The Corn King and the Spring Queen

by Naomi Mitchison

  Yes, yes, that was good and that would always happen, but she, Erif Der, she could never turn again and grow younger, no more be a young maiden moving consciously among glad looks! She was growing older every year—every Plowing Eve she was a year older—and soon she would be too old to make any man glad, not any lover, not her own Tarrik. Oh unfair, oh cruel spring to come young and young and again young while women grow old! Oh spring, luring men from their own women, making them see their women old and used against the young green! She heard her voice in an answer to Tarrik, and it was angry and hard. She knew the people of Marob would be hurt by it, would think it meant a cold and late season. She could not help it. She heard the farmers shouting at her, eagerly, violently: ‘Spring Queen, be kind!’ And suddenly she remembered Murr, who had not had kindness from her but had died and would not see any spring again.

  But now the plow was very near. She tried to force her voice to kindness and gladness, raised her head, thought she was not old yet, thought Berris would come back this year. She wondered if the people of Marob were at all satisfied. Ah, now the plow was turning inward. She must run between the horns of the oxen. One moment she stood, waiting for Tarrik to give her courage. She saw in his eyes that he did not know her. They were not Tarrik and Erif; he was the Corn King and she—she should be the Spring Queen. She sprang between the oxen and leapt the plowshare and did not stumble, nor even cry out or turn pale with the pain of her arm that had been grazed by one of the horns.

  The thick, surging crowd swept inwards at her. Oh dear Marob, if only she could be part of Marob again, their Spring Queen, oh lost love! She shut her eyes, swaying, wrestling with herself to come and join them. She heard them hammering together the planks of the booth. Surely there was, after all, nothing wrong? She was the Spring Queen, who else could she be? Every one knew she was the Spring Queen wearing the Spring Queen’s clothes! She was bringing them their spring, she was quite, quite certain that it would come, that the corn would grow as well as ever. She had done nothing to hurt the seasons! No, she was not anxious, she was not thinking about harvest or anything that had happened! Yes, she was smiling now! She opened her eyes to their loud singing and the prickling of the thrown corn-ears. That singing answered back to her smile, growing louder and gladder. The pipes and drums thudded up from behind the voices. She was going to do the dance well for them!

  The Corn King and the Spring Queen went up on to the booth and began the dance. She had only to follow with her body what Tarrik led in. She watched him. She was the gentleness of the spring. He was the strength of the corn. The com that had been asleep all winter, but now was growing, was rising. Then suddenly a terrible thing leapt into her mind, and buzzed round and round there. Who was the risen corn? The Corn King of today was the Corn Man at harvest, and the Corn Man was Harn Der. The risen corn was Harn Der. She was dancing again with Harn Der. She had killed him and he had risen, and now she could not kill him again, he had got out of his own body, he had risen into another body, into the Corn King’s body. He was looking at her through the Corn King’s eyes. She fought the image, she tried to tear it out, she looked for help to Tarrik, her lover. It was not Tarrik any longer! From all round the pipes and drums hemmed her in, crushed the two dancers spinning together in one wild, inevitable rhythm. The climax of the dance was coming again. Erif Der saw with horror and terror her own dead father leap at her. She knew with an immediate grip of the moment and what it brought, that when she had fallen ready for him, it was Harn Der who would sweep aside the Corn King’s rags and show himself, Harn Der who would plunge down on her, Harn Der who was the image of God and Man and her possessor and master! Her knees, her body, on the point of bending, giving to the fall, the final yielding of spring, stiffened and shook. She flung up her arms against Harn Der and the thing she must not take from him, screamed with all her might against the rhythm, and jumped clean out of it, off the booth, into the furrow ankle-deep, turned her head to see if he was following her and yelled in panic again and rushed into the crowd that parted all about her.

  She ran like a hare, screaming and doubling like a hare, across the fallow field. The crowd scattered screaming too, as though her touch would be death. They trampled on one another. She could have caught and clutched on to someone if she had looked, but she was blind with fear, and no one would save her, no arms open to hide her! Then from two different places in the crowd two women ran to risk everything and head her. One was Disdallis and one was her cousin Linit. When Kotka saw his witch wife running, he suddenly trusted her and followed, and had almost caught her up when Erif Der ran into her arms and cowered there. The three of them held her. Linit was in the bridal dress of the Spring Queen’s women, but her great hat had fallen off. There was no one else near them, but all round, at a little distance, people gathered into tight, staring knots.

