THE KNIFE AND THE NAKED CHALK
The Run of the Downs
The Weald is good, the Downs are best -
I'll give you the run of 'em, East to West.
Beachy Head and Winddoor Hill,
They were once and they are still.
Firle, Mount Caburn and Mount Harry
Go back as far as sums'll carry.
Ditchling Beacon and Chanctonbury Ring,
They have looked on many a thing;
And what those two have missed between 'em
I reckon Truleigh Hill has seen 'em.
Highden, Bignor and Duncton Down
Knew Old England before the Crown.
Linch Down, Treyford and Sunwood
Knew Old England before the Flood.
And when you end on the Hampshire side -
Butser's old as Time and Tide.
The Downs are sheep, the Weald is corn,
You be glad you are Sussex born!
The Knife and the Naked Chalk
The children went to the seaside for a month, and lived in a flint
village on the bare windy chalk Downs, quite thirty miles away
from home. They made friends with an old shepherd, called Mr
Dudeney, who had known their Father when their Father was
little. He did not talk like their own people in the Weald of Sussex,
and he used different names for farm things, but he understood
how they felt, and let them go with him. He had a tiny cottage
about half a mile from the village, where his wife made mead
from thyme honey, and nursed sick lambs in front of a coal fire,
while Old Jim, who was Mr Dudeney's sheep-dog's father, lay at
the door. They brought up beef bones for Old Jim (you must
never give a sheep-dog mutton bones), and if Mr Dudeney happened
to be far in the Downs, Mrs Dudeney would tell the dog to
take them to him, and he did.
One August afternoon when the village water-cart had made
the street smell specially townified, they went to look for their
shepherd as usual, and, as usual, Old Jim crawled over the doorstep
and took them in charge. The sun was hot, the dry grass was
very slippery, and the distances were very distant.
'It's Just like the sea,' said Una, when Old Jim halted in the
shade of a lonely flint barn on a bare rise. 'You see where you're
going, and - you go there, and there's nothing between.'
Dan slipped off his shoes. 'When we get home I shall sit in the
woods all day,' he said.
'Whuff!' said Old Jim, to show he was ready, and struck across
a long rolling stretch of turf. Presently he asked for his beefbone.
'Not yet,' said Dan. 'Where's Mr Dudeney? Where's Master?'
Old Jim looked as if he thought they were mad, and asked
again.
'Don't you give it him,' Una cried. 'I'm not going to be left
howling in a desert.'
'Show, boy! Show!' said Dan, for the Downs seemed as bare as
the palm of your hand.
Old Jim sighed, and trotted forward. Soon they spied the blob
of Mr Dudeney's hat against the sky a long way off.
'Right! All right!' said Dan. Old Jim wheeled round, took his
bone carefully between his blunted teeth, and returned to the
shadow of the old barn, looking just like a wolf. The children
went on. Two kestrels hung bivvering and squealing above them.
A gull flapped lazily along the white edge of the cliffs. The curves
of the Downs shook a little in the heat, and so did Mr Dudeney's
distant head.
They walked toward it very slowly and found themselves
staring into a horseshoe-shaped hollow a hundred feet deep,
whose steep sides were laced with tangled sheep-tracks. The flock
grazed on the flat at the bottom, under charge of Young Jim. Mr
Dudeney sat comfortably knitting on the edge of the slope, his
crook between his knees. They told him what Old Jim had done.
'Ah, he thought you could see my head as soon as he did. The
closeter you be to the turf the more you see things. You look
warm-like,'said Mr Dudeney.
'We be,' said Una, flopping down. 'And tired.'
'Set beside o' me here. The shadow'll begin to stretch out in a
little while, and a heat-shake o' wind will come up with it that'll
overlay your eyes like so much wool.'
'We don't want to sleep,' said Una indignantly; but she settled
herself as she spoke, in the first strip of early afternoon shade.
'O' course not. You come to talk with me same as your father
used. He didn't need no dog to guide him to Norton Pit.'
'Well, he belonged here,' said Dan, and laid himself down at
length on the turf.
'He did. And what beats me is why he went off to live among
them messy trees in the Weald, when he might ha' stayed here and
looked all about him. There's no profit to trees. They draw the
lightning, and sheep shelter under 'em, and so, like as not, you'll
lose a half-score ewes struck dead in one storm. Tck! Your father
knew that.'
