The Sword of Welleran and Other Stories

  The Whirlpool

  Once going down to the shore of the great sea I came upon theWhirlpool lying prone upon the sand and stretching his huge limbs inthe sun.

  I said to him: 'Who art thou?'

  And he said:

  'I am named Nooz Wana, the Whelmer of Ships, and from the Straits ofPondar Obed I am come, wherein it is my wont to vex the seas. ThereI chased Leviathan with my hands when he was young and strong; oftenhe slipped through my fingers, and away into the weed forests thatgrow below the storms in the dusk on the floor of the sea; but atlast I caught and tamed him. For there I lurk upon the ocean'sfloor, midway between the knees of either cliff, to guard thepassage of the Straits from all the ships that seek the FurtherSeas; and whenever the white sails of the tall ships come swellinground the corner of the crag out of the sunlit spaces of the KnownSea and into the dark of the Straits, then standing firm upon theocean's floor, with my knees a little bent, I take the waters of theStraits in both my hands and whirl them round my head. But the shipcomes gliding on with the sound of the sailors singing on her decks,all singing songs of the islands and carrying the rumour of theircities to the lonely seas, till they see me suddenly astride athwarttheir course, and are caught in the waters as I whirl them round myhead. Then I draw in the waters of the Straits towards me anddownwards, nearer and nearer to my terrible feet, and hear in myears above the roar of my waters the ultimate cry of the ship; forjust before I drag them to the floor of ocean and stamp them asunderwith my wrecking feet, ships utter their ultimate cry, and with itgo the lives of all the sailors and passes the soul of the ship. Andin the ultimate cry of ships are the songs the sailors sing, andtheir hopes and all their loves, and the song of the wind among themasts and timbers when they stood in the forest long ago, and thewhisper of the rain that made them grow, and the soul of the tallpine-tree or the oak. All this a ship gives up in one cry which shemakes at the last. And at that moment I would pity the tall ship ifI might; but a man may feel pity who sits in comfort by his firesidetelling tales in the winter--no pity are they permitted ever tofeel who do the work of the gods; and so when I have brought hercircling from round my shoulders to my waist and thence, with hermasts all sloping inwards, to my knees, and lower still anddownwards till her topmast pennants flutter against my ankles, thenI, Nooz Wana, Whelmer of Ships, lift up my feet and trample herbeams asunder, and there go up again to the surface of the Straitsonly a few broken timbers and the memories of the sailors and oftheir early loves to drift for ever down the empty seas.

  'Once in every hundred years, for one day only, I go to rest myselfalong the shore and to sun my limbs on the sand, that the tall shipsmay go through the unguarded Straits and find the Happy Isles. Andthe Happy Isles stand midmost among the smiles of the sunny FurtherSeas, and there the sailors may come upon content and long fornothing; or if they long for aught, they shall possess it.

  'There comes not Time with his devouring hours; nor any of the evilsof the gods or men. These are the islands whereto the souls of thesailors every night put in from all the world to rest from going upand down the seas, to behold again the vision of far-off intimatehills that lift their orchards high above the fields facing thesunlight, and for a while again to speak with the souls of old. Butabout the dawn dreams twitter and arise, and circling thrice aroundthe Happy Isles set out again to find the world of men, then followthe souls of the sailors, as, at evening, with slow stroke ofstately wings the heron follows behind the flight of multitudinousrooks; but the souls returning find awakening bodies and endure thetoil of the day. Such are the Happy Isles, whereunto few have come,save but as roaming shadows in the night, and for only a littlewhile.

  'But longer than is needed to make me strong and fierce again I maynot stay, and at set of sun, when my arms are strong again, and whenI feel in my legs that I can plant them fair and bent upon the floorof ocean, then I go back to take a new grip upon the waters of theStraits, and to guard the Further Seas again for a hundred years.Because the gods are jealous, lest too many men shall pass to theHappy Isles and find content. _For the gods have not content_.'