowing of the green sea.
And after they had reached the closeness of the waves and the heel of ocean they were looking around them, and they were not long in this when they saw the shadow of a shower coming from the west and going to the east, and a warrior on a horse was in it. The warrior twisted the tail of the horse about the mast of the ship, and set off, riding up and down about the world, with the ship behind. Sea and land were one to him.
“Go you,” said Lusca to his big brother, “and cut the tail through with your sword.”
The big brother went, and neither blade nor edge would cut the tail.
“Go you,” said Lusca to his little brother, “and cut the tail through with your sword.”
The little brother went, and neither blade nor edge would cut the tail.
“Try if you shall cut one hair,” said Lusca to his brothers, “and I shall cut the rest.”
But neither blade nor edge would cut a hair of the hair of the enchanted tail, and behind that horse they journeyed for a year.
On a day when they were travelling they saw a waterfall in the sky, and in it a venomous otter springing forward tremendously towards them through the waves. There was one kind of every kind of colour on her, her eyes flaming in her head, a blazing ball of fire in her throat. The warrior, when he saw the venomous otter, loosed the tail from the mast, the horse threw the water of the sea to the air, the venomous otter followed the horse, and they parted from the sons of the King of Irrua.
Lusca sailed the ship onward for another year until he saw the bulk of a land and the making of an island far from them. He faced the prow to the island and drew the ship up her own seven lengths on dry dried land, and went with his brothers about and through the green isle, but nothing did they find before they came to the middle of the isle, where there was a white castle, but they found no one, alive or dead, except a very wondrous cat, and that cat was herself playing about the pillars of the hall.
There was a table spread in the hall, and on it was every food that was better than another waiting for them; meat of each meat, draught of each drink; while in the air around there was a harp playing, but neither harp nor musical harper did Lusca and his brothers see.
The next morning, when they prepared to go from the castle to the ship, the cat stood at the threshold and would not let them pass, and the brothers were a second night in the castle, with meat and drink and music, yet no one did they see. In the morning they rose, and the cat stood at the threshold, and they were a third night in the castle. The next morning the cat stood at the threshold, and Lusca said, “The cat will not part with us. Let us go.” So they went to their ship. “But I am sad,” said Lusca, “to leave without the story of the very wondrous cat.”
Lusca and his brothers gathered the fruits of the island and came to their ship and were a year sailing over the strong sea till they came to another island and went on shore.
There was music: there were crystal stones; lovely streams; noble tables at a kingly court. But no one did they find in it except a treasure of a woman, who, in shape and form and make, was like the one who had put crosses on Lusca. And when they met this woman she shed desperate showers of tears.
“What news?” said Lusca.
“What news from yourself?” said the woman.
“I give you news without disputing,” said Lusca. He told her all the adventures until that time out.
“And my news is this,” said the woman, and began to speak.
“A crowned king there was in the Land of Speckled Peaks. His name was Yohy Sharp-arm, son of Maidin. He had to him no children but two daughters only, and even they had not the same mother. The first daughter was Bright-eyed Faylinn; and if there were to be a single king over the three plunder divisions of the world, she would be his match of a wife, for there was not in her own time a woman of better beauty than she.
“The queen died, and Yohy Sharp-arm married another, the daughter of the King of Dreolann, and she bore him another daughter and no more. I am that daughter. Behinya is my name.
“Then my mother grew hatred against Faylinn, and took her to swim by the waterfall of Eas Bomaine. When Faylinn was in the water, my mother worked enchantment on her and put her under crosses and spells to be a year in the shape of a beast, and a year in the shape of another beast, and to go, beast into beast, and year into year for ever, unless a man should find her in her own shape, for she is her own shape on one day of every year, to give her grief at every other. And if a man should find her in the shape of a cat he should claim her. There is no doubt but that you found my sister upon that island. Free Isle is the name pf that island itself, and Faylinn is the Cat of the Free Isle. But you did not know her.”
“And that same Bright-eyed Faylinn is the woman who has me under fetters of going and straying to find her,” said Lusca. “Is there no other way to fetch the woman?”
“There is no other. Crosses on the top of water are not forgiven. But go from here quickly,” said Behinya. “This island belongs to one fearful-ugly-monstrous Fomor. Blacker than a coal of sally drowned in cold iced water is every joint and feature of the Great Man. There is nothing of him that is not black but his two eyes, and they are red. He holds me here. I have never seen of the people of the world, all the time I am on this island, but you alone. The day he stole me from my father’s court I asked him to do me no harm till the end of a year; and he has me for a year all but today, and, my friends,” she said, “go quickly from the Great Man. You will not escape from him without death.”
