The Legend of Ulenspiegel Volume I Part 50

She was alone with Nele sewing beside the lamp. At the noise he made on coming within, Katheline dully lifted up her head like a woman awakened out of a heavy slumber.

He said to her:

"The ashes of Claes beat upon my breast; I would fain save the land of Flanders. I asked the Great G.o.d of heaven and earth, but He gave me no answer."

Katheline said:

"The Great G.o.d could not hear you: first you must address yourself to the spirits of the elemental world, which being of double nature, celestial and terrestrial, receive the complaints of poor humankind, and transmit them to the angels, which after bear them to the throne."

"Help me," said he, "in my design; I will pay thee with my blood if need be."

Replied Katheline:

"I will help thee, if a girl that loveth thee would bring thee with her to the sabbath of the Spirits of the Springtide, which is the Easter of the Sap."

"I will bring him," said Nele.

Katheline poured into a crystal goblet a grayish coloured mixture of which she gave them both to drink; with this mixture she rubbed their temples, their nostrils, palms of the hand and wrists, made them swallow a pinch of a white powder, and bade them look at the other, that their two souls might become as but one.

Ulenspiegel looked at Nele, and the kind soft eyes of the girl lit up a great fire within him; then by reason of the mixture he felt as it might have been a thousand crabs tearing at him.

Then they took off their clothes, and they were beautiful thus in the lamplight, he in his proud strength, she in her delicious grace; but they could not see one another, for already they were as though in sleep. Then Katheline laid Nele's neck upon Ulenspiegel's arm, and taking his hand put it upon the maiden's heart.

And they remained thus naked and lying one beside the other.

It seemed to them twain that their bodies touching each other were of fire soft as the sun in the month of roses.

They rose up, as they told later, mounted upon the window sill, launched themselves thence into void s.p.a.ce, and felt the air bear them up as the water bears the ships.

Then they perceived nothing any more, neither the earth where poor men were sleeping, nor the heavens where but now the clouds were rolling beneath their feet. And they set their feet on Sirius, the Cold Star. Then from there they were cast upon the pole.

There they saw, not without fear, a naked giant, the Giant Winter, with tawny hair, seated upon ice mounds and against a wall of ice. In shallow pools bears and seals were moving hither and thither, a bellowing flock, all about him. In a hoa.r.s.e voice, he called up hail and snow and cold floods and gray clouds and red and foul-smelling fogs, and the winds, among which the bitter north wind hath the strongest blast. And all raged together at once in this deadly place.

Smiling upon these horrors, the giant was lying upon a bed of flowers faded by his hand, upon leaves withered at his breath. Then leaning over and scratching the earth with his nails, biting it with his teeth, he delved a hole to seek for the heart of the earth; to devour it, and also to put black coal in the place where shady forests were, straw where the corn was, sand in the room of the fertile earth. But the heart of the earth being of fire, he dared not touch it and recoiled abashed and afraid.

He was throned like a king, draining his cup of oil, in the midst of his bears and his seals, and of the skeleton bones of all those whom he had killed upon the sea, upon land, and in the cottages of poor folk. He listened with delight to the roaring of the bears, the bellowing of the seals, and the dry rattling of the bones of the skeletons of men and beasts under the claws of vultures and ravens seeking a last rag of flesh on them, and the sound of ice lumps dashed one against the other by the gloomy water.

And the voice of the giant was like the roar of hurricanes, the clamour of wintry storms, and the wind howling in chimneys.

"I am acold and am afeard," said Ulenspiegel.

"He hath no power against spirits," answered Nele.

Suddenly there was a great stir among the seals, which dashed in haste into the water, the bears, which laying their ears flat with fright, roared lamentably, and the ravens, which lost themselves in the clouds with agonized croakings.

And lo, Nele and Ulenspiegel heard the dull thudding blows of a ram upon the wall of ice that served as a support to the Giant Winter. And the wall split and cracked and shook to and fro on its foundations.

But the Giant Winter heard nothing, and he went on howling and shouting in glee, filling and draining his cup of oil; and he went on searching for the heart of the earth to freeze it, and not daring to lay hold of it.

Meantime, the blows reechoed louder and harder, and the wall cracked more and more, and the rain of icicles flying in splintered pieces ceased not to fall about him.

And the bears roared lamentably and without ceasing, and the seals complained in the leaden gloomy water.

The wall crumbled and fell, and it became light in the sky; a man descended therefrom, naked and beautiful, leaning one hand upon a golden axe. And this man was Lucifer, King Springtide.

When the giant beheld him, he flung far away his cup of oil, and implored him not to slay him.

