The Fairy Prince

HE town was a mess of crowded houses and huts, without form, like a heap of stones. It had been that, indeed, only a little while before. There were many Welshmen who boasted and prayed that it should be so again. But already there lay about it a low girdle of white, and the din and dust of King Edward's Flemish masons arose from sundown to sunset every day. Carnarvon would have its walls before winter drove the English soldiers back across the marches, before the hundred ships that furrowed the straits and lay, a dark forest, in the silver river mouth, fled from the equinox.

It was six hundred years ago, but if you know where to look you may still find the fairy ring on the side of Cefn-du, and the cave from which the little man came. His body was covered with a grey wolf's skin that left arms and legs bare. His head was all black beard and hair. On his left arm he wore a bracelet of wolf's teeth and yellow stones. Beside and behind him stood a woman, who wore a sheepskin dyed with madder. They were both very small and frail, but with the quick life of a wild animal in eye and poise. He spoke to her in a guttural droning language, and turned and went down the mountain side light and very swift of foot. They were of the race who held Wales before the Welshmen came; who wrought their axes and arrow-heads of stone; who were so strange of life that the Welsh accounted them not human nor mortal. They were of the little people whom we call fairies.

It was an evening in early spring, and after a day of showers the sky spread all lucid in pale blue and violet and lavender grey, and the vast jagged mountain peaks seemed close upon the green and silver of the sea. Some way down the slope the little man checked and stood at gaze. He looked across stony, barren land to the rich, dark vale of the Seiont. In among its blue-green tilth were patches of black desolation. He croned [sic] some melancholy song, and went on more slowly, swaying as he went. The little people loathed war and its havoc as things unclean.

The hand of the English conqueror lay heavy upon Wales. Llewelyn, her last prince, had been slain, and all his fastnesses were fallen, and the English king held his court in Carnarvon. Still the stubborn mountaineers of Gwynedd would not own him master. The English soldiery might march up and down their valleys and burn every homestead that offered defiance, but till the mountains were laid low there was refuge for every man who dared starvation, and, if they were but a remnant, the rest could go sullenly about their business, yielding no more than they must, and making the English infinite toil and hardship, and promising themselves rebellion at the first chance. Wales was conquered, but no man supposed that it was won, and, least of all men, the king in Carnarvon.

The little man, whom his wife called Corb, went down the valley while twilight fell, and slowly and more slowly, for he would not come near the houses of men who used iron and ate baked bread till nightfall. The stars stood in a dark sky before he came to the gate of Geulan for the “good piece,” the sodden goat's meat and the bowl of milk which the womenfolk of David, the maer of the cymwd, ever put outside for the fairies. But on this night “good piece” there was none, and lights were burning in the house, and a roaring din came from it. Corb shrank away, vanishing like a shadow behind the byres. He smelt the loathsome breath of war, and trembled like a wild animal aware of peril.

The house was built of stakes and wattle, roofed with branches and a thatch of furze. Within, two tree trunks, stripped of their bark and polished, supported the centre of the roof. Between them it was open to the sky, and smoke and sparks of a blazing fire shot upwards. The house was round and its earthen floor strewn with rushes. A table stood at one side laden with steaming dishes and horns of mead. At the head of it a raw-boned, black-browed fellow lolled in the only chair. He wore a long surcoat, much stained and faded, but gaudy still with a hundred embroideries. By the benches on either hand were a dozen fellows like him, but something less richly put on. They ate ravenously, and shouted at each other over their meat, and loudly and violently when they turned to ask more

Two women waited on them and a lad, with hate and fear in their eyes. An old man crouched over the fire hugging to his bosom a thing like a rude violin, and crooning to himself. The elder woman whispered something to the younger, a slight, pretty thing, all grace in her close white tunic, and she fled out into the night. The man at the head of the table turned with an oath:

“How now, you witch?” He caught the woman's wrist. “Bring your poppet back. I want her for my sport.”