“I would not take the gold of the world and not wait for tidings of the Fomor,” said Lusca.
At once they saw him coming; the Fomor; the Great Man, This was the way of him.
There were the skins of horned deer clashing on him
And a thick iron club in his round hand.
Seven sides upon the club,
Edge of a razor on every side of seven,
And seven chains about,
An iron apple-knob on every chain of seven,
And seven spikes about.
He never left horror or wild creature
Or senseless spectre in crag
Or hollow or rock or river mouth
That he did not rouse
With the noise that club did play.
And when the Fomor saw the sons of Irrua he gave a yell and a laugh of laughter, so that they could count the inside of him with all the opening he gave to his mouth.
Behinya changed shapeliness for misshape, loveliness for unloveliness, with fear for those bright-formed lads falling by the Great Man.
Then Lusca said, “May life be neither good nor pleasant to you, and may the house neither of sun or of moon give welcome before or behind you, hideous Fomor.”
And he rose,
The mantle beyond border,
The flood without ebb
And the torrent without breaking,
The champion who never gave back
One single foot
Before few or before many
In battle or in conflict
Went into his belts of thongs
And his thongs of warrior,
Making marsh of the rock
And rock of the marsh,
Until he gave the Fomor
The merry little heave
And threw him on his back.
“The fruit of vigour and valour to you, son of the King of Irrua,” said the Great Man, “in the mouths of poets and readers of flags for ever, and do not put me to death.”
“I swear before my thongs,” said Lusca, “if the gold of the world were given to me I would not accept it, if I were not to take the head from you.” He struck the Fomor at the joining of the neck, and the head fell from the body.
Lusca and his brothers made ready the ship and straight without staying they left Behinya on the island, and voyaged over the stream of the sea, and journied through the thick red waves, for five years of their time, seeking the Cat of the Free Isle. But they did not find her.
Now, on a certain day that they were listening to the noises of the sea, they saw a ship with speckled sails coming towards them, and a single royal young warrior in the prow of that ship. He had a sickle of thick iron in his hand, and he reached out the sickle and lifted the ship of the sons of the King of Irrua high above the sea.
Lusca said to his brothers, “This is no crouching time.”
They drew their three swords, and hit three blows each man of them on the sail mast of the ship, so that they cut the mast upon the spot and the ship fell again to the bitter waters.
“My joy it is,” said the young warrior, “sons of the King of Irrua, to have combat with you.”
“Your joy it shall be,” said Lusca, “if we did but know with whom is the combat.”
“I am the Big Mokkalve, son of the King of Sorcha,” said the young warrior. “Grey-visioned will be good heroes, sad-palmed the maidens, wet-eyed the queens when this day is done.”
But, away to the Lands of Sorcha, there was a wizard. The Manach was his name. And it was revealed at that instant to the Manach that death and the young warrior were to meet on the sword of Lusca; that Manach was himself the man of most desperate enchantment of all who came in his own time.
The Manach took his harrow-wheel of holly, and he got upon it, and he rose to the sky and put a dark fog of magic round about the ship of the Big Mokkalve, until he stole away the Big Mokkalve with him through that desperate fog.
When the water-mist cleared, the sons of the King of Irrua looked at the ship and were sad that a man should go from them without dying.
“What are we going to do now?” said Lusca.
“We are to find the cat,” said his big brother.
“We are to free you from your crosses and your spells, the decay and sad misfortunes of the year,” said his little brother.
“That is not my advice to you,” said Lusca. “We shall go to the Lands of Sorcha and give battle to the Big Mokkalve; for he came on us to avenge the killing of his father by our father, and he will not be stopped with enchantments.”
Then the sea stood up in wrestle and dispute with the ship, in green waves, rough and laughing; but when it found no weakness in the warriors nor terror in the young men, there dwelt a blossom of peace over the sea, and Lusca and his brothers came blithely to the Lands of Sorcha. They pulled the ship up her own seven lengths on grey grass, and left her, and took their weapons against the hosts of Sorcha.
They were not long there when they saw one youth coming towards them. He had the garland of a poet around his head, a fair purple-bordered cloak about him, and a wand of white silver in his hand.
“It is not well, Lusca. And my advice to you,” said the youth, “is that it would be better now to turn again. I think it a sad pity, the thing you seek to do.”
