The Water of the Wondrous Isles by William Morris (best ereader for textbooks .txt) 📕

and taken the occasion of her nakedness and absence that she might draw her back to the House of Captivity. And this the more as the precious ring was sewn to Birdalone’s smock, and the witch would have found it there when she handled the raiment.

Birdalone wasted no time in seeking for the lost; she looked down on to the smooth sand, and saw there footprints which were not her own, and all those went straight back home to the house. Then she turned, and for one moment of time looked up toward the house, and saw plainly the witch come out adoors, and the sun flashed from something bright in her hand.

Then indeed she made no stay, but set off running at her swiftest along the waterside toward the creek and the Sending Boat. As is aforesaid she was as fleet-foot as a deer, so but in a little space of time she had come to the creek, and leapt into the boat, panting and breathless. She turned and looked hastily along the path her feet had just worn, and deemed she saw a fluttering and flashing coming along it, but some way off; yet was not sure, for her eyes were dizzy with the swiftness of her flight and the hot sun and the hurry of her heart. Then she looked about a moment confusedly, for she called to mind that in her nakedness she had neither knife, nor scissors, nor bodkin to let her blood withal. But even therewith close to hand she saw hanging down a stem of half-dead briar-rose with big thorns upon it; she hastily tore off a length thereof and scratched her left arm till the blood flowed, and stepped lightly first to stem and then to stern, and besmeared them therewith. Then she sat down on the thwart and cried aloud:

The red raven-wine now
Hast thou drunk, stern and bow;
Then wake and awake
And the wonted way take!
The way of the Wender forth over the flood,
For the will of the Sender is blent with the blood.

Scarce had she time to wonder if the boat would obey her spell ere it began to stir beneath her, and then glided out into the lake and took its way over the summer ripple, going betwixt Green Eyot and the mainland, as if to weather the western ness of the eyot: and it went not a stonecast from the shore of the said mainland.

Hither to meet it now cometh the witch, running along the bank, her skirts flying wild about her, and a heavy short-sword gleaming in her hand. Her furious running she stayed over against the boat, and cried out in a voice broken for lack of breath:

Back over the flood
To the house by the wood!
Back unto thy rest
In the alder nest!
For the blood of the Sender lies warm on thy bow,
And the heart of the Wender is weary as now.

But she saw that the Sending Boat heeded her words nothing, whereas it was not her blood that had awakened it, but Birdalone’s. Then cried out the witch: O child, child! say the spell and come back to me! to me, who have reared thee and loved thee and hoped in thee! O come back!

But how should Birdalone heed her prayer? She saw the sax; and withal had her heart forgotten, her flesh might well remember. She sat still, nor so much as turned her head toward the witch-wife.

Then came wild yelling words from the witch’s mouth, and she cried: Go then, naked and outcast! Go then, naked fool! and come back hither after thou hast been under the hands of the pitiless! Ah, it had been better for thee had I slain thee! And therewith she whirled the sax over her head and cast it at Birdalone. But now had the boat turned its head toward the ness of Green Eyot and was swiftly departing, so that Birdalone but half heard the last words of the witch-wife, and the sax fell flashing into the water far astern.

There the witch stood tossing her arms and screaming, wordless; but no more of her saw Birdalone, for the boat came round about the ness of Green Eyot, and there lay the Great Water under the summer heavens all wide and landless before her. And it was now noon of day.

Here ends the First Part of the Water of the Wondrous Isles, which is called Of the House of Captivity. And now begins the Second Part, which is called Of the Wondrous Isles.

The Second Part Of the Wondrous Isles I The First Isle

So glided Birdalone over the lake and was come forth from the House of Captivity; it might well be that she was but swimming unto death; naked as she was, fireless, foodless, and helpless, at the mercy of mere sorcery. Yet she called to mind the word of the wood-mother that they should meet again, and took heart thereby; and she was glad in that she had had her will, and shaken off the guile and thraldom of the witch. Much she thought of the wood-mother, and loved her, and wondered had she yet sought into and seen her welfare by the burning of a hair of that tress of hers; and therewith she looked on that tress of Habundia’s hair and kissed it.

All day the Sending Boat sped on, and she saw no land and nought to tell of. It was but wave and sky and the familiar fowl of the lake, as coot, and mallard, and heron, and now and then a swift wood-dove going her ways from shore to shore; two gerfalcons she saw also, an osprey, and a great ern on his errand high up aloft.

Birdalone waked in her loneliness till the day was spent, and somewhat worn of the night; then she fell asleep for weariness; but so it was, that before dusk she had deemed that a blue cloud lay before her