'Trees aren't messy.' Una rose on her elbow. 'And what about
firewood? I don't like coal.'
'Eh? You lie a piece more uphill and you'll lie more natural,'
said Mr Dudeney, with his provoking deaf smile. 'Now press
your face down and smell to the turf. That's Southdown thyme
which makes our Southdown mutton beyond compare, and, my
mother told me, 'twill cure anything except broken necks, or
hearts. I forget which.'
They sniffed, and somehow forgot to lift their cheeks from the
soft thymy cushions.
'You don't get nothing like that in the Weald. Watercress,
maybe?' said Mr Dudeney.
'But we've water - brooks full of it - where you paddle in hot
weather,' Una replied, watching a yellow-and-violet-banded
snail-shell close to her eye.
'Brooks flood. Then you must shift your sheep - let alone
foot-rot afterward. I put more dependence on a dew-pond any day.'
'How's a dew-pond made?' said Dan, and tilted his hat over his
eyes. Mr Dudeney explained.
The air trembled a little as though it could not make up its mind
whether to slide into the Pit or move across the open. But it
seemed easiest to go downhill, and the children felt one soft puff
after another slip and sidle down the slope in fragrant breaths that
baffed on their eyelids. The little whisper of the sea by the cliffs
joined with the whisper of the wind over the grass, the hum of
insects in the thyme, the ruffle and rustle of the flock below, and a
thickish mutter deep in the very chalk beneath them. Mr
Dudeney stopped explaining, and went on with his knitting.
They were roused by voices. The shadow had crept halfway
down the steep side of Norton Pit, and on the edge of it, his back
to them, Puck sat beside a half-naked man who seemed busy at
some work. The wind had dropped, and in that funnel of ground
every least noise and movement reached them like whispers up a
water-Pipe.
'That is clever,' said Puck, leaning over. 'How truly you shape it!'
'Yes, but what does The Beast care for a brittle flint tip? Bah!'
The man flicked something contemptuously over his shoulder. It
fell between Dan and Una - a beautiful dark-blue flint arrow-head
still hot from the maker's hand.
The man reached for another stone, and worked away like a
thrush with a snail-shell.
'Flint work is fool's work,' he said at last. 'One does it because
one always did it; but when it comes to dealing with The Beast -
no good!' He shook his shaggy head.
'The Beast was dealt with long ago. He has gone,' said Puck.
'He'll be back at lambing time. I know him.' He chipped very
carefully, and the flints squeaked.
'Not he. Children can lie out on the Chalk now all day through
and go home safe.'
'Can they? Well, call The Beast by his True Name, and I'll
believe it,' the man replied.
'Surely!' Puck leaped to his feet, curved his hands round his
mouth and shouted: 'Wolf! Wolf!'
Norton Pit threw back the echo from its dry sides - 'Wuff!'
Wuff!' like Young jim's bark.
'You see? You hear?' said Puck. 'Nobody answers. Grey
Shepherd is gone. Feet-in-the-Night has run off. There are no
more wolves.'
'Wonderful!' The man wiped his forehead as though he were
hot. 'Who drove him away? You?'
'Many men through many years, each working in his own
country. Were you one of them?' Puck answered.
The man slid his sheepskin cloak to his waist, and without a
word pointed to his side, which was all seamed and blotched with
scars. His arms, too, were dimpled from shoulder to elbow with
horrible white dimples.
'I see,' said Puck. 'It is The Beast's mark. What did you use
against him?'
'Hand, hammer, and spear, as our fathers did before us.'
'So? Then how' - Puck twitched aside the man's dark-brown
cloak - 'how did a Flint-worker come by that? Show, man, show!'
He held out his little hand.
The man slipped a long dark iron knife, almost a short sword,
from his belt, and after breathing on it, handed it hilt-first to
Puck, who took it with his head on one side, as you should when
you look at the works of a watch, squinted down the dark blade,
and very delicately rubbed his forefinger from the point to the hilt.
'Good!' said he, in a surprised tone.
'It should be. The Children of the Night made it,' the man answered.
'So I see by the iron. What might it have cost you?'
'This!' The man raised his hand to his cheek. Puck whistled like
a Weald starling.