“What is it that I seek to do?” said Lusca.
“To give furious, high-headed battle is what you seek to do,” said the youth.
“What is your name, poet?” said Lusca.
“My name,” said the youth, “is the Kurrirya Crookfoot, and I think it a sad pity that the two I love best are to fall together this day.”
“What is your friendship with us?” said Lusca.
“Your share of me,” said the Kurrirya Crook-foot, “is that my mother was a daughter of Irrua. And in very truth I have given to you the love of my soul.”
“No less for that,” said Lusca, “go you and proclaim battle against the Big Mokkalve and the hosts of Sorcha.”
The Kurrirya said, “It is a rope around sand, or the closing of the palm at a sunbeam, or it is heat against boiling, for you to meet the Big Mokkalve and the hosts of Sorcha.”
“Lay aside your silly talk,” said Lusca. He put his hand into the hollow of his shield and he took out a ridged and polished lump of gold, and gave the gold to the poet. The Kurrirya took it and threw the gold on the ground.
“Are you refusing the gold?” said Lusca.
“I am not refusing,” said the Kurrirya, “but it is sad grief to me that the two I love best must fall here today.”
The Kurrirya Crookfoot left Lusca and his brothers and went to the hosts of Sorcha and to the Big Mokkalve. He said:
“Though plentiful your battalions;
Though warlike your champions;
Though valorous your warriors;
Yet valorless shall be your champions;
And weak your battalions;
And cowardly your warriors;
And unguideful your strong ones;
And thin your heavy hosts;
And dispersed your war-bands;
And unvalorous your well-born bands;
And championless your young kings.
In the hands of Irrua.”
But the Big Mokkalve took no notice. The Kurrirya went back to the hill where he had left the sons of the King of Irrua.
“What news?” said Lusca.
“Never were created woods, however close,” said the Kurrirya, “that the covering of the purple iron above the heads of the hosts is not closer still.”
Then Lusca gripped his spear against the hosts of Sorcha, and struck a shield blow and a fight kindling, so that there was neither a stone nor a tree but was in one quivering from him, and cowards went into trances of death from that great sound. He gave a kingly rush through the ranks of Sorcha, and neither loving nor friendly was the welcome. On the breaking of blue javelins even dear friends would not trust one man more than another, for the quickness of their striking and for the blood in their faces; but those who know say that fifty armed men went to madness with the wind at the sound of Lusca as he brought signs of death and shortness of life towards the Big Mokkalve, son of the King of Sorcha.
Yet all the more for that did Lusca remember the Manach, how he had brought enchantment of fog on his harrow-wheel of holly, and he looked with exceeding care. He saw the Manach, as a hideous giant, coming through the battle, fierce, red, stripped. Lusca reached into the hollow of his shield and took from it an apple-ball of iron and gave it a choice cast at the giant into the middle of the head and the face. The iron apple took its own size of brain out in fiery slivers through the back of the head of the Manach, and the giant let loose the screech of a scream and turned back the way he had come.
It was then Lusca found the Big Mokkalve and dealt him a blow that split the golden helmet on the head. The Big Mokkalve gave another blow to Lusca, and split his shield and put him down on his left knee, and with his sword opened a gate in the side of Lusca. But Lusca sprang and put a second blow, and of that blow he took the head and the right hand off the Big Mokkalve.
Lusca lifted his helmet, seeking air; and there was at that hour a dark mist above the battle. He looked through the battle and wondered that he did not hear the noise of his brothers in it, and he went to seek them over a closeness of bodies so tight that it would not let blood pools walk and he was under rough-voiced creatures of the sky.
He found his big brother killed in the middle of the battle, his little brother killed near him, and the Kurrirya killed beyond that. He dug them a deep, long, wide grave, made a bed there of green water cresses, and laid them together on it and carved their names in flags above, to put them in remembrance, and in knowledge and poetry, for fear lest a drowning or lasting death of memory should go round upon them for ever. Then he went about the battle again, but it was vain for him, for there was never a body to tell tidings but was slain a long time before that.
Lusca gathered a heap of dead men for shelter against the dark night, and he sat down in his bleeding upon a rock. “Until today,” said Lusca, “I have never been alone.”
A swan flew in from the open sea and swam on the blood. “I think it a sad pity the way I see you, son of the King of Irrua,” said the swan.
“Is it human speech in your mouth?” said Lusca. “If you have chanced on human speech, give me news.”