  Erif Der looked up and over her shoulder. She let go her grip of Disdallis and rubbed her hands over her face and smoothed down the wool flowers on her dress. She seemed to want to ask a question; the two women murmured soothingly to her. Kotka took her by the wrist and pointed: ‘There are the Council.’

  ‘And Tarrik,’ said Disdallis. Erif pulled back from her.

  ‘You must,’ Kotka said, ‘for Marob. Even if they are going to kill you.’

  ‘But they won’t!’ said Linit. ‘You will be made clean, Erif—somehow. And if you don’t go to them they’ll come and fetch you.’

  ‘We’ll go with you,’ Disdallis said, ‘and perhaps Tarrik will save you.’ The four of them walked towards the Council.

  Tarrik was in the middle of them, very obvious in his coloured tatters, talking hard. The Council were talking back at him, baying in their deep, old men’s voices. A good many had drawn daggers or swords. Kotka loosened his own dagger in its sheath. As they came nearer Tarrik bounded out from among them, knocking up one hand with a knife. Erif twitched and shivered, but the others pulled her along. Some of the older men came after Tarrik, but he turned, whirling up his arms, and shouted: ‘I am the Corn King and I tell you I know what to do! Keep back and I’ll save your corn. Come on and I’ll rot it!’ They checked, and Black Holly came crossing over between them and his Chief, slowly, with a sword.

  Then Tarrik glanced west at the low sun, and from Erif to the other two women. ‘I must do the dance with the new Spring Queen before dusk. Come!’ He nodded at Disdallis, but she cried out ‘No!’ and pulled at Linit. The girl came forward, hesitating two steps, and then, as she faced the Corn King, suddenly confident. ‘I will!’ she said. ‘Change!’ said Tarrik. ‘Quick!’ He pulled at the neck of the girl’s dress, tore with both hands and sent the linen ripping down a green stripe from top to hem. Disdallis untied the cord round the neck of Erif’s queer dress, loosened it, and pulled it over her head. Link slipped into it and tied it as she ran with Tarrik towards the booth.

  Erif stood naked and slackly staring till Disdallis huddled her into her cousin’s torn dress and fastened it tight with her own belt. When she touched Erif’s flesh it was so cold that she shivered herself. ‘If we could get her away?’ she said. ‘Before the Council have stopped being frightened,’ said Kotka, and picked Erif Der up. She did not seem to be able to hold on round his neck, so he slung her over his shoulder and walked away with her off the fallow field to where the horses were tethered. His own were at the far side, so he took the nearest two and they rode back to the Chief’s house. Erif was able to walk now and even smiled a little. The women who were left brought wine and warm clothes and heaped dry wood on the fire, and asked dozens of questions till they found that no one was answering them. Kotka and Disdallis waited, sitting at the opposite side of the fire from Erif, watching her colour coming back. Disdallis held Kotka’s hand and he was very glad of it; she had not done that for a long time.

  Meanwhile Plowing Eve went on. Corn King and Spring Queen danced, first to the sound of one drum, then to two, then as the pipers and drummers came hurrying back, to the full rhythm of the courting dance.
They finished it and the plucking of the flowers, which Tarrik hurried on with cries and curses, just before sunset. There was not one moment for Tarrik to rest or be cleaned with warm water. He had barely time to get into the gold-sewn clothes and take the sunlight into himself, before it sank. Yet that gave people less time to talk. They had to make the sun-wheel and start it spinning. Honey dripped out of the Corn King’s mouth and down over his coat. Those who were next him in the centre of the wheel, the older men mostly, the Council and others, felt as they touched him that he was tense, and gripped with such a strength that they scarcely dared come near either of his hands lest it should close on them and crush.

