Collected Folk Tales

by Alan Garner

  Then Maelduin soothed the cat with words, and set the necklace in its place, and cleansed the ashes from the floor of the enclosure, and cast them on the shore of the sea.

  Then they went on board their boat.

  8

  Early on the morning of the third day after that they espied another island, with a brazen palisade over the midst of it which divided the island into two, and they espied great flocks of sheep therein, a black flock on this side of the fence and a white flock on the far side. And they saw a big man separating the flocks. When he used to fling a white sheep over the fence from this side to the black sheep it became black at once. So, when he used to cast a black sheep over the fence to the far side, it became white at once. The men were adread at seeing that.

  “This were well for us to do,” said Maelduin. “Let us cast two rods into the island. If they change colour, we shall change if we land on it.”

  So they flung a rod with black bark on the side where were the white sheep, and it became white at once. Then they flung a peeled, white rod on the side where were the black sheep, and it became black at once.

  “Not encouraging was that experiment,” said Maelduin. “Let us not land on the island. Doubtless our colour would have fared no better than the rods.”

  They went back from the island in terror.

  9

  On the third day afterwards they saw another island, great and wide, and a great mountain in the island, and they proposed to go and view the island from it. Now when Diuran the Rhymer and German went to visit the mountain they found before them a broad river which was not deep. Into this river German dipped the handle of his spear, and at once it was consumed, as if fire had burnt it. And they went no further.

  10

  They found a large island, and a great multitude of human beings therein. Black were these, both in bodies and raiment. Bands round their heads, and they rested not from wailing.

  An unlucky lot fell to one of Maelduin’s two fosterbrothers to land on the island. When he went to the people who were wailing he at once became a comrade of theirs, and began to weep along with them. Two were sent to bring him back, and they did not recognise him amongst the others, and they themselves turned to lament.

  Then said Maelduin, “Let four go,” said he, “with your weapons, and bring you the men by force, and look not at the land nor the air, and put your garments round your noses and round your mouths, and breathe not the air of the land, and take not your eyes off your own men.”

  The four went, and brought back with them by force the other two, but not the fosterbrother. When they were asked what they had seen in the land, they would say, “Indeed, we know not; but what we saw others doing, we did.”

  Thereafter they came rapidly from the island.

  11

  Thereafter they came to another lofty island, wherein were four fences, which divided it into four parts. A fence of gold, first: another of silver: the third of brass: and the fourth of crystal. Kings in the fourth division, queens in another, warriors in another, maidens in the other. A maiden went to meet them, and brought them on land, and gave them food. They likened it to cheese; and whatever taste was pleasing to anyone he would find it there. And she poured to them out of a little vessel, so that they slept a drunkenness of three days and three nights. All this time the maiden was tending them. When they awoke on the third day they were in their boat on sea. Nowhere did they find their island or their maiden.

  Then they rowed away.

  12

  They heard in the north-east a great cry and chant. That night and the next day they were rowing that they might know what cry or what chant they heard. They beheld a high, mountainous island, full of birds, black and dun and speckled, shouting and speaking loudly.

  13

  They rowed a little from that island, and found another island that was not large. There were many trees, and on them many birds. And after that they saw in the island a man whose clothing was his hair. So they asked him who he was, and from where his kindred.

  “Of the men of Ireland am I,” said he. “I went on my pilgrimage in a small boat, and when I had gone a little from land my boat split under me. I went again to land,” said he, “and I put under my feet a sod from my country, and on it I got me up to the sea. And that sod is established here for me in this place, and a foot is added to its breadth each year from that time to this, and a tree every year to grow therein. You shall all,” said he, “reach your country save one man.”

  14

  After that they voyaged till they entered a sea that resembled green glass. Such was its purity that the gravel and the sand of the sea were clearly visible through it; and they saw no monsters nor beasts therein among the crags, but only the pure gravel and the green sand. For a long space of the day they were voyaging in that sea, and great was its splendour and its beauty.

  15

  They afterwards put forth into another sea like a cloud, and it seemed to them that it would not support them or the boat. Then they beheld under the sea down below them roofed strongholds and a beautiful country. And they saw a beast huge, awful, monstrous, in a tree there, and a drove of herds and flocks round about the tree, and beside the tree an armed man, with shield and spear and sword.

  When he beheld yon huge beast that abode in the tree he went from there in flight immediately. The beast stretched forth its neck out of the tree, and set his head into the back of the largest ox of the herd, and dragged it into the tree and devoured it in the twinkling of an eye. The flocks and the herdsmen fled away at once; and when Maelduin and his people saw that, greater terror and fear seized them, for they supposed that they would never cross that sea without falling down through it, by reason of its tenuity like mist.

  So after much danger, they passed over it.

  16

  Thereafter they found another island, and up around it rose the sea, making vast cliffs of water all about it. As the people of that country perceived them, they set to screaming at them, and saying, “It is they! It is they!” till they were out of breath.