The woman answered nothing, but her eyes told that she understood and defied him. He haled her close and tore off the white veil that she wore folded over her grey hair, and was saying something foul when the lad sprang in and tore her away. The soldier heaved himself up with a laugh: “Here's a snarling puppy!” quoth he, and struck the lad down into the fire. Then he stood holding his sides and chuckling while the woman dragged the senseless body from the flames. “What, you would deny the King's men would you, you Welsh vermin?” he said. “Out into the night with you and cool your blood. Mark you, bring me that girl back, or when we ride in the morning I will leave your homestead ashes.” He reached for the old man and dragged him up. “Tell her that in her own whining tongue, you croaking minstrel,” he roared, and shook him and hurled him upon the woman who was still kneeling by her son. Then he fell upon them and flung them out, and kicked the stunned boy after them. The others cheered him with laughing oaths, but as he came grinning back with an “I would teach Edward Longshanks a way to ha' done with these Welsh pardi!” there was one who twisted a lip and said, “He, too, hath a fancy for teaching at whiles.”

They drank up all the mead in the house, and then this captain of theirs, who was called Eustace o' Dover, rolled to the door and howled for the Welsh women. But they were fled away up the valley, and out of the darkness he heard no answer save a strange moaning song that rose and fell like a stormy wind, inhuman. Corb was singing a charm against him and all horsemen, after the manner of the little people when they were troubled by ill passion and violence. Eustace o' Dover fell silent and listened, and felt a chill sobriety and fear steal over him, and cried a querulous question. But only the moaning of the song answered him, and he barred the door in a hurry and went back to the fire. Certainly the mountains were full of devils.

But in the morning, when sunlight flooded the valley and there was no sound but bird song and the music of the river, he was mighty bold again, and swore the Welsh girl should not escape him. Then said one who had marked his fears, Grey Roger: “Ay, and you swore we should burn the house. But a man grows wise o' nights.”

“I'll leave the nest to lure the birds back,” quoth Eustace. “By sundown we will have them again.” So they rode away.

On that morning the King rode out from Carnarvon with his wolfhounds and his foresters. You see a tower of a man on the great black charger, lean, but huge of bone. His green surcoat is weatherbeaten and worn. The hat slung behind him leaves his close dark curls bare to the wind. It is a square-wrought head borne boldly, and never still, as his eyes look all ways. For all the dark curls, beard and moustache are red gold.

They were to rouse a wolf in the glens beneath Tryfan, but the din of war had driven the beasts from their haunts, and vainly the hounds ranged round Tryfan and across the valley to the glens beneath Moel Eilio. There they found, and to wild music thundered on up and down the glens towards Cefn-du.

So the little people saw them from their cave, and Corb stole out to join the sport. Never a fairy but counted it good work done to spoil a hunt that came nigh his dwelling, and these huntsmen were of the hated folk who had brought war to the mountains. So Corb laughed as he flitted on. Over the brow of a hill he caught the wolf's foam flecks from the furze and laid them on another line, and broke puff balls, and flung himself down in a tarn. Off on the false scent the hounds sped, and from above, from a cave, another of the little people echoed a wolf's yelp, and the hounds answered madly. But when the King crested the hill he marked the quarry against the skyline beyond the glen and checked a moment, and shouted to his foresters to whip the hounds back from the false scent, and dashed right on. The foresters rode off with blowing of horn and hallooing, but the din of wolves from the caves had made the hounds mad, and they would not be turned. So the foresters thundered after them, falling further and still further behind, while the King rode alone after his quarry.

Once and again he saw the wolf, and then in the combes to northward lost him altogether, and drew rein swearing, and turned to search for the hounds; but they were far away on the slopes above Llyn Padarn. He heard a shout, and rode to it. But that shout came from Corb, who lurked on the hillside above a bog. Again came the shout, and the King put spurs to his weary horse. The next moment green sward yielded beneath them with a hollow sucking sound, and the horse neighed in wild terror and plunged, and black slime rose like spray. The King hurled himself from the saddle, and, wriggling on the mire that sucked at him, reached a tussock of rushes, and another and another, and haled himself panting on to solid earth.