  More women than usual stayed for the night of Plowing Eve. It was of such intense importance to make up for anything that might have gone wrong. Both men and women remembered those two queer times when something comparable, though not so bad, had happened, when it was the Corn King himself who had done unlucky things, nearly three years ago now. It was said that so little actual evil for Marob had followed these things because the Spring Queen had in some way made up for them afterwards with the seasons. Had the Corn King and the new Spring Queen done that this time? What had happened had been so much worse. At that moment of all moments in the year! What had she seen? One witch-girl, dared by another, asked the Corn King what was going to be done to the old Spring Queen. He said nothing at all, but was so violent with her that she was bruised for days afterwards.

  The Council met the next morning. Tarrik slept till the last moment; he had never been so tired after Plowing Eve before. It had cost him an immense effort to wrap up the plowshare and put it away properly; the dresses must wait. Erif had been asleep when he got back, and in the morning they only had a few moments together while he hurried into his clothes. She told him what kind of an appearance it was that she had seen. He nodded; he was not much surprised. He said: ‘I’ll do what I can, for you and Marob. I don’t know what it will be. I think everything is going to change.’ Then he put on his crown and went to the Council.

  Erif Der waited and talked a little to her cousin. Disdallis had gone home, and Kotka was standing armed outside the door of the Council Hall, to be ready for anything. She felt as though she had lately been very ill. It had all worked out curiously even. She had magicked Tarrik at midsummer and harvest two years ago, when she was still in her father’s power, doing what he desired. Now she seemed still to be in her father’s power: when she went against him it was she who was magicked at Plowing Eve. Link said that there had been nothing wrong with the Corn King to her eyes. He had led her through the dance. She had seen it often, so she knew what she must do. Besides—she did not have really to understand; it was as if something had taken hold of her and made her do the dance: the music perhaps, or some violence coming out of the Corn King’s hands and eyes. She herself was quite sure that the spring would come now.

  Tarrik came back from the Council. He went straight to Erif Der and said: ‘It was Marob’s will against ours, and I am part of Marob. They say you must get clean of Harn Der’s blood or die. I said you could get clean. I do not know at all how you are to do it, Erif.’

  She said: ‘Is there no way that seems likely? Has it never happened in the past? Surely other men and women have found that they could not always be gods!’

  Tarrik said: ‘They have never thought about it before, so it has never happened. We two are different from any Corn King and Spring Queen that Marob has ever had.’

  ‘Whose fault is that?’

  ‘Perhaps it was a thing that had to come one day, or perhaps Sphaeros did it to us. I thought of that coming back from the Council. Erif, I thought—perhaps he might show you how to get clean.’

  ‘Oh, Tarrik!’ she said, ‘am I to go from you?’

  ‘I do not see how you can ever get clean here, Erif; you will not get away from your father in his own land. I have not got away from him, though he is dead and I have risen. You will come back when you are clean, Erif.’

  ‘Ah, how shall I tell that?’

  Tarrik looked at her desperately and then looked away ‘I don’t know, I don’t know! If I did it would be easy! You shall take my knife again and I will keep your star and at least we shall see that much about each other.’

  ‘But, Tarrik—’ She caught hold of him, flung herself down on the ground and hugged his knees bruisingly against her breast. It was infinitely worse than their first parting. There was so much more between them now, so much solid truth and trust, things that both had done and both had forgiven, growth and understanding and a very great tenderness. They were not pulling and straining at one another all the time as they had at first; they were reasonably certain. And there was the baby. She thought of not having him to kiss and hold and play with and watch growing; she had a sudden ridiculous, dreadful feeling that if she was not there to brood over him he might grow up into someone else, not himself. She tried to say so. It sounded silly. Tarrik patted her.

  He said: ‘Everything will be all right here. I will see to it. Don’t think about anything except saving yourself, sweetheart.’

  Unreasonably, when he said that, she could not think about herself at all. She said: ‘What will happen to Marob?’

  Tarrik shrugged his shoulders. ‘I shall find Spring Queens.’

  She said: ‘I know you will.’

  He said: ‘You will have to show Linit what to do in the Spring-field, or the guardian can tell her. Erif, don’t put things wrong there, for her or for any of them. If you do that everything will smash. Listen: they may be Spring Queens, but you’re my wife and my son’s mother. That can’t and won’t be changed.’