  Then Maelduin and his men beheld many human beings, and great herds of cattle, and troops of horses, and many flocks of sheep. Then there was a woman pelting them from below with large nuts which remained floating on the waves above them. Much of these nuts they gathered and took with them. They went back to the island, and thereat the screams ceased.

  “Where are they now?” said the man who was coming after them at the scream.

  “They have gone away,” said another group of them.

  “They are not so,” said another group.

  Now it is likely that there was someone concerning whom the islanders had a prophecy that he would ruin their country and expel them from their land.

  17

  They got them to another island, wherein a strange thing was shown to them, to wit, a great stream rose out of the island, and went, like a rainbow, over the whole island, and descended into the other strand of the island on the other side thereof. And they were going under the stream without being wet. And they were piercing with their spears the stream above; and great, enormous salmon were tumbling from above out of the stream down upon the soil of the island. And all the island was full of the stench of fish.

  18

  Thereafter they voyaged till they found a great silvern column. It had four sides, and the width of each of these sides was two oarstrokes of the boat, so that in its whole circumference there were eight oarstrokes of the boat. And not a single clod of earth was about it, but only the boundless ocean. And they saw not how its base was below, or – because of its height – how its summit was above. Out of its summit came a silvern net far away from it; and the boat went under sail through a mesh of that net. And Diuran gave a blow of the edge of his spear over the mesh.

  “Destroy not the net,” said Maelduin, “for what we see is the work of mighty men.”

  “I do this that my tidings may be the more believed,” said Diuran.

&nb
sp; And they heard a voice then from the summit of yonder pillar, mighty, and clear, and distinct. But they knew not the tongue it spoke, or the words it uttered.

  19

  Then they saw another island, standing on a single pedestal, to wit, one foot supporting it. And they rowed round it to seek a way into it, and they found no way thereinto; but they saw down in the base of the pedestal a closed door under lock. They understood that that was the way by which the island was entered. And they saw a plough on the top of the island; but they held speech with no one, and no one held speech with them. Then they went away back to sea.

  20

  They found a large island, with a great level plain therein. A great multitude was on that plain, playing and laughing without any cessation. Lots were cast by Maelduin and his men to see unto whom it should fall to enter the island and explore it. The lot fell to the first of Maelduin’s fosterbrothers. When he went he at once began to play and laugh continually along with the islanders, as if he had been with them all his life. His comrades stayed for a long, long space expecting him, and he came not to them. So they left him.

  21

  After that they sighted another island, which was not large; and a fiery rampart was round it; and that rampart kept turning about the island. There was an open doorway in the side of that rampart. Now, whenever the doorway would come opposite to them, they would see through it the whole island, and all that was therein, and all its indwellers, even human beings, beautiful, abundant, wearing adorned garments, and feasting with golden vessels in their hands. And the wanderers heard their ale-music. And for a long space were they seeing the marvel they beheld, and they judged it delightful.

  22

  Now, after they had gone from there they came to an island with abundant cattle, and with oxen and kine and sheep. There were no houses nor forts therein, and so they ate the flesh of the sheep. Then said some of them, seeing a large falcon there, “The falcon is like the falcons of Ireland!”

  “That is true, indeed,” said some of the others.

  “Watch,” said Maelduin, “and see how the bird will go from us.”

  They saw that it flew from them to the south-east. So they rowed after the bird in the direction in which it had gone from them. At nightfall they saw land like the land of Ireland. They rowed towards it. They found a small island, and it was from this very island that the wind had snatched them into the ocean when they first went to sea.

  Then they put their prow to the shore, and they went to the fortress that was in the island, and they were listening, and the inhabitants of the fortress were then dining.

  They heard some of them saying, “It is well for us if we should not see Maelduin.”

  “That Maelduin has been drowned,” said another man to them.

  “Perhaps it is he who shall wake you from your sleep,” said another.

  “If he should come now, what should we do?”

  “That is not hard to say,” said the chief of the house. “Great welcome to him if he should come, for he has been a long time in trouble.”

  Thereat Maelduin struck the clapper against the door-valve.

  “Who is there?” said the doorkeeper.

  “Maelduin is here,” said he himself.

  “Then open!” said the chief. “Welcome is your coming.”

  So they entered the house, and great welcome was made to them, and new garments were given them.

  Maelduin then went to his own district, and Diuran the Rhymer took the five half-ounces of silver he had brought from the net. And they declared their adventures from beginning to end, and all the dangers and perils they had found on sea and land.

  Now Aed the Fair, chief sage of Ireland, arranged this story as it stands here; and he did it so for delighting the mind and for the people of Ireland after him.

  The fort over against the oak-wood,

  Once it was Bruidge’s, it was Cathal’s,

  It was Aed’s, it was Ailill’s,

  It was Conaing’s, it was Cuilne’s,

  And it was Maelduin’s;

  The fort remains after each in his turn—

  And the kings asleep in the ground.

