The Dedalus Book of British Fantasy

by Brian Stableford

  “But, ah! dearest Unna,” said Rupert to his betrothed, “take heed as you pass the river that your bark steer not by the Lurlei Berg, for there lurks a dragon ever athirst for beauty and for gold; and he lashes with his tail the waters when such voyagers as thou pass, and whirls the vessel down into his cave below.”

  The beautiful Unna was terrified, and promised assent to so reasonable a request.

  Rupert and his comrade returned home, and set the old castle in order for the coming of the bride.

  The morning broke bright and clear - the birds sang out - the green vines waved merrily on the breeze - and the sunlight danced gaily upon the bosom of the Rhine. Rupert and his comrades stood ranged by the rocky land that borders St. Goar to welcome the bride. And now they heard the trumpets sounding far away, and looking down the river they saw the feudal streamers of Lörchausen glittering on the tide, as the sail from which they waved cut its way along the waters.

  Then the Dwarf of the Lurlei Berg, startled by the noise of the trumpets, peeped peevishly out of his little door, and he saw the vessel on the wave, and Rupert on the land; and at once he knew, as he was a wise dwarf, what was to happen. “Ho, ho!” said he to himself, “not so fast, my young gallant: I have long wanted to marry, myself. What if I get your bride, and what if my good friend the Dragon comfort himself for your fraud by a snap at her dowry - Lurline my cousin shall be avenged!” So with that the dwarf slipped into the water, and running along the cavern, came up to the Dragon quite out of breath. The monster trailed himself hastily out of his shell. “And what now, Master Dwarf,” quoth he, very angrily; “no thoroughfare here, I assure you!” “Pooh,” said the Dwarf, “are you so stupid that you do not want to be avenged upon the insolent mortal who robbed your treasury, and deserted your mistress. Behold! he stands on the rocks of Goar, about to receive a bride, who sails along with a dowry, that shall swell thy exhausted coffers; behold! I say, I will marry the lady, and thou shalt have the dower.”

  Then the dragon was exceedingly pleased - “And how shall it be managed?” said he, rubbing his claws with delight.

  “Lock thy door, Master Dragon,” answered the Dwarf, “and go up to the Gewirre above thee, and lash the waters with thy tail, so that no boat may approach.”

  The Dragon promised to obey, and away went the Dwarf to Lurline. He found her sitting listlessly in her crystal chamber, her long hair drooping over her face, and her eyes bent on the rocky floor, heavy with tears.

  “Arouse thee, cousin,” said the Dwarf, “thy lover may be regained. Behold he sails along the Rhine with a bride he is about to marry; and if thou wilt ascend the surface of the water, and sing, with thy sweetest voice, the melodies he loves, doubtless he will not have the heart to resist thee, and thou shalt yet gain the Faithless from his bride.”

  Lurline started wildly from her seat; she followed the Dwarf up to the Lurlei Berg, and seated herself on a ledge in the rock. The Dwarf pointed out to her in the boat the glittering casque and nodding plumes of the Lord of Lörchausen. “Behold thy lover!” said he, “but the helmet hides his face. See he sits by the bride - he whispers her - he presses her hand. Sing now thy sweetest song, I beseech thee.”

  “But who are they on the opposite bank?” asked the Water Spirit.

  “Thy lover’s vassals only,” answered the Dwarf

  “Be cheered, child! ” said the Chief of Lörchausen. “See how the day smiles on us - thy bridegroom waits thee yonder - even now I see him towering above his comrades.”

  “Oh! my father, my heart sinks with fear!” murmured Unna; “and behold the frightful Lurlei Berg frowns upon us. Thou knowest how Rupert cautioned us to avoid it.”

  “And did we not, my child, because of that caution, embark yonder at the mouth of the Wisperbach? Even now our vessel glides towards the opposite shore, and nears not the mountain thy weak heart dreadest.”

  At that moment, a wild and most beautiful music broke tremulously along the waves; and they saw, sitting on the Lurlei Berg, a shape fairer than the shapes of the Children of Earth. “Hither,” she sang, “hither, oh! gallant bark! Behold here is thy haven, and thy respite from the waters and the winds. Smooth is the surface of the tide around, and the rock hollows its bosom to receive thee. Hither, oh! nuptial band! The bridals are prepared. Here shall the betrothed gain the bridegroom, and the bridegroom welcome the bride!”

