have come to offer you a different life,’ said the fox, and transformed into a naked man with fox red hair and green eyes, pale in the starlight.
‘Why would I want a different life?’ asked Dara. His eyes were full of the beauty of the Fox. He had never seen the like.
‘They do not value you,’ the Fox told him. ‘We would cherish you. We would love you.’
‘What is love?’ asked Dara.
Fox drew him close and kissed him and Iron-Dara melted like ore in the furnace, even like the red iron ready to be poured. His body was on fire for the touch of the fox, and they stroked and slid and made love in the manner of men, in the starlight, in the darkness, until Dara cried aloud in astonishment and delight.
‘Thus,’ said the Fox. ‘Come with me?’
‘Where?’ asked Dara.
‘There,’ replied the fox. He made a gesture and a cave mouth gaped.
‘That is Annywn’s kingdom,’ said Dara. ‘You are Tylwyth Teg, an elf-man.’
‘I am,’ said the fox, ‘and we need a smith. The world is now full of iron, which is poison to us. We must have someone who can work it, and you are that man.’
‘Will you stay with me, in that dark place?’ asked Dara.
‘I will, and it is not dark, but full of light and music. I will lie every night in your arms until the rivers of Annwyn run dry, which is the end of the world.’
‘But you are a fox and an elf,’ said Dara, suddenly afraid. ‘How can I believe you?’
‘You must do as your heart tells you,’ sighed the fox, reverting to animal form and stretching first his front legs and then his back legs, ending with a flourish of tail. ‘I will come back here for three nights. After that - ‘ the animal shook his head. ‘Then I must wait a few more centuries for another such smith. Farewell,’ he said, and loped off into the darkness.
Dara fell asleep. When he woke the sun of afternoon was in his eyes and he plodded back to the village. The others were all there, proclaiming deer and bear and badger and eagle and otter: all the proper animals. Dara sat down at the shaman’s feet. At last the old man noticed him.
‘Dara? What came to you?’
‘A fox,’ he said. ‘Who was not just a fox.’
The shaman saw at once with his second sight that Dara had lain with the Tylwyth Teg, and cried out, scrambling to his feet.
‘Begone!’ he shouted. ‘Tainted! Death Marked! Cursed!’
‘Then I will take my due,’ grunted Dara. He walked back to the forge. His father struck at him. Dara batted the blow away. He was stronger now than his father, the smith. He gathered his own tools and a supply of iron nuggets, won by women from the bog. He took a loaf and a jug of ale and a blanket and walked away from the village he had lived in all of his life.
Stones were thrown after him. Only a few hit his bent back. He fell to his knees, got up, and went on.
When he came to the place where he thought he had met the fox, he sat down, wrapped his blanket around him, ate his bread and drank his ale until darkness fell. Then he sang into the dusk the song of Haearn-Dara.
‘Outcast Dara
Calls to his lover
Fox or Elf
Return to me!
Keep your promise!
I will forge for you
Beautiful knives
Gem-set brooches
Fine strong nails
If you will have me.
From the darkness came the Song of the Fox
Oh my iron-worker
I will love you
I will lie with you
Until the end of the world
If you will come with me
If you will take my hand.
Dara extended his calloused smith’s hand. He felt a clasp, and then was blinking in a great hall, hung with many lights. Music swelled around him.
‘You are home,’ said the Fox, and kissed him.
At the place where the gate of Annywn had opened grew two trees: an ash and an oak. Onn and Dara. They grew tall and strong. The people of the village avoided them. Anyone who strayed between heard strange music, the bark of a dog-fox, the strokes of a smith’s hammer, and enchanting, distant laughter.
MERLIN
Finally, a tree was returning his song.
Phillip Beckford, 2nd Earl of Doveton, had been playing his syrinx (an instrument of his own invention)all morning to the oaks, which were the oldest trees on his estate. He had been studying the nature of tunes sung by birds and seals, for three years. Plato had suggested that the universe began because of heavenly harmony and the Bible said that the morning stars sang together. Close research into Ancient Greek Orphic hymns had disclosed what the Orpheans thought were the notes which Orpheus used to charm man and beast alike, and so, they ought to work on trees. Perhaps they just took longer to react. These oaks were eight hundred years old. Three hundred years growing, three hundred years living, three hundred years dying, that’s what the country folk said about oaks. By the time that they replied, it might be a year later.
Perhaps he should seek out some saplings. They might be more responsive.
But at last, this very old and beautiful oak was singing in return. A modal song, the Myxolidian, sad and sweet. The tune resembled ‘Long A-Growing’. He stared into the trunk, playing the syrinx, a high, sweet piping, harmonising with the tree’s voice, and a figure began to emerge from the dark, wrinkled, iron hard bark. Man-sized, a man-face and head, long hair blown back, high nose, deep eye sockets, coming into being like a dark grey cloud picture. Phillip played, the tree sang, and gradually the man emerged, a hamadryad, a tree spirit.
Phillip longed for a male creature to love him, to stay close to him, to lie next to his heart. Legend said that the people of the trees were faithful, beautiful, and kind. His human lover had died young of a fever in Germany. He could never love anything mortal again. But he burned and wept in his solitude. He was virtuous, and cautious, enough not to consort with the dark powers. But he was so lonely in his great house, with servants and relatives and nothing at all to do, since he had lost the Queen’s Favour for not marrying the woman of her choice. Her Majesty had icily advised him that his presence was no longer acceptable in her court.
It would not have been right, to marry poor Bess. She was a kind girl and deserved a good husband.
But the tree was singing and the spirit was almost separate from it, gaining colour as his flesh struck the air. He was beautiful, pale skin, waist-length, oak-bark coloured hair, eyes as green as new oak leaves. But his mouth was as red as a holly berry and he wreathed his new arms around Phillip’s shoulders and kissed him, breathing his first breath from his lips.
Phillip sobbed, kissed, and slumped to the ground. The tree man followed, kissing, and then somehow Phillip was naked, too, and they were lying together on a previously unsuspected purpl cloak, and Phillip and the tree man were making love so sweetly and generously that they cried out together and lay snuggled into each other’s embrace.
Then the tree fell silent. The tree man lay back, chuckling, staring into Phillip’s eyes, and stroked his cheek with one smooth forefinger. He was young, perhaps, his body was muscular and unscarred, his face unwrinkled. But there was a depth of age and wisdom in his eyes which made Phillip almost afraid.
‘You freed me,’ said the tree man. His voice was deep and rich and strongly accented. ‘What is your name, my love?’