'By the Great Rings of the Chalk!' he cried. 'Was that your
price? Turn sunward that I may see better, and shut your eye.'
He slipped his hand beneath the man's chin and swung him till
he faced the children up the slope. They saw that his right eye was
gone, and the eyelid lay shrunk. Quickly Puck turned him round
again, and the two sat down.
'It was for the sheep. The sheep are the people,' said the man, in
an ashamed voice. 'What else could I have done? You know, Old
One.'
Puck sighed a little fluttering sigh. 'Take the knife. I listen.'
The man bowed his head, drove the knife into the turf, and
while it still quivered said: 'This is witness between us that I speak
the thing that has been. Before my Knife and the Naked Chalk I
speak. Touch!'
Puck laid a hand on the hilt. It stopped shaking. The children
wriggled a little nearer.
'I am of the People of the Worked Flint. I am the one son of the
Priestess who sells the Winds to the Men of the Sea. I am the
Buyer of the Knife - the Keeper of the People,' the man began, in
a sort of singing shout. 'These are my names in this country of the
Naked Chalk, between the Trees and the Sea.'
'Yours was a great country. Your names are great too,' said Puck.
'One cannot feed some things on names and songs.' The man
hit himself on the chest. 'It is better - always better - to count
one's children safe round the fire, their Mother among them.'
'Ahai!' said Puck. 'I think this will be a very old tale.'
'I warm myself and eat at any fire that I choose, but there is no
one to light me a fire or cook my meat. I sold all that when I
bought the Magic Knife for my people. it was not right that The
Beast should master man. What else could I have done?'
'I hear. I know. I listen,' said Puck.
'When I was old enough to take my place in the Sheepguard,
The Beast gnawed all our country like a bone between his teeth.
He came in behind the flocks at watering-time, and watched them
round the Dew-ponds; he leaped into the folds between our knees
at the shearing; he walked out alongside the grazing flocks, and
chose his meat on the hoof while our boys threw flints at him; he
crept by night 'into the huts, and licked the babe from between the
mother's hands; he called his companions and pulled down men
in broad daylight on the Naked Chalk. No - not always did he do
so! This was his cunning! He would go away for a while to let us
forget him. A year - two years perhaps - we neither smelt, nor
heard, nor saw him. When our flocks had increased; when our
men did not always look behind them; when children strayed
from the fenced places; when our women walked alone to draw
water - back, back, back came the Curse of the Chalk, Grey
Shepherd, Feet-in-the-Night - The Beast, The Beast, The Beast!
'He laughed at our little brittle arrows and our poor blunt
spears. He learned to run in under the stroke of the hammer. I
think he knew when there was a flaw in the flint. Often it does not
show till you bring it down on his snout. Then - Pouf! - the false
flint falls all to flinders, and you are left with the hammer-handle
in your fist, and his teeth in your flank! I have felt them. At
evening, too, in the dew, or when it has misted and rained, your
spear-head lashings slack off, though you have kept them beneath
your cloak all day. You are alone - but so close to the home ponds
that you stop to tighten the sinews with hands, teeth, and a piece
of driftwood. You bend over and pull - so! That is the minute for
which he has followed you since the stars went out. "Aarh!" he
"Wurr-aarh!" he says.' (Norton Pit gave back the growl like
a pack of real wolves.) 'Then he is on your right shoulder feeling
for the vein in your neck, and - perhaps your sheep run on
without you. To fight The Beast is nothing, but to be despised by
The Beast when he fights you - that is like his teeth in the heart!
Old One, why is it that men desire so greatly, and can do so little?'
'I do not know. Did you desire so much?' said Puck.
'I desired to master The Beast. It is not right that The Beast
should master man. But my people were afraid. Even, my
Mother, the Priestess, was afraid when I told her what I desired.
We were accustomed to be afraid of The Beast. When I was made
a man, and a maiden - she was a Priestess - waited for me at the
Dew-ponds, The Beast flitted from off the Chalk. Perhaps it was
a sickness; perhaps he had gone to his Gods to learn how to do us
new harm. But he went, and we breathed more freely. The
women sang again; the children were not so much guarded; our
flocks grazed far out. I took mine yonder'- he pointed inland to
the hazy line of the Weald -'where the new grass was best. They
grazed north. I followed till we were close to the Trees' - he
lowered his voice - 'close there where the Children of the Night
live.' He pointed north again.