  The boatmen paused, entranced with the air, the oars fell from their hands - the boat glided on towards the rock.

  Rupert in dismay and terror heard the strain and recognized afar the silvery beauty of the Water Spirit. “Beware,” he shouted - “beware - this way steer the vessel, nor let it near to the Lurlei Berg.”

  Then the Dwarf laughed within himself, and he took up the sound ere it fell, and five times across the water, louder far than the bridegroom’s voice, was repeated “Near to the Lurlei Berg.”

  At this time by the Gewirre opposite, the Dragon writhed his vast folds, and fierce and perilous whirled the waters round.

  “See, my child,” said the Chief of Lörchausen, “how the whirlpool foams and eddies on the opposite shore - wisely hath Sir Rupert dismissed superstition in the presence of real danger; and yon fair figure is doubtless stationed by his command to direct us how to steer from the whirlpool.”

  “Oh, no, no, my father!” cried Unna, clinging to his arm. “No, yon shape is but the false aspect of a fiend - I beseech you to put off from the Rock - see, we near - we near - its base!”

  “Hark - hear ye not five voices telling us to near it!” answered the Chief; and he motioned to the rowers, who required no command to avoid the roar of the Gewirre.

  “Death!” cried Rupert, stamping fiercely on the ground; “they heed me not!” - and he shouted again “Hither, for dear life’s sake, hither!” And again, five times drowning his voice, came the echo from the Lurlei Berg, “For dear life’s sake, hither!”

  “Yes, hither!” sang once more the Water Spirit - “hither, O gallant bark! - as the brooklet to the river - as the bird to the sunny vine - flies the heart to the welcome of love!”

  “Thou art avenged!” shouted the Dwarf, as he now stood visible and hideous on the Rock. “Lurline, thou art avenged!”

  And from the opposite shore, the straining eyes of Rupert beheld the boat strike suddenly among the shoals - and lo, in the smoothest waves it reeled once, and vanished beneath for ever! An eddy - a rush - and the Rhine flowed on without a sign of man upon its waves. “Lost, lost!” cried Rupert, clasping his hands, and five times from the Lurlei Berg echoed “Lost!”

  And Rupert the Fearnought left his treasures and his castle, and the ruins still moulder to the nightly winds: and he sought the Sea-kings of the North; they fitted out a ship for the brave stranger, and he sailed on a distant cruise. And his name was a name of dread by the shores on which the fierce beak of his war-bark descended. And the bards rang it forth to their Runic harps over the blood-red wine. But at length they heard of his deeds no more - they traced not his whereabouts - a sudden silence enwrapt him - his vessel had gone forth on a long voyage - it never returned, nor was heard of more. But still the undying Water Spirit mourns in her lonely caves - and still she fondly believes that the Wanderer will yet return. Often she sits, when the night is hushed, and the stars watch over the sleep of Earth, upon her desolate rock, and pours forth her melancholy strains. And yet the fishermen believe that she strives by her song to lure every raft and vessel that seems, to the deluded eyes of her passion, one which may contain her lover!

  And still, too, when the Huntsman’s horn sounds over the water - five times is the sound echoed from the Rock - the Dwarf himself may ever and anon be seen, in the new moon, walking on the heights of the Lurlei Berg, with a female form in an antique dress, devoutly believed to be the Lady of Lörchausen, - who, defrauded of a Knight, has reconciled herself to marriage with a Dwarf!

  As to the moral of the tale, I am in doubt whether it is meant as a caution to heiresses or to singers; i
f the former, it is to be feared that the moral is not very efficacious, seeing that no less than three persons of that description have met with Ruperts within the last fortnight; but if to the latter, as is my own private opinion, it will be an encouragement to moralists ever after. Warned by the fate of their sister syren, those ladies take the most conscientious precautions, that, though they may sometimes be deserted, they should never at least be impoverished, by their lovers!