  She said: ‘I won’t hurt anything or anyone in Marob any more. But even when I’m gone will it be all right? Is your luck straight? Are you satisfied?’

  Tarrik did not answer for a moment; they were sitting side by side with their arms round one another; but either could face away and not show the trouble which each separately was in. At last he said: ‘I am satisfied for Marob, and that is what I am Corn King for. But I am not satisfied for myself. You know that, Erif. And perhaps the people of Marob will come soon to want each his own satisfaction too. The seasons will not be enough. Then the Corn King will not be enough either. Sometimes I think I have to get ready for that.’

  ‘Get ready?’ she said. It had sounded queer and sad; she did not know what it might not mean.

  ‘I must save myself,’ he said, ‘and then I shall be able to save my people. Sphaeros would think that was a very proper and right thing for any king to say!’ He laughed a little. ‘But I was very happy most of the time before Sphaeros came—and you magicked me. Would I have got into this tangle without him and his Stoics? It’s like the marshes, Erif, all low and twisty, so that one can never see clear through it. I want a road.’

  ‘A secret road.’

  ‘To get myself and Marob across. I would be very glad to do that before I died. I want to find where we are in the universe. If it is like the philosophers tell us, earth and air and fire and water, all remote and unfriendly, and currents in it moving one whether one chooses or not! I want to find it kinder.’

  ‘And I want to find it in my power!’ said Erif, suddenly and comfortingly aware of herself as a witch, ‘and I will! We’ll save the people, Tarrik.’ She looked at him gaily, feeling for the moment strong enough to face anything. But he was looking away.

  He said, hesitating, unlike himself: ‘I think that even if they want something more than the seasons, the Corn King might be the Risen Corn for them, for their hearts as well as for their fields. But he might have to die first.’

  Erif said sharply: ‘I don’t understand!’

  ‘Nor do I,’ he said, ‘yet.’

  She had another four weeks before she could sail, as the weather was still very uncertain. All the time she was dragged about between counting the moments left, and wishing that this pain of saying good-bye were over. She spent tense hours with the baby, staring at him, getting his image int
o her eyes, touching him, getting it into her hands, listening to him so that when she was far away her ears would get an inward echo of his laughing and little bird noises, bubbling cries, funny whimperings that really meant something important. She stared at Tarrik till he could hardly stand it. She went about the harbour and streets; but they were not themselves, not true, because people always moved away from her, stopped their bargaining or singing or shoemaking, called their children in. She was never in the middle of the good, familiar crowd.

  She showed Linit honestly everything in the Spring-field that she had to know, and made the guardian look at her hard, to know her later. She gave her the Spring-crown. She said she would be back soon, clean and full of power, in a year perhaps, or two years. She was going to be a witch in strange countries! Tarrik asked her who she would take with her and offered her what she would of the treasure. She took jewels and as many bars of gold as she could carry, for herself and, she hoped, Berris. But she would not take any more, and she would not take any women to dress her or men to guard her. It was better to be alone, able to move quickly and suddenly. This business of saving herself might be dangerous, and she would not drag innocent people into it. Besides, when she got to Greece, there would be Berris. And there would be two in Sparta who would be friendly, Philylla and Queen Agiatis. Tarrik, remembering Kleomenes, was doubtful of how far she could count on them. But he trusted Sphaeros.

  Disdallis came to Erif and asked to go with her. But Erif laughed and said Disdallis was better at home. ‘You will be there when I come back,’ she said. ‘I shall think of that. You will tell me what has happened.’ When Disdallis pressed it she was a little angry. She said: ‘You know you think me unlucky, Disdallis! It would be no help to me seeing my own bad luck every time I looked into your eyes! You took a big risk to help me at Plowing Eve and I will not ask it of you twice. Besides, I may be in danger—I may run straight into danger and pain. You must stay in Marob and keep a little peace for me to have when I get back, Disdallis.’ Afterwards Kotka thanked her very truly and humbly for not taking his wife away from him. She did not tell him that she had hardly considered that side of it at all, because that would have made him feel uncomfortable, and she did like him very much.