He had his reins still, and braced himself and flung back his shoulders and hauled at them, shouting jollily. Madly the horse struggled, ruthlessly the King hauled at the reins, and as though he were swimming in mud the horse plunged on, slowly, slowly, till his hoofs found something firm beneath the mire, and, with an ugly gulp of the sucking bog, he came out and stood streaming slime and shivering. And the King, who had no breath left to speak, whose sides were heaving as his, caressed him and leaned upon his neck.

Slowly down the hillside came Corb, sobbing fear. Behold, he had dared a mad deed. He had mocked at a magician. Never since the world began had man or beast fallen into that bog and come out again alive. But this giant had saved his horse and himself. Plainly a giant endued with the mastery of the elements, lord of earth and water and air and fire, a magician to be worshipped like the storm-cloud. Fearing doom for himself and all the little people, came Corb.

And behold the giant began to laugh! Corb was so quaint a thing, like a goblin from some minster's carving, so little and hairy, and bowed and quaking with fear. Corb bowed himself to the very ground, and put dirt upon his head. The giant laughed louder. Corb quaked the more. Such awful mirth must be omen of a grim doom. “Who art thou, o' God's Name?” the King roared. “Nay, nay, if thou art man do not play the worm.” For Corb had gone down grovelling. The King heaved him up by his wolfskin, and “Welsh art thou, little man?” he cried. And seeing that Corb understood nothing, he stumbled the question out in Welsh words.

Corb shook his head vehemently. “Of the mountain men,” he said, calling his race by the name themselves used. “Of the little people”—that was the Welsh name for them.

“A hobgoblin, pardi!” the King cried. “A fairy man!” and laughed again. “Well, Sieur Fairy, hast a house for me or so much as a stable? Our stomachs cry manger.” He made some more broken Welsh and signs, and Corb understood him, and, turning, beckoned him on. If this dread magician wanted no more than a meal he could be taken to the homestead of David the maer and left there, while Corb fled away to his cave.

The day was waning now, and the shadows of the mountains lay black across the glens. Before they came to the homestead—the King's horse was lame—the sun was gone, and light and shadow mingled in a cool grey mist.

Eustace and his men had been before them. All day Eustace lurked in a combe above the steading, and when he saw the Welsh women creep back through the shadows of sundown, he broke in for his prey. The boy tried to bar the door against him, and was dashed aside. Eustace snatched the girl with a loud laugh, and crushed her to his breast. She made no sound, only she fought him with every muscle of body and limb, fierce, indomitable. Her mother stood aloof, giving no cry nor aiding her, but staring at the Englishman hate and a cruel defiance. The rest of the soldiery began to jeer and laugh. For all his bulk and strength, Eustace could not master his lithe quarry. He cursed her, and put a hand to his dagger. Then Grey Roger waddled up and gripped his wrist, and chuckled: “Nay, nay, my master. Naked hand to naked hand is vantage enough for any man. And I'll lay a noble on the lass.”

The others laughed, but Eustace buffeted him off with an oath. “Out on you, knave. Who leads this troop, thou or I?”

“The lass is the better man,” Roger chuckled; and, indeed, the girl tore herself free and darted away and crouched behind her mother, clinging to her. The troop broke out in a great roar of laughter. Eustace strode upon her again cursing, but now Roger stood in his way. “No, by my faith! The lass hath won the bout, and Bully Eustace pays forfeit by all the laws of arms. How say you, lads?”

“Forfeit, forfeit!” they chuckled.

“I will ha' forfeit o' thy bones, Bully Roger,” Eustace roared. “Stand off, I say. And you” he grasped at the girl.

He was suddenly aware of silence. The room was still as death. He turned and looked into the eyes of the King and let the girl go, and shrank back and made a salute and shrank back again.

“Say your say,” growled the King.

Eustace looked at him a moment and down again at the ground. “I ha' nought to say,” he muttered.

“Till I came you had enough to say, methinks,” quoth the King. He looked round the house, at its dishevelled ugliness, the scattered refuse of food, the cowering woman, the mass of ashes on the hearth where the old minstrel crouched and fumbled, seeking among them the seed of fire. For if once the fire was out the life of the house was gone.

“Come hither, woman,” he said in his stumbling Welsh. “Fear nothing. I am the King.”