  BENJAMIN DISRAELI (1804-1881) was a successful novelist before he embarked upon the political career which culminated in his elevation to leader of the Tory party and his election as prime minister; he was subsequently awarded a life peerage. He wrote several satirical fantasies in the early part of his career, beginning with The Voyage of Captain Popanilla (1828), which followed the adventures of an innocent youth from the Isle of Fantaisie in the civilised land of Vraibleusia. “The Infernal Marriage” (1832) is a classical fantasy which sarcastically retells the story of Proserpine in much the same way that “Ixion in Heaven” (first published in Bulwer-Lytton’s New Monthly Magazine in 1832-33) retells another Greek myth. His novel Alroy (1833) is a more earnest romance of Jewish history with some supernatural embellishments.

  Britain lost a fine fantasy writer when Disraeli decided to embark upon his real-life adventure among the Olympians; the remarkable fact that he fared better than Popanilla, Persephone or Ixion serves to reminds us that the real world can, on very rare occasions, be more rewarding than imaginary ones.

  “Ixion in Heaven” inspired an even more sarcastic burlesque, “Endymion; or, A family Party on Olympus” (1842) by William Aytoun (1813-65). Aytoun was the son-in-law of John Wilson, who was for many years the guiding light of Blackwood’s Magazine (in the invented persona of “Christopher North”); Aytoun was a satirist of some note, who achieved brief celebrity when he published the verse play Firmilian (1854), which passed into obscurity along with the “Spasmodic school” of poets whose pretensions it mocked and whose fate it helped to seal.

  IXION IN HEAVEN

  by Benjamin Disraeli

  ‘Ixion, King of Thessaly, famous for its horses, married Dia, daughter of Deioneus, who, in consequence of his son-in-law’s non-fulfilment of his engagements, stole away some of the monarch’s steeds. Ixion concealed his resentment under the mask of friendship. He invited his father-in-law to a feast at Larissa, the capital of his kingdom; and when Deioneus arrived according to his appointment, he threw him into a pit which he had previously filled with burning coals. This treachery so irritated the neighbouring princes, that all of them refused to perform the usual ceremony by which a man was then purified of murder, and Ixion was shunned and despised by all mankind. Jupiter had compassion upon him, carried him to heaven, and introduced him to the Father of the Gods. Such a favour, which ought to have awakened gratitude in Ixion, only served to inflame his bad passions; he became enamoured of Juno, and attempted to seduce her. Juno was willing to gratify the passion of Ixion, though, according to others,’ &c. - Classical Dictionary, art. ‘Ixion’.

  PART I

  The thunder groaned, the wind howled, the rain fell in hissing torrents, impenetrable darkness covered the earth.

  A blue and forky flash darted a momentary light over the landscape. A Doric temple rose in the centre of a small and verdant plain, surrounded on all sides by green and hanging woods.

  “Jove is my only friend,” exclaimed a wanderer, as he muffled himself up in his mantle; “and were it not for the porch of his temple, this night, methinks, would complete the work of my loving wife and my dutiful subjects.”

  The thunder died away, the wind sank into silence, the rain ceased, and the parting clouds exhibited the glittering crescent of the young moon. A sonorous and majestic voice sounded from the skies:-

  “Who art thou that has no other friend than Jove”

  “One whom all mankind unite in calling a wretch.”

  “Art thou a philospher?”

  “If philosophy be endurance. But for the rest, I was sometime a king, and am now a scatterling.”

  “How do they call thee?”

  “Ixion of Thessaly.”

  “Ixion of Thessaly! I thought he was a happy man. I heard that he was just married.”

  “Father of Gods and men! for I deem thee such, Thessaly is not Olympus. Conjugal felicity is only the portion of the Immortals!”

  “Hem! What! was Dia jealous, which is common; or false, which is commoner; or both, which is commonest?”

  “It may be neither. We quarrelled about nothing. Where there is little sympathy, or too much, the splitting of a straw is plot enough for a domestic tragedy. I was careless, her friends stigmatised me as callous; she cold, her friends styled her magnanimous. Public opinion was all on her side, merely because I did not choose that the world should interfere between me and my wife. Dia took the world’s advice upon every point, and the world decided that she always acted rightly. However, life is life, either in a palace or a cave. I am glad you ordered it to leave off thundering.”