“If I were as you are now,” said the swan, “I should get that balm of healing, the Great Dug of the World, for my kindred.”
Lusca said, “Where shall I get the balm of healing? Is there a bolt for the gate of my side? How shall I close the blue mouth?”
The swan rose up and flew back over the sea, and, as it went, it said to Lusca:
“I have no skill in the matter of your anguish.
I cannot grasp the flame of agony.
I cannot stop the dark blood.
I am the Swan of Sorcha.
I am the Otter of the Waterfall.
I am the Cat of the Free Isle.
I am not the worst of women.”
Lusca took branches, rods of the thicket, of long wood, and he lit a tower of fire. And the darkness fell on Lusca; and the desolation.
But a short time after that work he saw a hag coming towards him. The hair of her body was touching the earth. One of her eyes was her breastpin. One of her teeth was her staff. She had one jointed sharp foot under her; and she sat upon the other side of the fire.
The hag said, “You are alone, son of Irrua. Bad is the night on which you have come.”
“I am not alone, hag,” said Lusca. “I have you.”
“It is not you who have me,” said the hag, “but I who have you, unless you pay me tribute.”
“What tribute is that?” said Lusca.
“The length of my foot of fair gold,” said the hag.
“Will you not take silver of me?” said Lusca.
“I will not,” said the hag.
“For what cause,” said Lusca, “do you have that tribute abroad on everyone?”
“This hill is my hill,” said the hag, “and the man that makes fire on my hill is my man; and I must have ransom of gold or ransom of the head of the man himself or would you spend this night with me?”
“If a hag more ugly than you,” said Lusca, “were to offer me rest I should accept it this night.”
Lusca shook from him his suit of battle. The hag gave a goblet of precious stones into his hand, and he drank a drink out of that goblet.
“Take a blessing and a victory for the drink,” said Lusca.
The hag said, “Whatever man shall drink from that goblet every day, neither age nor misery rest upon him through time eternal.”
Lusca said, “Is it the balm of healing?”
The hag said:
“It is not the balm of healing,
Nor the Great Dug of the World.
It will not bolt the gate of your side.
It will not close the blue mouth.
It will not stop the dark blood.
Only the maker of iron
Can seal the road that iron makes.
I have no skill in the matter of your anguish.
I cannot grasp the flame of agony.
Look for a man
Born on a black rock
Grown on a burnt hill:
Shasval the Smith:
Born at night, in the Upland of Grief
He walks on boundaries, on the wolf’s track,
He hammers the moon.”
Lusca said, “How shall I find the Upland of Grief?”
“There is a cave below here,” said the hag. “The Upland of Grief is by that way.”
Lusca rested the night with the hag, and no one was earlier on his feet the next day than he. He went down to the cave and found it open, a thin road in it. He followed the road until he came to a smooth plain and a little yellow island and a sea on each side of it. He went up the island, and in the middle of it he chanced upon a fair lake. A beautiful flock of bright-white birds was ever-rising out of the middle of the lake, and never a bird of them was going down again, but always they were rising up.
Lusca said, “What is the place that bright birds come from?”
He lay on the lake and went under it to the bed and the gravel. He looked about to a tower of gold at a distance from him, and he went up and entered.
There was a girl in a room of the tower, a covering upon her head, with gems and with purple-white shimmerings, and silver jewels in her hair; a cloak of satin around her; a cushion of satin under her; that is how she was.
She had a white rod in her hand, a knife in the other hand, slicing the rod. Every whittle she took from the rod went up and out, as a bright bird, through the window of the tower.
The girl looked at him and said, “Which of us does not wonder at the other, for you wonder at me, and I wonder at you? I am Grian Sun-face, and take you this rod to whittle it a while.”
Lusca took hold of the rod and whittled it for a while. With every whittle, every evil and every feebleness that he had met before did not put upon him its hurt, except for the wound of the Big Mokkalve in his side.
“It is a rod never to be whittled away,” said Grian Sun-face, “but to be whittled for ever. My father gave it to save me from thinking long.”
Lusca was filled with a need to be from the place, for the whittle of the rod was great. He said, “My life is not to be for ever making bright birds.” He left the girl in the tower and went back to the shores of the lake, not a hair of his clothing wet on him.
It was only a small time from that out when Lusca passed from the island into a country where there was neither day nor night but a dusk without moon or stars. No one did he see there, there were no creatures, but the land lay in a sweat of hideousness and the trees were broken. High on a hill there was a castle, and in it Lusca found no people except a white-haired warrior, a beardless lad, and an ancient bent grey coughing woman. Between them they had a ball of black iron in the fire round which they lay.