“There is no King in Wales,” she said, fiercely. “Our King Llewelyn is dead and hath left no seed.”

He looked down at her haughtily, and for a moment there was silence. On a sudden Grey Roger darted to the door and peered out and thrust it to and barred it, and turning with his back against it hissed out, “Sir, there are Welsh spearmen al] about us.”

The King sat himself down on a bench. “Who is captain here?” he said, placidly.

Eustace saluted again.

“Methinks you have work to do,” the King smiled grim.

“We will bear you safe through them, sir,” Eustace muttered.

“They should have our horses by now,” said the King.

Roger turned from the lattice window. “The horses are taken,” said he. “I reckon the Welshmen a hundred and more.”

“A hundred and more,” said the King, quietly. “Well, sir, I reckon you no paladin to fight a host. What brought them down on you?”

“It must be the imp of a boy,” Eustace muttered; and then the woman laughed loud.

The King turned to her: “What had he done to your boy?”

“What have you done to all Wales?” she cried, fiercely.

The King glanced at her daughter. “What hath he done by you, mistress?”

“Nothing, nothing! I am not hurt”; and she laughed.

The woman came a step nearer, and her eyes flamed at him: “Fool, fool!” she cried. “I made her the bait to tempt your wild beasts to their death, and now you, too, are caught.”

With grave eyes the King considered her and turned away. “It seems that you are a very skilful captain, Master Eustace,” said he. “Go to, order your battle.”

“We can hold the house,” said Eustace, sullenly.

“And if they fire it?” quoth Roger.

“They'll not fire it while the women are in.”

“I do not like your battle,” said the King. “The women shall go out to their kinsfolk, and with them, Master Eustace, go you and I, for I think it is I and you whom these Welshmen would choose.”

Eustace started back. “Not you, my lord!” he cried. “I will go. Yes, pardi, I will go yield myself, and the others may hold the house with the women and hold you safe till help comes from Carnarvon. I will go.”

There was a scream from the old minstrel: “The seed of fire! The seed lives!” He had found a living ember and blown it red, and was feeding it with dried furze and the flames leapt up. “The soul of the house is not dead!” and he began a wild, hoarse song.

The King stood up and laid his hand on Eustace's shoulder. “We go together,” he said. “For the rest—stand to your arms, hold out to the end.” He strode to the door and drew the bar and beckoned the women. Slowly, amazed they came, and close behind them Eustace and he marched out on the Welsh spears.

In the misty twilight they saw saffron cloaks clustering and the spear-heads glitter. The girl's mother cried out: “Iestyn! Iestyn! we have trapped their King. See, he follows after me to render himself.” There was a rustle, like the sound of bees in a grove of limes on a summer's day, and the Welshmen were all round them—a mob of sturdy, small men, for the most part with no armour above their tunics and saffron cloaks, for the most part bare-legged and bare-foot; but some few with little coats of mail and battle-axe, and sword in place of spear. They all chattered together. One who seemed the leader, not much more than a lad, and beardless, thrust through the midst and laid his hand on the King's arm, crying, “Yield thee to me, Iestyn, son of David, son of Owen.”

The King laughed, and put on his hand a hand that swallowed it up. “I am your King,” he said.

“He is taken. He shall pay the blood debt for David thy father, for Llewelyn our prince,” the woman cried, and there were shouts.

“I am your King,” he said again. “I come not to yield myself, but to do you justice.”

But it was plain that they made nothing of his broken Welsh. They were muttering and pressing closer when the girl cried out: “He is our King. He comes not to yield himself, but to do us justice.”

Then the crowd surged one way and another with a roar of talk, and Iestyn, the leader, turned upon his sister as her mother clutched her: “Nest! What sayest thou? They have wronged thee even as”

“I am not wronged. I am my own,” she cried.

Her mother screamed out: “The Englishman there, he laid hands upon her. He beat down Idwal into the fire.”

“I am the King,” the deep voice thundered. He smiled at the girl. “Speak my words in thy tongue, wench.”

