Ursus of Ultima Thule (24 page)

“O Mistress,” one began.

“I forgive your disobedience,” she said, “in returning so long before the time I said: only get you now unto your several ships and hoist the anchor-stones: if there is as yet no wind, no tide, then pole us out at least a way to sea, for — ”

And the captain-chief of the small fleet, coming nearer and bowing low, said, “This, Mistress, is what we would hear you say, for on casting the shoulder blades of the wild sheep into our evening fire, we saw malign configurations appear as the lines of fortune and of weird appeared when the heat o’ the fire produced the cracks of predication. Exceeding strange they were, and — ”

A sound broke in upon his words, rose upon the shuddering air, ululated, fell away; and twice more was repeated.

“A wolf — ”

“The wolf!”

From afar, but yet not far, other men’s voices —

“The wolf! The wolf! The Orfas! King Orfas!”
and,
“His men! Kingsmen! King Orfas!”
, and,
“The wolf!”
cried Arnten’s men.

She said, “To sea — At once, at once — to sea — ”

“No, now, not so swift and soon,” Arnten said. “To sea, and soon, yes. But not so soon that I do not sooner settle what lies between me and this wolf-king, for as my father — ”

And she, hot-swift, her hand clasped on his, and stronger her grip than ever he would have thought, whilst still the howling wolf came nearer and the enemy voices clamored from the wood; she: “Ah, Bear! By my body and by yours! This accursed stubbornness of thy seed and blood! Did I not years gone by beg your father to get us gone together away from wolf and Thule? And he would tarry and he would fight, and see what that but brought him! And long I’d thought him gone from Thule across the all-circling sea without me and I waited, waited, dured long and woefully without him, till the old chief smith of all the nains persuaded me that twas not so that all the nains were in cabal with him to curse iron that he might then return — And so — And then — ” her words tumbled in confusion and he tugged, impatient.

She mastered her mouth, and said, clear, “So then I knew he must still be here in Thule, and if none of all our spying had espied him as a man, then — So I had the kingsmen sent out, for I asked of the hares and I asked of the salmon and the bees, and they told me where, the Bear — ”

Now he broke her grip as twas grass, and now he gripped her and he said, low, “So twas thee encompassed his captivity, and mine?”

“Only that I might confront him and again offer him — ”

“Then twas because of
thee
he died!”

“I never wished him dead, only that he and I might go forever gone, as now I want that thee and I — ”

Arn’s voice was grom, and his hand tightened upon hers and he said, “Because of
thee
he died: So.”

And then she cried out, astonishment greater than pain or fear, and pointed, pointed with her other free hand. And every voice was stilled, afar as well as near. Then every voice broke loud again, in shock, in fear, in wonder great.

Across the sky from past the dripping stars a fiery spear was hurled, and then after it another, and another, and from every quarter of the sky came fiery spear, arching across the sky and falling, falling, falling, hurling down to earth.

The sailingmen uttered together one sound like the wail of a babe torn brutely from a mother’s breast and they fell face down where they had stood, and buried their faces in their arms. But Arn shouted a great high shout of understanding and of triumph, and Corm raised All-Caller to his lips, and Wendolin laughed aloud in wizard-glee and Bab danced and croaked and pointed, and even the silent nain lifted his heavy head and bayed at the sky; and Roke beat his hands upon his breast and stamped with his feet upon the ground. And all the sky was filled with the light of the falling fire-streaks and sound of rumbling and above all of this rose Arn’s voice.

“ ‘
When the stars throw down their spears and pelt the earth with thunderstones
’ — See now? See now! See how
the stars throw down their spears —
hear how they
pelt the earth with thunderstones —
”

• • •

One after the other the burning spears hurtled, crashing, into the ground, and Arn marked the quarter of their crashing, noted the section of their fall; and still the angry stars hurled more. Arn took one stride to where the pot of coals rested on sand and on stones and slowly turned to ashes, there safe in its nest at the bow of the ship. And he stepped over her as though she were not there as she lay there, moaning in terror, and he ripped up handfuls of tow and tinder as he strode, and he blew upon the grey embers and saw them flash into light and life. And he snatched at the quiver and the bow. And he called to the captain-chief of the sailingmen.

Little indeed in those moments did that one think that ever he would see again his home across the all-circling sea and had no other thought but that he would die, and directly, there in the fell Land of Thule, crushed and burned to death by the fall of heaven — as so he and they, his mates, did think it. But out of the fear and doom and terror of that while a horn sounded and a voice called him by title and there was in that voice somewhat which bade him not tarry. He rose to his feet, he hearkened, half-understanding, he kicked his mates, and they all rose up and went stumbling to the ships.

There was the lover of their mistress, and he seemed grown exceeding great and he spoke in a voice like the voice of thunder and they noticed now of great sudden that the pelt he wore was the pelt of the bear and it be-thought them how he was very Bear indeed and perhaps that same Bear whose stars trod the skies of heaven: he gave them orders, they swarmed up and they obeyed.

“Fire against fire!” he cried. “Shoot up that way! And over there! And over there! Good! Good! As long as arrows and tow and tinder and earth-fire hold out, continue your shooting; and you will indeed see victory — ”

They, half-numbly at first, and then with growing zeal, wrapped tow and tinder round their arrows’ heads and dipped them in the pot of coals and fired them off whither he, this Bear, had directed. And from the fire-flecked darkness a ways off came cries of terror and alarm, of horror, fright, and flight. For the star-spears fell not that close at all (but Arn and his company marked where they were falling), fell farther off by far from where the kingsmen lay huddled in terror. But when the sailingmen shot off their own burning arrows at the sky, why … what goeth up must in time come down … And come down the shipmen’s arrows did. And all about the place where the wolf had howled and where the men of the wolf had huddled. It was all the same to them: they did not pause to consider if one or if two different kind of fiery missile came down at them from the burning sky. They fled. They left spear and club and every weapon indeed, and they fled. And they howled as they fled. But it was not the menacing howl of the great wolf.