Lusca sat down at the fire, and when he sat down the iron ball turned through blackness to redness in the fire, and the people there rose up and gave Lusca three kisses. Lusca said, “What is that din of dinging I hear?”
“Take you a blessing and a victory for freeing us,” said the white-haired warrior, “and it is Shasval the Smith.”
“I do not free you,” said Lusca. He rose and went from the castle to where the din of dinging was. He found a cave, and before it a dark smith at a red forge, hammering a Sword of Light.
Lusca said, “The Big Mokkalve opened the gate of my side and I must get healing.”
The smith answered nothing and hammered the sword.
Lusca went back to the castle and sat near the fire. The ball of iron there turned through blackness to redness and the warrior, the lad and the woman gave him three kisses. “Take a blessing and a victory for your coming, and free us from fear,” said the warrior.
“I do not free you,” said Lusca. He went out again to the smith. “The Big Mokkalve opened the gate of my side and I must get healing.”
The smith answered nothing and hammered the sword.
Lusca went to the castle and sat near the fire. The ball of iron turned through blackness to redness and the warrior, the lad and the woman gave him three kisses.
“Take a blessing and a victory for your coming,” said the warrior. “Isbernya is the land in which you are now. There visited us a worm, and she swallowed our heavy flocks and our people after them, and she slaughtered our hosts, both young and old, so that none are alive except the three you see here. But our wise men left prophecy for us, that when the ball in the fire should turn through blackness to redness, Lusca, son of the King of Irrua, should come to free us from fear and to slay that wonderful worm.”
Lusca was attended, nobly and honourably. The old warrior said, “Son of Irrua, I and that lad have the same father, and the woman there is our mother, and we are of one birth. But poison was the first food given to the lad; whoever is reared upon poison at the first, neither age nor harm affect him through time eternal.”
Lusca said, “Let me be shown the way to that mighty worm.”
Lusca and the lad went to where the worm was. They found her looking about to go round the castle, trying if she could get in. When she was not able to get in, she coiled herself on the castle. Lusca gave a cast of a royal javelin that was in his hand at the worm, so that he sent the spear through her and through two windows of the castle and through the coil on the other side. There was the worm, unable to loose herself. Then Lusca took his sword and cut the head from her. The blood made the blade green.
Great joy of that worm seized the warrior, the lad and the woman. They flung their arms about Lusca; but he felt his life going from him with the wound of the Big Mokkalve.
Lusca went and said to the smith, “I must get healing.”
The smith said, “Who are you to come here? A boatful of blood has gone from your side. Bigger things have been stopped.”
The smith took ointment to the wound of the Big Mokkalve. The side healed.
“The gate of my side is bolted,” said Lusca. “The blue mouth is closed. If there is the Great Dug of the World, it must be with you.”
“The Great Dug of the World,” said the smith, “is not with me. The Great Dug of the World is at the Forest of Wonders. Do not go after it. The way of the forest is this: there is a Tree of Splendour in the forest, and one of every colour on that tree. There is no fruit of the fruits of life that is not on that tree, and it is hard for any man who sees it to part from it for its marvellous splendour. No man has ever gone into that forest who ever came out of it again for its enchantment. Do not look for the Dug, till the womb of judgment or the end of life.”
“Even if you were to have the Great Dug with you now,” said Lusca, “I would not go from here without seeing this forest, for your report of it. But who is the master of the Sword of Light?”
The smith said, “It is for Lurga Lom to take with him on the day that he shall go against the City of the Red Stream. Until that day, he shall not know it: but, on that day, it shall know him.”
“Where is the Forest of Wonders?” said Lusca.
“The Forest of Wonders is far from you,” said the smith. “Beware of the Forest of Wonders. There is no hideous thing in hollow nor in the dreadful clouds of air that will not come to you then. It is impossible to count or to tell all the evil and the confusion of enchantment that will be in the forest at the joint of that hour.”
“No more the less shall I go there,” said Lusca, and departed.
It was then Lusca faced for the Forest of Wonders. He saw at a distance from him the Tree of Virtues. He saw the colours and the fruits beneath the branches wide-sweeping of that flower-marvellous tree.