And at the warm breath of King Springtide, the Giant Winter lost all strength. Then the king took chains of diamonds, bound him with these, and tied him to the pole.

Then staying, he uttered a cry, but a tender, amorous cry. And from the sky came down a blonde woman, naked and beautiful. Placing herself beside the king, she said to him:

"Thou art my vanquisher, mighty man."

He made answer:

"If thou art an-hungered, eat; if thou art athirst, drink; if thou art afraid, come close to me: I am thy male and thy mate."

"I am," said she, "hungry and athirst only for thee."

The king shouted yet again seven times terribly. And there was a mighty din of thunder and lightning, and behind him there took shape a canopy of suns and of stars. And the twain sat them down upon thrones.

Then the king and the woman, without a movement of their n.o.ble faces, and without a gesture impairing their might and their calm majesty, cried aloud.

At these cries there was an undulating movement in the earth, the hard stone and the ice floes. And Nele and Ulenspiegel heard a noise such as might be made by gigantic birds seeking to break the sh.e.l.l of enormous eggs with blows of their beak.

And in this huge movement of the earth which rose and fell like the waves of the sea there were shapes like the shape of an egg.

Suddenly from everywhere came forth trees with their dry branches dovetailed and interlocked together, while their boles moved, swaying like drunken men. Then they drew apart, leaving between them a huge void s.p.a.ce. From the stirring soil came forth the genii of the earth; from the deeps of the forest the woodland spirits; from the sea near by the genii of the water.

Ulenspiegel and Nele saw there the dwarfs that are the wardens of treasure, hunchbacked, hairy, clumsy-foot, ugly and grinning, princes of the stones, men of the woods living like trees, and, by way of mouth and stomach, having a tuft of roots at the lower part of their face, thus to suck up their food from the bosom of the earth; the emperors of mines, who cannot speak, have neither heart nor entrails, and move like bright automatons. There, too, were dwarfs of flesh and bone, with lizard tails, toads' heads, and lantern for headgear, who leap by night upon the shoulders of drunken men afoot or timid travellers, leap down again and waving their lantern, lead into pools and bogholes the poor devils who imagine that this lantern is the candle burning in their homes.

There, too, were the flower-maidens, flowers of feminine strength and haleness, naked and not blushing, proud of their beauty, having for their only cloak their hair.

Their eyes shone with the wet l.u.s.tre of mother of pearl in water; the flesh of their bodies was firm, white, and gilded by the light; from their red mouths partly open came a breath more sweet and fragrant than jasmine.

These are they that wander by eventide in parks and gardens, or in the deeps of the woods, in shady bridle ways, amorous and seeking some human soul to enjoy it. So soon as pa.s.seth before them a young man and a young maid, they seek to slay the maid, but when they cannot, they breathe into the sweetling, still reluctant, desires of love so that she may yield herself to the lover; for then the flower-maiden hath half of the kisses.

Ulenspiegel and Nele saw also coming down from the high heavens the guardian spirits of the stars, the genii of the winds, of the breeze and the rain, winged young men that make the earth fertile.

Then in every quarter of the sky appeared the birds of souls, the dear swallows. When they were come, the light appeared stronger. Flower-maids, princes of the stones, emperors of the mines, men of the woods, spirits of the water, of fire, and of the earth all cried out in unison: "Light! Sap! Glory to King Springtide!"

Although the sound of their unanimous outcry was greater than that of the raging sea, the thunder, and the unleashed tempest, it sounded as solemn music in the ears of Nele and of Ulenspiegel, who, silent and motionless, remained huddled together behind the rugged trunk of an oak tree.

But they were still more affrighted when the spirits, thousands upon thousands, took their places upon seats that were immense spiders, toads with elephants, trunks, interlacing serpents, crocodiles standing up on their tails and holding a band of spirits in their jaws, serpents carrying more than thirty dwarfs, both men and women, seated astraddle on their undulating bodies, and full a hundred thousand insects bigger than Goliaths, armed with swords, spears, jagged scythes, forks with seven tines, and every other kind of dreadful murdering implements. They fought together with tremendous din, the strong devouring the weak, growing fat upon them, and showing thus that Death is made from Life and that Life is made from Death.

And from among this crowd of spirits, swarming, shifting, dense, confused, there arose a noise like low thunder and a hundred weavers'

looms, fullers and locksmiths all working together.

Suddenly appeared the spirits of the sap, short, squat, round about the loins as big as the great Heidelberg tun, with thighs as big as hogsheads, and muscles so marvellously strong and powerful that one would have said their bodies were made up of large eggs and small eggs joined to one another and covered with a red, oily skin, shining like their spa.r.s.e beard and their red hair; and they carried enormous tankards filled with a strange liquor.