So clear tones ringing phrase for phrase with the deep, it came in Welsh and English. “He says: 'I am the King. I come to assure you justice on this man who hath wronged the homestead here, and justice on any man whosoever that wrongs man or maid of you. For I will show favour to none that plunders or does violence, and of me the humblest serf in Wales shall have his equal right. I am your King.'”

Then there was silence awhile and looks of wonder and questioning, and then a wave of chatter, and the woman cried out: “An English king is no king of ours. We will have a Welshman to our prince.”

But as she spoke the blast of a horn broke through her words, and they were all hushed and straining to listen. The boom and clang of men-at-arms came near, and a man thrust breathless through the throng, crying: “The English knights!”

Iestyn, the leader, gripped the King's arm harder, and his mother cried out: “The blood debt! The blood debt! Strike while you may!”

But the girl screamed: “They came out to us with naked hands, Iestyn!” And Iestyn wavered, and his spearmen swayed and surged, and some gathered together and ran upon the King. Eustace hurled himself in the way, and their points clashed upon his coat of mail and slipped aside, but he was borne down. Falling, he snatched at Nest and dragged her with him, and shouted: “The girl dies if you strike the King!”

With an oath the King tore her away from him; but she, laughing wildly, cried out: “Let be, let it be so, my lord,” and struggled, and falling again into Eustace's arms, shrieked, “I die if you strike the King.”

On the tumult the English horsemen broke, and the Welsh scattered before them. But the King shouted: “Halt! Halt! We be all friends here. Who strikes, strikes the King.”

Then their captain rode up and saluted. “Orders, sir?” he asked, gruffly.

“Have this fellow in guard, Bertram,” quoth the King, thrusting at Eustace with his foot. He hauled the girl up again, and “Speak for me, mistress,” he said. “I charge you all come to me in Carnarvon on St. Mark's Day. Then shall you see this knave who hath wronged you judged before a Welsh prince. For I will give you a prince that was born in Wales, and can speak no word of English, and he shall rule you according to the ancient laws of Wales.”

Then the woman muttered: “A fairy prince!”

And the King laughed. “Come and see.”

The dawn of St. Mark's Day broke grey and golden over the mountains, and a haze of misty rain fled up the straits before the rising wind. In the huddled streets of Carnarvon garlands and chains of branches tossed and rustled and gleamed. Soon the town was teeming with people, the streets all eddying, crowded life. There were men-at-arms with coifs of mail and steel caps glittering above their blazoned surcoats, and the craftsmen and traders had on their gayest jerkins of russet and sarcitis and even marble cloth, each with a sprig of sweet herbs stuck in his cap. The girls had bound their hair with flowers or fillets of white, and their mothers' gorgets were never so gay, and never had Welsh town seen such a show of scarlet and purple tyretaine. Among all these you might see the white head cloths, folded like crowns, of Welsh women and Welsh saffron and madder gowns, and Welshmen holding together in little companies, muttering together, and looking askance at the Englishry, bare-legged and bare-footed, unarmed or hiding their arms beneath cloak and tunic. Beyond the half-built walls, where no guards were set, all along the green valleys beyond eyeshot, there were splashes of colour, white and crimson and gold, where from each homestead and hamlet Welsh folk were hurrying to the town.

Close above the quay, where the old tower stood green and yellow with lichen, where the first courses of the walls already marked the plan of the new castle, the yeomen of the King's household kept clear a great space. There flaunted banners, the three lions of England, gold upon red; the red cross of St. George, the three crowns of St. Edmund, gold upon blue; the cross and martlets of St. Edward the Confessor, in blue and gold. In a little while, when the crowd was already a score ranks deep beyond the barriers and the halberds, English nobles and knights came in state to the open space in the midst. “There had they many rich ornaments, broidered on cendals and samites; many a fair pennon fixed on a lance, many a banner displayed,” so that the gay spring air was alive with lions and leopards and stags and boars and trees and cinquefoil and roses and stars in all the colours of heraldry.

