The Lad Of The Gad. Alan Garner

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СКАЧАТЬ and she fell as sticks.

      Upright John set fire to the sticks, burnt the Bad Straddling Queen, and was free of fear.

      He said to the Foxy Lad, “I have got the best wife of the world; the horse that will leave the one wind and catch the other; the falcon that will fetch me game; the sword that will keep off each foe; and I am free of fear.

      “And you, you Lad of March, have been my dearest friend since we were on the time of one trotter and a sheep’s cheek. Go now for ever through my ground. No arrow will be let at you. No trap will be set for you. Take any beast to take with you. Go now through my ground for ever.”

      “Keep your herds and your flocks to yourself,” said the Foxy Lad. “There is many a one who has trotters and sheep as well as you. I shall get flesh without coming to put trouble here. Peace on you, and my blessing, blessing, blessing, Upright John.”

      He went away. The tale was spent.

Rascally Tag

      There was a king, and his name was Donald. And in the kingdom there was a poor fisherman, who had a son, and the son took school and learning.

      The boy said to his father, “Father, it is time for me to be doing for myself to be a Champion.” So he picked sixteen apples from the garden and threw an apple out into the sea, and he gave a step on it. He threw the next one, and he gave a step on it. He threw one after one, until he came to the last, and the last apple brought him on land again.

      When he was on land again he shook his ears, and he thought that it was in no sorry place he would stay.

      So he moved as a wave from a wave

      And marbles from marbles,

      As a wild winter wind,

      Sightly and swiftly singing

      Right proudly,

      Through glens and high tops

      And made no stops

      Till he came to the city

      And court of Donald,

      And gave three hops

      Over turrets and tops

      Of court and of city

      Of Donald.

      And Donald took much anger and rage that such an unseemly ill stripling should come into the town, with two shoulders through his coat, two ears through his hat, his two squat kickering tattery shoes full of cold roadwayish water, three feet of his sword sideways on the side of his haunch, after the scabbard had ended.

      “I will not believe,” said the Champion, “but that you are taking anger and rage, King Donald.”

      “Well, then, I am,” said Donald, “if I did but know at what I should be angry.”

      “Good king,” said the Champion. “Coming in was no harder than going out would be.”

      “You are not going out,” said Donald, “till you tell me where you came from, with two shoulders through your coat, two ears through your hat, two squat kickering tattery shoes full of cold roadwayish water, three feet of sword sideways on the side of your haunch, after the scabbard has ended.”

      And the Champion said:

      “I come from hurry and skurry,

      From the end of endless Spring,

      From the loved, swanny glen:

      A night in Chester and a night in Man,

      A night on cold watching cairns.

      On the face of mountains

      In the English land

      Was I born.

      A slim, swarthy Champion am I,

      Though I happened upon this town.”

      “What,” said Donald, “can you do, o Champion? Surely, with all the distance you have travelled, you can do something.”

      “I was once,” said he, “that I could play a harp.”

      “Well, then,” said Donald, “it is I myself that have got the best harpers in the five fifths of the world.”

      “Let’s hear them playing,” said the Champion.

      The harpers played.

      They played tunes with wings,

      Trampling things, tightened strings,

      Warriors, heroes, and ghosts on their feet,

      Goblins and spectres, sickness and fever,

      They set in sound lasting sleep

      The whole great world

      With the sweetness of the calming tunes

      That those harpers could play.

      The music did not please the Champion. He caught the harps, and he crushed them under his feet, and he set them on the fire, and made himself a warming, and a sound warming, at them.

      Donald took lofty rage that a man had come into his court who should do the like of this to the harps.

      “My good man, Donald,” said the slim, swarthy Champion, “I will not believe but that you are taking anger.”

      “Well, then, I am,” said Donald, “if I did but know at what I should be angry.”

      “It was no harder for me to break your harps than to make them again,” said the Champion. And he seized the fill of his two palms of the ashes, and squeezed them, and made all the harpers their harps and a great harp for himself.

      “Let us hear your music,” said Donald. The Champion began to play.

      He could play tunes with wings,

      Trampling things, tightened strings,

      Warriors, heroes, and ghosts on their feet,

      Goblins and spectres, sickness and fever,

      That set in sound lasting sleep

      The whole great world

      With the sweetness of the calming tunes

      That Champion could play.

      “You are melodious, o Champion,” said the king. And he and his harpers took anger and rage that such an unseemly stripling, with two shoulders through his coat, two ears through his hat, two squat kickering tattery shoes full of cold roadwayish water, three feet of his sword sideways on the side СКАЧАТЬ