And in a while the time came, as Arn had known it would, that the stars began to slacken in their hurling of fire-spears and of thunderstones. And when the ships men saw this, they shouted in fierce triumph, and had no further doubts but that — and thanks to the wisdom of the Bear — they had indeed fought fire with fire. So they shouted and seized fresh arrows and wound tinder and tow about their heads and dipped them in the pot of glowing coals and nocked them into their bows and shot them, cursing and gleeing, towards the fleeing stars; shouting to each other and to their mistress and her leman, this great Bear, that they had put and were still putting the stars to flight: and would soon have them driven back to their own country once and for all.

Arn had not noticed her as she crept across the deck, had not felt her grasp his leg; only now when he turned — without word — to go, did he feel her. And he muttered and would have shaken her loose.

“O Bear! By my body and by yours! Whither do you go? And why?” she begged.

He was of no mind to return reply to this witless question, but it seemed simpler to speak than to grapple. “I was wrong, see you, about my weird,” he said. “It lies here in this Land of Thule, it was but slow in coming, slow to show itself,” he said. “My weird is iron. See now how the time for the curing of the sickness unto death of iron has arrived? The stars, don’t thee see?” he burst out at her. “The stars have cast down spears at earth, and spears be made of iron, yea or nay? Be sure that the stars have no sickness among them. Be sure that we shall be-cure our iron by means of the fresh, hot, and healthy iron of the star-spears. Be sure — ”

She moaned and shook her head. She clung to him. Again he recollected that twas she to whom he owed his father’s death, but he was not minded yet to savage or to slay her. Was she ravaged with grief and pain? Off and away with her, then! Let her get herself and her hare’s scut gone —

“Arnten, Arnten, Arn!” she cried, clinging to him. “Thy weird be iron, but iron is also the weird of the king! As iron was dying, so was the king dying. And if it be that thee cure iron while he does live, Arnten, Arnten, Arn, do ye not see, all of ye, thee and thy fellows —
If you cure iron, then you cure the king!
”

He stood there, stock-still, his mouth agape, and looked at her. The truth of her words transfixed him. To do and to undo! To repeat it all again, then? Once more to be the enemy and flee the wrath of that kinsman who hated him more than any stranger? Fights and flights and long and weary journeyings …

The captain-chief, nothing heeding (as nothing knowing) of all these words and all these thoughts, half-turned and flung up his head toward the sky, whence fewer and fewer fire-stones came, and they seeming to drift languidly.

“Eh, master!” cried the captain-chief. “See how they flee! How folk will give thee ward and worship, then, across the sea, when we sail in with word of this great night!”

And he gave Arn a half-bow, and he turned and shouted and dipped his arrow in the fire and let fly his shaft.

What, then, was weird, what was indeed his fate, what role had he to play? By this latest omen it was to sail with her and her men across the all-circling sea, to find more than mere refuge: to find
rule!
He called into the darkness by the shore, “Bab and Roke and Corm, Wendolin, and thee nain …?”

Let them come aboard. He would not for anything abandon a one of them here. Let them come with him across the sea and begin life new: and a curse to Thule and all its thrall-weirds.

“Bear and Son of the Bear,” said one voice.

“Star-sender,” said one voice.

“Star-disperser,” said another.

“Star-finder,” said a next one.

“Finder of Star-spears, Heater of Forges, Forger of Fire-born, Seer of the Sorrows of the Land and Freer of this Land from Sorrows …”

He said, “Aboard of this vessel.” He watched as they came. The woman’s face glowed. Then her eyes met his in the brief flare of the tinder and the swift glare of the tow. And he saw that she knew, and he saw that her hopes were dead and he saw that her age was full upon her. The dawn now sailed up from the sea and its pale lamp replaced the flash-flash-flash of star-spear and fire-arrows. He said, “Captain-chief.”

“Master. Bear.”

He said: “Past this harbor is a headland and past that is another and past that is a river-mouth. Thither we will go.”

The chief sailingman nodded.

“There you may leave us, and return to your own country, or you or any of you who wish may remain with us and fare if they will with us.”

The sailingman scanned the tide and the shore and turned a bit and gazed off as if laying put a voyage in his mind’s eye. “In that direction, then, Bear, you will go?” — he moved his hand — “To that way whither the stars hurled down their spears? — and where, I must suppose, those fiery spears may still be found?”

Arn said, “Yes. It is there.”

The magic status of the smith and the mingled awe and horror which attach to it still endures in parts of Africa, where the ironworker is sometimes — at least till not so long ago — the priest as well; and sometimes believed to be a were-hyaena. It may be, then, that in African folk-lore the hyaena does for the wolf just as in the folk-lore of southern Europe the wolf occupied the place taken in northern Europe by the bear. I have not ever seen in any folk-lore a connection between iron-magic and bear-magic, but in this book I have ventured to close that gap in the circle. The motif of The Boy Who Was Nobody’s Son is of course quite common, that of The Boy Who Was The Son of the Bear is much less common. This commingling of the two elements is as far as I know unique, at least in modern writing. I am indebted to Dr. François Bordes of the Bordeaux Museum of Pre-History for a personal relation of the French legend of
Jean-à-l’ourse
; and to Prof. Rhys Carpenter’s book,
Folk Tale, Fiction and Saga in the Homeric Epics
(U. of Cal. Press, 1958).