There was a daïs covered in crimson with gilt chairs upon it, and above a canopy all white and gold. Two hours before noon, marshalled by heralds in their tabards and led by the Justiciar of Wales, came a company of the Uchelwyr, the men of note among the Welsh. They were unarmed like the English.. knights, and their women walked with them; but against the English they were of a strange simplicity: no long frains nor mantles of velvet on the women, no broidery of gold to their gorgets and wimples; and the men, neither clean-shaven nor bearded like the English, but all with moustaches. The men had only cloaks and tunics that left knee and leg bare to their wadded boots, and there were but the three colours, white and saffron and madder, among them all.

When they were drawn up in ranks before the daïs, the trumpets sounded, and out from the tower came King Edward and his Queen. A gold diadem glittered on his close dark curls; her black hair flowed upon her shoulders from a band of gold. He wore a gown of red and gold, and her mantle was gold and white. Behind them walked the pageant of their lords and ladies. To the daïs they came and saluted the people and sat them down, and Robert Burnell, the Chancellor, a heavy man of heavy head, took stand beside the King; and beside the Queen came the women with the baby son that had been born to her in Carnarvon a little while before. Then the King stood up, a giant of a man, and he smiled down at the Queen, who sat very still and pale, her hands nervous on the white silk of her mantle. The Chancellor turned and made a sign to a black-gowned monk, and he came forward, and as the King spoke, spoke sentence for sentence in Welsh.

“My good folk of Wales,” the King cried, “to have your goodwill as I have your obedience I have bidden you here to-day. Ye have told me that ye will be content to take for your Prince any man so he be a Welshman. Say ye so still?”

Then there came from the Welsh folk before him mutterings and cries and shouts, and the monk turned to the King: “They say they will welcome any Prince to Wales that is Welshman born. But none other.”

The King laughed. “I will name you a Prince,” he cried, “if you will follow and obey him whom I name.”

And again there was muttering and shouting, and the monk turned and said: “So they swear to do if the King shall appoint one of their nation.”

The King strode forward: “I will name you one that was born in Wales and can speak never a word of English. In whose life and conversation you shall find nought of Englishry.”

Whereat the Welsh shouted loud and long, and the monk said: “For such an one they swear to give their lives.”

Then the King took from the captain of his yeomen, Sir Bertram Daylesford, his shield, and on it put his baby son that lay there murmuring softly, and he held the shield with its burden aloft and cried: “Behold your Prince! Here in Carnarvon was he born, and of England he knows nought. I give you mine own son to guard you. Hold him dear and cherish him, Prince of Wales.”

For a moment there was silence. Then the air was rent with shouts and laughter. After a while, from the midst of the Welsh folk, came out an old man and said: “Him we will hold dear and cherish, and for him we will give our lives,” and again the shouts rose loud.

The King called out for silence: “Look you, the first thing that your Prince shall do shall be justice. Stand forth you, Iestyn, and your mother and your sister. Bring me that knave Eustace.” Iestyn came from the crowd, flushed and uneasy, leading his mother Etthil, and the girl Nest clung to her. Two yeomen marched Eustace up. Then the King lowered the shield. “Here is one that hath wronged a Welsh homestead,” he cried. “Look, child!” and he made the baby look at Eustace, who was indeed no pretty sight, so that the baby cried bitterly. “Thy doom is said,” quoth the King, grimly. “Take him away and let him hang,” and Eustace bowed his head.

Then the girl Nest cried out: “My lord, my lord!” and flung wide her arms. And her mother said quickly: “No, no! the babe must not send him to death.”

And Iestyn drew himself up: “My lord, let the first thing we have of our Prince be mercy.”

The King put the child aside and said: “Hearken, Welsh folk! here be some of you that ask mercy on an Englishman that hath wronged a Welsh home. How say you?”

Loudly they shouted “Mercy! Mercy!”

“So be it,” quoth the King. “Let him go!” and the yeomen left their hold of Eustace, and he slunk away, and the eyes of the girl Nest followed him. “But hereafter, if any man whosoever doth wrong to Welsh folk their Prince will hold him to stern account.”

Again the shouts rose wildly, and in eager ranks the Welsh came up to look upon their Prince as he lay in his mother's arms.

That night in the caves of the little people it was told that peace had come again to Wales, and Corband all the little people knew that it was their work.