He found thirteen men on the outskirts of the forest, lacking heads, and in the middle of them lay a king-warrior, a mantle of fair gold about him, clustering golden hair and a diadem of gold on the head by the body. Lusca never beheld the same number of men who were more remarkable than that dead band.
There was a sandal of gold on the foot of the hero, and Lusca stretched out his hand to take it, but the foot cast him over seven ridges from it backwards. Then the head of the body spoke.
“This time yesterday,” said the head, “no man could have insulted that foot.”
“Head?” said Lusca. “Have you speech?”
“I have,” said the head.
“What is the story?” said Lusca.
“Dig a grave for my men and me,” said the head, “and you shall get the story.”
Lusca dug with the great broad spear that he had near his shield.
“The grave is ready,” said the head.
“It is ready now,” said Lusca.
“Gold-arm lollan is the man whose head I am,” said the head, “son of the King of the Birds. I could not but go to seek the Tree of Virtues, and my twelve foster-brothers came with me. But enchantment was worked upon us here: for the first we saw was a musical harper walking in the forest, and the little man reached over his fist and struck the man of us who was nearest him between the nose and the mouth, and that man drew his sword to strike the musical harper, but it was not the harper he struck but the man next to himself; so that it was ourselves we beheaded, one after one, through the spells of the musical harper, and he took off the head of the last man with my own sword. But what marvel is that? There is many a greater marvel in the Forest of Wonders.”
Lusca put his hands around Gold-arm Iollan and laid him in the grave. He placed six on each side of him and covered them with earth.
After that work, Lusca looked at the forest until he saw a musical harper coming towards him, his harp with him, a rusty sword by his side. Lusca gave a leap at the harper without speaking, and smashed the harp on the rock of stone that was nearest him, sending fragments of the harp into every fifth of the forest. The musical harper gathered up the harp again, piece after piece, so that it seemed that neither stroke nor blow had ever touched it. Lusca took the harper and lifted his head from his body, but the little man departed with his head in his hand by the hair, his harp in the other hand, into the forest; and Lusca marvelled at that.
It was not long after the little man had gone that Lusca saw a wild ox. He smote a blow on it.
And there was never cat nor hag
Nor hideous senseless spectre
In crag nor in hollow
Nor on land nor in the dreadful clouds of air
But came at the roar of that ox.
Lusca passed a hand round his great broad spear that was beside his shield. He gave a cast of it, so that he sent it through the ox. When the spear reached it, not greater was the screaming of any other beast than the screaming of the spear itself; and Lusca marvelled at the nature of that spear.
This is how the creatures of the forest were in that hour:
Some scream and
Some bellow and
Some moan and
Some of them stamp the ground
With their heads and their feet.
It is impossible to count or to tell all the evil and the confusion of enchantment that was in the forest at the joint of that hour, for there was neither stone nor tree in it but was in one shaking and in one thunder.
Lusca took out a venomous stone that was in the hollow of his shield, and he collected the senseless creatures, until he drove them into the mouth of a cave in the forest; and it had been a good cause of confusion to a bad hero in the Forest of Wonders at that time to be listening to the wailing, the screeching, the tremulous bellowing of those many-shaped spectres.
Lusca came back through the forest after that work, tired, anxious, sorrowful; and many was the wandering wolf nimbly-going, rising up on every side of him. He did not overtake them, but they were going away from him in every fifth of the forest, in quick running throngs.
Lusca called with a loud great clear voice, “Not better would I like a sleeping-couch, if I had it tonight, than to be fighting with the monsters of this forest!” Then he went to the Tree of Virtues, and he bore off with him a great shoulder-load of the branches of that blossom-haunted tree, so that he made of it a hut in the forest. It was not under the protection of the forest that Lusca went that night, but of his own hand and of his own blade.
He blew a fire heap.
And it was the rushing of red wind
Or sound of wave down jagged waterfall
The wailing of the creatures
The sound of a great wind against rough hills
Eyes in their heads like stars.
But that rock, Lusca, son of the King of Irrua, was unchanged in shape or sense or form, his speech unwandering, listening to great evils.
He went a second time and gave a hand about the creatures, so that he drove them into the same cave again. He followed them up the bed of the cave, and there is no knowledge of what direction they went from him then.
Lusca came back. It seemed to him that none the less for all the loss of creatures he wrought was the malignity of the forest. He came to the fire. He did not find one spark of it alive, nor a hut, but a close coppice oak-wood of thin trees, smooth and very high, and bitter quick venomous winds, and wet, heavy snow bending those trees and cold linns of spring water welling there.
