Part 26

‘She said, “Yes. You can go back to your people with your two eyes in your head if you choose. But then you will not get any Magic Knives for your people.”

‘I said, “It would be easier if I knew that I were to be killed.”

‘She said, “Perhaps the God knew this too. See! I have made my knife hot.”

‘I said, “Be quick, then!” With her knife heated in the flame she put out my right eye. She herself did it. I am the son of a Priestess. She was a Priestess. It was not work for any common man.’

‘True! Most true,’ said Puck. ‘No common man’s work that. And, afterwards?’

‘Afterwards I did not see out of that eye any more. I found also that a one eye does not tell you truly where things are. Try it!’

At this Dan put his hand over one eye, and reached for the flint arrow-head on the grass. He missed it by inches. ‘It’s true,’ he whispered to Una. ‘You can’t judge distances a bit with only one eye.’

Puck was evidently making the same experiment, for the man laughed at him.

‘I know it is so,’ said he. ‘Even now I am not always sure of my blow. I stayed with the Children of the Night till my eye healed. They said I was the son of Tyr, the God who put his right hand in a Beast’s mouth. They showed me how they melted their red stone and made the Magic Knives of it. They told me the charms they sang over the fires and at the beatings. I can sing many charms.’ Then he began to laugh like a boy.

‘I was thinking of my journey home,’ he said, ‘and of the surprised Beast. He had come back to the Chalk. I saw him--I smelt his lairs as soon as ever I left the Trees. He did not know I had the Magic Knife--I hid it under my cloak--the Knife that the Priestess gave me. Ho! Ho! That happy day was too short! See! A Beast would wind me. “Wow!” he would say. “Here is my Flint-worker!” He would come leaping, tail in air; he would roll; he would lay his head between his paws out of merriness of heart at his warm, waiting meal. He would leap--and, oh, his eye in mid-leap when he saw--when he saw the knife held ready for him! It pierced his hide as a rush pierces curdled milk. Often he had no time to howl. I did not trouble to flay any beasts I killed. Sometimes I missed my blow. Then I took my little flint hammer and beat out his brains as he cowered. He made no fight. He knew the Knife! But The Beast is very cunning. Before evening all The Beasts had smelt the blood on my knife, and were running from me like hares. They knew! Then I walked as a man should--the Master of The Beast!

‘So came I back to my Mother’s house. There was a lamb to be killed. I cut it in two halves with my knife, and I told her all my tale. She said, “This is the work of a God.” I kissed her and laughed. I went to my Maiden who waited for me at the Dew-ponds. There was a lamb to be killed. I cut it in two halves with my knife, and told her all my tale. She said, “It is the work of a God.” I laughed, but she pushed me away, and being on my blind side, ran off before I could kiss her. I went to the Men of the Sheepguard at watering-time. There was a sheep to be killed for their meat. I cut it in two halves with my knife, and told them all my tale. They said, “It is the work of a God.” I said, “We talk too much about Gods. Let us eat and be happy, and tomorrow I will take you to the Children of the Night, and each man will find a Magic Knife.”

‘I was glad to smell our sheep again; to see the broad sky from edge to edge, and to hear the sea. I slept beneath the stars in my cloak. The men talked among themselves.

‘I led them, the next day, to the Trees, taking with me meat, wool, and curdled milk, as I had promised. We found the Magic Knives laid out on the grass, as the Children of the Night had promised. They watched us from among the Trees. Their Priestess called to me and said, “How is it with your people?” I said “Their hearts are changed. I cannot see their hearts as I used to.” She said, “That is because you have only one eye. Come to me and I will be both your eyes.” But I said, “I must show my people how to use their knives against The Beast, as you showed me how to use my knife.” I said this because the Magic Knife does not balance like the flint. She said, “What you have done, you have done for the sake of a woman, and not for the sake of your people.” I asked of her, “Then why did the God accept my right eye, and why are you so angry?” She answered, “Because any man can lie to a God, but no man can lie to a woman. And I am not angry with you. I am only very sorrowful for you. Wait a little, and you will see out of your one eye why I am sorry.” So she hid herself.

‘I went back with my people, each one carrying his Knife, and making it sing in the air--tssee-sssse. The Flint never sings. It mutters--ump-ump. The Beast heard. The Beast saw. He knew! Everywhere he ran away from us. We all laughed. As we walked over the grass my Mother’s brother--the Chief on the Men’s Side--he took off his Chief’s necklace of yellow sea-stones.’