  Translated by Kuno Meyer

  n a village in Japan there stood a green willow tree. For centuries the people loved it. In summer it was a place where villagers could meet after work and the heat of the day, and talk there till the moonlight fell through the branches. In winter it was a half-opened umbrella covered with snow.

  A young farmer named Heitaro lived near the tree, and he, more than any other, loved the huge willow. It was the first thing he saw on waking, and the last at sleeping. Its shape greeted him when he returned from the fields, and all day he could see its crest. Sometimes he would burn a joss-stick beneath its branches and kneel down and pray.

  One day an old man of the village came to Heitaro and explained to him that the people were anxious to build a bridge over the river, and that they particularly wanted the willow tree for timber.

  “My dear willow for a bridge?” said Heitaro, covering his face. “Planks below feet? No! Take my own trees first, and spare the willow.”

  The villagers accepted Heitaro’s trees, and the willow stood.

  One night, while Heitaro was sitting under the tree he saw a beautiful woman close beside him. She stood, and looked at him shyly, as if she wanted to speak.

  “Honourable lady,” said Heitaro, “I shall go home. I see you wait for somebody you love, and my presence here is uncouth.”

  “He will not come now,” said the woman.

  “Has he grown cold?” said Heitaro. “It is terrible when a mock love woos and leaves ashes.”

  “He has not grown cold,” she said.

  “And yet he does not come?” said Heitaro. “What strangeness is this?”

  “He has come! His heart has been always here, here under this willow tree.” And the woman smiled, and left him.

  Night after night they met there. The woman’s shyness disappeared, and it seemed that she could not hear too much praise of the willow tree from Heitaro’s lips.

  One night he said to her, “Little one, will you be my wife?”

  “Yes,” she said. “Call me Higo, and ask no questions, for love of me.”

  Heitaro and Higo were married, and they had a son called Chiyodo, and they were happy.

  Great news came to the village, and it was not long before Heitaro learnt it. The Emperor wished to build a temple in Kyoto, and his ministers were searching the land for the best of timber. It would be an eternal honour to have given even a fragment of that holy shrine, and the villagers looked around them for a sacrifice that would be worthy.

  There was only the willow.

  Heitaro offered every tree on his land, and the price of his farm, but only the willow had the quality that was sought.

  “Oh, wife, my Higo,” he said that evening, “they are going to cut down the willow. Before I married you I could not have endured it. But, having you, perhaps I shall get over it some day.”

  The same night, Heitaro held his wife close for comfort in his sorrow, but he was woken by a loud cry.

  “It grows dark!” said Higo. “The room is full of whispers. Are you there, Heitaro? Listen! They are cutting the willow tree!”

  “Hush, my love, hush. I am here.”

  “They are cutting me! Look how the shadow trembles in the moonlight! They are killing me! Oh, how they cut and tear! The pain, the pain! Put your hands here, and here. Surely the blows cannot fall now!”

  Heitaro tried to ease her pain, but nothing he did could heal her.

  “Love,” she said, pressing her wet face to his, “I am going now. My body is breaking. Such a love cannot be cut down. Heitaro. Heitaro. My hair is falling through the sky!”

  The willow tree lay green and tangled on the ground.

  Maggoty’s Wood is old.

  Nothing grows.

  Nobody knows.

  Nothing goes.

  Grandfathers wo
uldn’t dare

  At midnight. Fathers told

  Of giggling; children scared

  Silent to the centre, whooping out,

  Could do it once, learning rain

  And leaves, badgers, and to walk

  Lanes after.

  Maggoty’s Wood is old,

  And when the lanes are sold

  And the houses ponder through,

  It becomes an Unspoilt View.

  Where grandfathers wouldn’t,

  And where fathers told,

  And children could do once,

  Is Woodend Close.

  And nothing grows.

  Beneath the playpen and

  Beneath the bed,

  Beneath the arrogant garden,

  Nothing goes.

  Nobody knows.

  Alan Garner

  s Edward Frank was coming home one night, he heard something walking towards him, but at first could see nothing. Suddenly his way was barred by a tall, dismal object which stood in the path before him.

  It was a marvellous-thin man, whose head was so high that Edward nearly fell over backwards in his efforts to gaze at it. His knees knocked together, and his heart sank. With great difficulty he gasped forth: “In the name of God, what is here? Turn out of my way, or I will strike thee!”

  The giant then disappeared, and the frightened Edward, seeing a cow not far off, went towards her to lean on her, which the cow stood still and permitted him to do.

  This story, and “The Green Mist”, were told by the old people and the young children who lived in Lincolnshire before the fenlands were drained. I think that “Yallery Brown” is the most powerful of all English fairy tales.

  ’ve heard tell as how the bogles and boggarts were main bad in the old times, but I can’t rightly say as I ever saw any of them myself; not rightly bogles, that is, but I’ll tell you about Yallery Brown. If he wasn’t a boggart, he was main near it, and I knew him myself. So it’s all true – strange and true I tell you.