It could not be told then all the destruction of enchantment that was throughout the Forest of Wonders.
Next Lusca met a giant, with two grey goat horns through his skull. A round, black hand he had, and one leg like the mast of a ship under him.
“What news?” said Lusca.
“I have no mind to tell news,” said the giant, “except only this. It was night-straying that brought me into the forest.”
Lusca gave a stroke of his sword through the giant’s head, and the sound of the giant was the noise of an oak falling. But the giant gave a twist to his body until he came standing again on the one leg, the sword through his head, Lusca on his shoulder with two hands in the grip of the sword that could not let go.
Then Lusca took hold firmly and squeezed. He made little fragments of the handle and fell off backwards from the shoulder of the giant to the ground. He turned his head. This is what he saw: a pillar of stone, the sword through it from one side to the other.
He climbed the stone, but he could not draw out the sword, so he went back through the forest to the coppice of thin trees. He found both trees and earth in one slab of ice. It was not a good camp for him to stay that night.
“I am a stranger,” said Lusca, “and I have come a long way to be at the Forest of Wonders, but I shall not be the better for it, if I am alive tomorrow.”
He did not know what to do. The water of the forest was as cold as drowned sally; the air was full of ghosts, so that if a kindred friend had come close to a man he would not hear him for the talk and the shouting.
“It is not a danger to me,” said Lusca. “They are not things of fight or conflict.”
He saw a shining lamp lit up, a girl bearing the lamp, and that the girl was Grian Sun-face, from the gold tower under the lake.
She said, “Come with me to my father’s castle. He is the King of the Forest of Wonders. The Great Dug of the World is with him.”
The King of the Forest of Wonders rose up and took Lusca by the hand and put him sitting in the king’s place.
“Who is the young hero?” said the king to Grian Sun-face.
“Lusca, son of the King of Irrua, is that man,” she said, “and give him everything he shall ask of you, for he is able to take it against your will. Though your hosts are many they are very little in his hands, for it was by him that the battle was broken on the Big Mokkalve in the Lands of Sorcha. Many, too, were the horrors of your forest, yet they fell by him. It is better to give him everything he shall ask of you.”
“What thing will he ask?” said the king.
“I am sure that he is on the track of the Great Dug of the World,” said Grian Sun-face.
“It is well we did not meet at the beginning of this night,” said the king. “But now what good thing would you have of the forest?”
“The thing I would have is the Great Dug of the World,” said Lusca.
“The Great Dug of the World is not with me,” said the king. “The Cat of the Free Isle has it, for she brought it away before you, to make alive again the Kurrirya Crookfoot and your two brothers.”
“Sweet is that to hear,” said Lusca, and he went straight to the battle-hill in the Lands of Sorcha, Grian Sun-face with him.
They found the hag, sitting by the fire, the Great Dug of the World next to her, and the dead Kurrirya next to that, in the grave of green cresses. But of the cat or of his brothers Lusca had no sign.
The hag said, “This hill is my hill, and the man who makes fire on my hill is my man; and I must have ransom of gold or ransom of the head of the man himself or would you spend this night with me?”
“Lay aside your silly talk,” said Lusca. “Where are my brothers?”
“The Cat of the Free Isle made them alive,” said the hag. “They have gone after her to find the place where she is in.”
Lusca knelt by the Kurrirya.
The hag said, “Get him from uselessness: up from dreaming.”
He took the Great Dug of the World and bathed the Kurrirya with the stuff that was in it.
The hag said, “Where life ran let words come. Join the silver bone: bond the gold vein. Drench death down.”
The Kurrirya rose up as whole and as healthy as he had ever been.
Lusca said, “My foster-brother and my kindred friend. And the gate of my side is closed.”
“The woman you must find,” said the Kurrirya, “is at the City of the Red Stream. I came through the world and death to give you this; but you did not, and you would not, as I told you.”
“And me you left,” said the hag.
Lusca made a look at the hag. She changed misshape for shapeliness before him. She stood, Behinya, the treasure of a woman, sister to Bright-eyed Faylinn, the Cat of the Free Isle.
Then they welcomed each other in words of the olden time, kissed lovingly and told their adventures from first to last.
“Now tell me of the city,” said Lusca.
The Kurrirya said, “Here is how the city is: there are three chieftain streams around it, and they are in a crimson-lit flame. For the heat and the fire no man dare approach the city. Whoever sees it will never have his health from all the flame and the heat. Every evil that ever was met was good when put against the ills of that city. In the city is the woman. That is the place where she is in.”