‘How? Eh? Oh, I remember! Amber,’ said Puck.

‘And would have put them on my neck. I said, “No, I am content. What does my one eye matter if my other eye sees fat sheep and fat children running about safely?” My Mother’s brother said to them, “I told you he would never take such things.” Then they began to sing a song in the Old Tongue--The Song of Tyr. I sang with them, but my Mother’s brother said, “This is your song, O Buyer of the Knife. Let us sing it, Tyr.”

‘Even then I did not understand, till I saw that--that no man stepped on my shadow; and I knew that they thought me to be a God, like the God Tyr, who gave his right hand to conquer a Great Beast.’

‘By the Fire in the Belly of the Flint was that so?’ Puck rapped out.

‘By my Knife and the Naked Chalk, so it was! They made way for my shadow as though it had been a Priestess walking to the Barrows of the Dead. I was afraid. I said to myself, “My Mother and my Maiden will know I am not Tyr.” But still I was afraid, with the fear of a man who falls into a steep flint-pit while he runs, and feels that it will be hard to climb out.

‘When we came to the Dew-ponds all our people were there. The men showed their knives and told their tale. The sheep guards also had seen The Beast flying from us. The Beast went west across the river in packs--howling! He knew the Knife had come to the Naked Chalk at last--at last! He knew! So my work was done. I looked for my Maiden among the Priestesses. She looked at me, but she did not smile. She made the sign to me that our Priestesses must make when they sacrifice to the Old Dead in the Barrows. I would have spoken, but my Mother’s brother made himself my Mouth, as though I had been one of the Old Dead in the Barrows for whom our Priests speak to the people on Midsummer Mornings.’

‘I remember. Well I remember those Midsummer Mornings!’ said Puck.

‘Then I went away angrily to my Mother’s house. She would have knelt before me. Then I was more angry, but she said, “Only a God would have spoken to me thus, a Priestess. A man would have feared the punishment of the Gods.” I looked at her and I laughed. I could not stop my unhappy laughing. They called me from the door by the name of Tyr himself. A young man with whom I had watched my first flocks, and chipped my first arrow, and fought my first Beast, called me by that name in the Old Tongue. He asked my leave to take my Maiden. His eyes were lowered, his hands were on his forehead. He was full of the fear of a God, but of me, a man, he had no fear when he asked. I did not kill him. I said, “Call the maiden.” She came also without fear--this very one that had waited for me, that had talked with me, by our Dew-ponds. Being a Priestess, she lifted her eyes to me. As I look on a hill or a cloud, so she looked at me. She spoke in the Old Tongue which Priestesses use when they make prayers to the Old Dead in the Barrows. She asked leave that she might light the fire in my companion’s house--and that I should bless their children. I did not kill her. I heard my own voice, little and cold, say, “Let it be as you desire,” and they went away hand in hand. My heart grew little and cold; a wind shouted in my ears; my eye darkened. I said to my Mother, “Can a God die?” I heard her say, “What is it? What is it, my son?” and I fell into darkness full of hammer-noises. I was not.’

‘Oh, poor--poor God!’ said Puck. ‘And your wise Mother?’

‘She knew. As soon as I dropped she knew. When my spirit came back I heard her whisper in my ear, “Whether you live or die, or are made different, I am your Mother.” That was good--better even than the water she gave me and the going away of the sickness. Though I was ashamed to have fallen down, yet I was very glad. She was glad too. Neither of us wished to lose the other. There is only the one Mother for the one son. I heaped the fire for her, and barred the doors, and sat at her feet as before I went away, and she combed my hair, and sang.

‘I said at last, “What is to be done to the people who say that I am Tyr?”

‘She said, “He who has done a God-like thing must bear himself like a God. I see no way out of it. The people are now your sheep till you die. You cannot drive them off.”

‘I said, “This is a heavier sheep than I can lift.” She said, “In time it will grow easy. In time perhaps you will not lay it down for any maiden anywhere. Be wise--be very wise, my son, for nothing is left you except the words, and the songs, and the worship of a God.”

‘Oh, poor God!’ said Puck. ‘But those are not altogether bad things.’