'Ah, now I remember a thing,' said Puck. 'Tell me, why did
your people fear the Trees so extremely?'
'Because the Gods hate the Trees and strike them with lightning.
We can see them burning for days all along the Chalk's
edge. Besides, all the Chalk knows that the Children of the Night,
though they worship our Gods, are magicians. When a man goes
into their country, they change his spirit; they put words into his
mouth; they make him like talking water. But a voice in my heart
told me to go toward the north. While I watched my sheep there I
saw three Beasts chasing a man, who ran toward the Trees. By
this I knew he was a Child of the Night. We Flint-workers fear the
Trees more than we fear The Beast. He had no hammer. He
carried a knife like this one. A Beast leaped at him. He stretched
out his knife. The Beast fell dead. The other Beasts ran away
howling, which they would never have done from a Flint-
worker. The man went in among the Trees. I looked for the dead
Beast. He had been killed in a new way - by a single deep, clean
cut, without bruise or tear, which had split his bad heart. Wonderful!
So I saw that the man's knife was magic, and I thought
how to get it, - thought strongly how to get it.
'When I brought the flocks to the shearing, my Mother the
Priestess asked me, "What is the new thing which you have seen
and I see in your face?" I said, "It is a sorrow to me"; and she
answered, "All new things are sorrow. Sit in my place, and eat
sorrow." I sat down in her place by the fire, where she talks to the
ghosts in winter, and two voices spoke in my heart. One voice
said, "Ask the Children of the Night for the Magic Knife. It is not
fit that The Beast should master man." I listened to that voice.
,one voice said, "If you go among the Trees, the Children of
the Night will change your spirit. Eat and sleep here." The other
voice said, "Ask for the Knife." I listened to that voice.
'I said to my Mother in the morning, "I go away to find a thing
for the people, but I do not know whether I shall return in my
own shape." She answered, "Whether you live or die, or are
made different, I am your Mother."'
'True,' said Puck. 'The Old Ones themselves cannot change
men's mothers even if they would.'
'Let us thank the Old Ones! I spoke to my Maiden, the Priestess
who waited for me at the Dew-ponds. She promised fine things
too.' The man laughed. 'I went away to that place where I had
seen the magician with the knife. I lay out two days on the short
grass before I ventured among the Trees. I felt my way before me
with a stick. I was afraid of the terrible talking Trees. I was afraid
of the ghosts in the branches; of the soft ground underfoot; of the
red and black waters. I was afraid, above all, of the Change. It
came!'
They saw him wipe his forehead once again, and his strong
back-muscles quivered till he laid his hand on the knife-hilt.
'A fire without a flame burned in my head; an evil taste grew in
my mouth; my eyelids shut hot over my eyes; my breath was hot
between my teeth, and my hands were like the hands of a
stranger. I was made to sing songs and to mock the Trees, though
I was afraid of them. At the same time I saw myself laughing, and
I was very sad for this fine young man, who was myself. Ah! The
Children of the Night know magic.'
'I think that is done by the Spirits of the Mist. They change a
man, if he sleeps among them,' said Puck. 'Had you slept in any mists?'
'Yes - but I know it was the Children of the Night. After three
days I saw a red light behind the Trees, and I heard a heavy noise. I
saw the Children of the Night dig red stones from a hole, and lay
them in fires. The stones melted like tallow, and the men beat the
soft stuff with hammers. I wished to speak to these men, but the
words were changed in my mouth, and all I could say was, "Do
not make that noise. It hurts my head." By this I knew that I was
bewitched, and I clung to the Trees, and prayed the Children of
the Night to take off their spells. They were cruel. They asked me
many questions which they would never allow me to answer.
They changed my words between my teeth till I wept. Then they
led me into a hut and covered the floor with hot stones and dashed
water on the stones, and sang charms till the sweat poured off me
like water. I slept. When I waked, my own spirit -not the strange,
shouting thing - was back in my body, and I was like a cool bright
stone on the shingle between the sea and the sunshine. The
magicians came to hear me - women and men - each wearing a
Magic Knife. Their Priestess was their Ears and their Mouth.