  “A cool dog this. And Dia left thee?”

  “No I left her.”

  “What, craven?”

  “Not exactly. The truth is ……’tis a long story. I was over head and ears in debt.”

  “Ah! that accounts for everything. Nothing so harassing as a want of money! But what lucky fellows you Mortals are with your post-obits! We Immortals are deprived of this resource. I was obliged to get up a rebellion against my father, because he kept me so short, and could not die.”

  “You could have married for money. I did.”

  “I had no opportunity, there was so little female society in those days. When I came out, there were no heiresses except the Parcae, confirmed old maids; and no very rich dowager, except my grandmother, old Terra.”

  “Just the thing; the older the better. However, I married Dia, the daughter of Deioneus, with a prodigious portion: but after the ceremony the old gentleman would not fulfil his part of the contract without my giving up my stud. Can you conceive anything more unreasonable? I smothered my resentment at the time; for the truth is, my tradesmen all renewed my credit on the strength of the match, and so we went on very well for a year, but at last they began to smell a rat, and grew importunate. I entreated Dia to interfere; but she was a paragon of daughters, and always took the side of her father. If she had only been dutiful to her husband, she would have been a perfect woman. At last I invited Deioneus to the Larissa races, with the intention of conciliating him. The unprincipled old man bought the horse that I had backed, and by which I intended to have redeemed my fortunes, and withdrew it. My book was ruined. I dissembled my rage. I dug a pit in our garden, and filled it with burning coals. As my father-in-law and myself were taking a stroll after dinner, the worthy Deioneus fell in, merely by accident. Dia proclaimed me the murderer of her father, and, as a satisfaction to her wounded feelings, earnestly requested her subjects to decapitate her husband. She certainly was the best of daughters. There was no withstanding public opinion, an infuriated rabble, and a magnanimous wife at the same time. They surrounded my palace: I cut my way through the greasy-capped multitude, sword in hand, and gained a neighbouring Court, where I solicited my brother princes to purify me from the supposed murder. If I had only murdered a subject, they would have supported me against the people; but Deioneus being a crowned head, like themselves, they declared they would not countenance so immoral a being as his son-in-law. And so, at length, after much wandering, and shunned by all my species, I am here, Jove, in much higher society than I ever expected to mingle”

  “Well, thou art a frank dog, and in a sufficiently severe scrape. The Gods must have pity on those for whom men have none. It is evident that Earth is too hot for thee at present, so I think thou hadst better come and stay a few weeks with us in Heaven.”

  “Take my thanks for hecatombs, great Jove. Thou art, indeed, a God!”

  “I hardly know whether our life will suit you. We dine at sunset; for Apollo
is so much engaged that he cannot join us sooner, and no dinner goes off well without him. In the morning you are your own master, and must find amusement where you can. Diana will show you some tolerable sport. Do you shoot?”

  “No arrow surer. Fear not for me, Aegiochus: I am always at home. But how am I to get to you?”

  “I will send Mercury; he is the best travelling companion in the world. What ho! my Eagle!”

  The clouds joined, and darkness again fell over the earth.

  II

  “So! tread softly. Don’t be nervous. Are you sick?”

  “A little nausea; ’tis nothing.”

  “The novelty of the motion. The best thing is a beefsteak. We will stop at Taurus and take one.”

  “You have been a great traveller, Mercury?”

  “I have seen the world.”

  “Ah! a wondrous spectacle. I long to travel”

  “The same thing over and over again. Little novelty and much change. I am wearied with exertion, and if I could get a pension would retire.”

  “And yet travel brings wisdom.”

  “It cures us of care. Seeing much we feel little, and learn how very petty are all those great affairs which cost us such anxiety.”

  “I feel that already myself. Floating in this blue aether, what the devil is my wife to me, and her dirty earth! My persecuting enemies seem so many pismires; and as for my debts, which have occasioned me so many brooding moments, honour and infamy, credit and beggary, seem to me alike ridiculous.”