Lusca, the Kurrirya, Behinya and Grian Sun-face then took the good and the ill of it upon themselves and put the ship out over the back-ridges of each deep sea till they came to the City of the Red Stream.
They found the big brother and the little brother of Lusca sitting outside the walls of the city by the three chieftain streams of flame. The brothers had taken all the third plunder division of the world on their way to the city, but the city itself they could not reach for the full-red lake.
“There are no men in it,” said the big brother, “except a hundred only; and they are the Kings of the World.”
“But there are three thousand women in it,” said the little brother. “Over them all is the woman we must find.”
“It is by the women,” said the big brother, “that the greater portion of valour of life is remembered. Great is the fear, even for you, from them.”
They bore away that night until the morning of the morrow, until the day shone with its fierce light. Yet no less for that were the flames about the city burning.
There came out over the walls of the city Bright-eyed Faylinn. She had a cloak about her, the clustering hair over her shoulder, two spears of fire in her hand.
Then Lusca struck a shield blow and a fight kindling upon his shield. Faylinn said, “I never left corner nor country, nor islet nor island, on sea or on land, but I visited there; yet I never heard the like of that shield blow, for the whole city is in one quivering and one thunder.”
The Kurrirya said, “Lusca is here, and his two brothers are here, the sons of the King of Irrua; and Grian Sun-face, daughter of the King of the Forest of Wonders, and Behinya, your own half-sister, and I, the Kurrirya; I am here.”
Faylinn said, “No greater for that is the heed that we pay them.”
“Do not speak foolish and unprofitable words,” said the Kurrirya. “Except for the red stream you would know the strong man; the blue candle of valour, the right hand of heroes, the battle-prop of countries and the sustaining warrant of all; the king-tree of heroism, the mind without turning; Lusca, son of Dolvath, son of Libren, son of Loman, son of Cas, son of Tag of the kindred of Irrua.”
Faylinn said, “No greater for that is the heed that we pay them. You have not the crossing of the red stream.”
Lusca said, “What brings the wonderful heat into this flood beyond every other flood?”
Faylinn said, “I think it friendly to let you know it. Seven stones I have in that stream. It is a part of their virtue that whatever stream or river-mouth in which they are placed shall always turn to be a blaze of flame, so long as the stones shall be in it.”
Lusca said, “Is there anything that would prevent the heat of this full-red lake?”
Faylinn said, “I think it friendly to let you know it. There is knowledge and prophecy for us that a man shall come and shall quench the fire in our despite. Against him the flames shall grow cold. But the man is not Lusca, nor his big brother, nor his little brother, nor the Kurrirya Crookfoot. The man is Lurga Lom.”
Lusca heard this, and a fist upon manhood, a fist upon strengthening, a fist upon power went into him. He said, “If ever the earth has put on the ridge of its back such a man, let me see him.” He went from the city in the power of the sharp-travelling wind to the Upland of Grief in Isbernya, to the forge and the cave of Shasval the Smith. He stood at the cave and said, “Where is Lurga Lom?”
The smith said nothing and hammered a Sword of Light.
Lusca said, “Where is Lurga Lom?”
The smith said nothing and hammered the sword.
Lusca said, “Where is Lurga Lom?”
The smith said, “The sword is ready. Have you come?”
Lusca cast about him to find a man, but there was no man in that place if not himself.
The smith said, “The sword is ready. Have you come?”
Lusca cast about him again to find a man, but there was no man if not himself.
The smith said, “Have you come?”
Lusca took a step to the sword. He said, “And if I am not Lurga Lom.” He reached the sword. He said, “Yet I have come.” And the sword knew him.
Lusca went from there in the power of the sharp-travelling wind till he came again to the City of the Red Stream, the Sword of Light in his hand. He trod the brown flames and the stream was at once made cold and dried up, so that Lusca and his people crossed by the seven stones over to the city and gave shortness of life to all they found in it, except to the Kings of the World and to Faylinn alone.
It was then that Lusca was freed from his crosses and his spells; and Lurga Lom he became from that time out. His big brother took Behinya, and his little brother took Grian Sun-face, and he himself took to him Bright-eyed Faylinn, the Cat of the Free Isle; and they agreed.
The Kurrirya Crookfoot wrote this story in poet’s wands; it is the fifth language into which it has been made.
And the Kings of the World were sent to their lands.