'I spoke. I spoke many words that went smoothly along like
sheep in order when their shepherd, standing on a mound, can
count those coming, and those far off getting ready to come. I
asked for Magic Knives for my people. I said that my people
would bring meat, and milk, and wool, and lay them in the short
grass outside the Trees, if the Children of the Night would leave
Magic Knives for our people to take away. They were pleased.
Their Priestess said, "For whose sake have you come?" I
answered, "The sheep are the people. If The Beast kills our sheep,
our people die. So I come for a Magic Knife to kill The Beast."
'She said, "We do not know if our God will let us trade with the
people of the Naked Chalk. Wait till we have asked."
'When they came back from the Question-place (their Gods are
our Gods), their Priestess said, "The God needs a proof that your
words are true." I said, "What is the proof?" She said, "The God
says that if you have come for the sake of your people you will
give him your right eye to be put out; but if you have come for
any other reason you will not give it. This proof is between you
and the God. We ourselves are sorry."
'I said, "This is a hard proof. Is there no other road?"
'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.'
'I know they are not; but I would sell them all - all - all for one
small child of my own, smearing himself with the ashes of our
own house-fire.'
He wrenched his knife from the turf, thrust it into his belt and
stood up.
'And yet, what else could I have done?' he said. 'The sheep are
the people.'
'It is a very old tale,' Puck answered. 'I have heard the like of it
not only on the Naked Chalk, but also among the Trees - under
Oak, and Ash, and Thorn.'
The afternoon shadows filled all the quiet emptiness of Norton
Pit. The children heard the sheep-bells and Young jim's busy
bark above them, and they scrambled up the slope to the level.
'We let you have your sleep out,' said Mr Dudeney, as the flock
scattered before them. 'It's making for tea-time now.'
'Look what I've found, said Dan, and held up a little blue flint
arrow-head as fresh as though it had been chipped that very day.
'Oh,' said Mr Dudeney, 'the closeter you be to the turf the
more you're apt to see things. I've found 'em often. Some says the
fairies made 'em, but I says they was made by folks like ourselves
- only a goodish time back. They're lucky to keep. Now, you
couldn't ever have slept - not to any profit - among your father's
trees same as you've laid out on Naked Chalk - could you?'
'One doesn't want to sleep in the woods,' said Una.
'Then what's the good of 'em?' said Mr Dudeney. 'Might as
well set in the barn all day. Fetch 'em 'long, Jim boy!'
The Downs, that looked so bare and hot when they came, were
full of delicious little shadow-dimples; the smell of the thyme and
the salt mixed together on the south-west drift from the still sea;
their eyes dazzled with the low sun, and the long grass under it
looked golden. The sheep knew where their fold was, so Young
Jim came back to his master, and they all four strolled home, the
scabious-heads swishing about their ankles, and their shadows
streaking behind them like the shadows of giants.
Song of the Men's Side
Once we feared The Beast - when he followed us we ran,
Ran very fast though we knew
It was not right that The Beast should master Man;
But what could we Flint-workers do?
The Beast only grinned at our spears round his ears -
Grinned at the hammers that we made;
But now we will hunt him for the life with the Knife -
And this is the Buyer of the Blade!
Room for his shadow on the grass - let it pass!
To left and right - stand clear!
This is the Buyer of the Blade - be afraid!
This is the great God Tyr!
Tyr thought hard till he hammered out a plan,
For he knew it was not right
(And it is not right) that The Beast should master Man;
So he went to the Children of the Night.
He begged a Magic Knife of their make for our sake.
When he begged for the Knife they said:
'The price of the Knife you would buy is an eye!'
And that was the price he paid.
Tell it to the Barrows of the Dead - run ahead!
Shout it so the Women's Side can hear!
This is the Buyer of the Blade - be afraid!
This is the great God Tyr!
Our women and our little ones may walk on the Chalk,
As far as we can see them and beyond.
We shall not be anxious for our sheep when we keep
Tally at the shearing-pond.
We can eat with both our elbows on our knees, if we please,
We can sleep after meals in the sun;
For Shepherd-of-the-Twilight is dismayed at the Blade,
Feet-in-the-Night have run!
Dog-without-a-Master goes away (Hai, Tyr aie!),
Devil-in-the-Dusk has run!
Then:
Room for his shadow on the grass - let it pass!
To left and right - stand clear!
This is the Buyer of the Blade - be afraid!
This is the great God Tyr!
