The Legend of Ulenspiegel Volume I Part 51

When the other spirits beheld them coming, a great tremor of joy ran among them; trees and plants moved and shook, and the earth opened up in cracks to drink.

And the spirits of the sap poured out the wine: and all things incontinently budded, were green, flourished; the sward was full of whispering insects, and the sky of birds and b.u.t.terflies; the spirits poured on and on, and those below received the wine as best they might: the flower-maids, opening their mouths or leaping up upon their red cupbearers, and kissing them to have more; some, clasping their hands in sign of entreaty; others who, in ecstasy, let it rain over them; but all greedy or parched, flying, standing, running or motionless, seeking to have the wine, and more intensely alive with every drop they attained to receiving. And there were no oldsters there, but ugly or goodly, all were full of prime strength and keenest youth.

And they laughed, shouted, sang, pursuing one another upon the trees like squirrels, in the air like birds, every male seeking his female and under the skies of G.o.d falling to the holy deed of kind.

And the spirits of the sap brought to the king and the queen the great cup full of their wine. And the king and the queen drank and embraced one another.

Then the king, holding the queen in his arm, cast upon the trees, the flowers and the spirits, the dregs of his cup and cried aloud:

"Glory to Life! Glory to the free Air! Glory to Force!"

And all shouted:

"Glory to Nature! Glory to Force!"

And Ulenspiegel took Nele into his arms. Thus enlaced, a dance began: a round circling dance like a dance of leaves that a whirlwind swings together, where all was in motion, trees, plants, insects, b.u.t.terflies, heaven and earth, king and queen, flower-maidens, emperors of mines, princes of stones, spirits of the waters, hunchback dwarfs, men of the woods, lantern bearers, guardian spirits of the stars, and the hundred thousand horrific insects mingling their spears, their saw-edged scythes, their seven-p.r.o.nged forks; a giddy dance, swaying about in s.p.a.ce and filling it, a dance in which the sun, the moon, the planets, the stars, the wind, the clouds, all took part.

And the oak to which Nele and Ulenspiegel were clinging rolled with the whirl, and Ulenspiegel said to Nele:

"Dear one, we are about to die."

A spirit heard them and saw that they were mortals:

"Mankind," he bawled, "mankind in this place!"

And he wrenched them from the tree and flung them in the crowd.

And Ulenspiegel and Nele fell soft and limp on the backs of the spirits, which bandied them about from one to another, saying:

"Hail to mankind! Welcome be the earth worms! Who would have the lad and la.s.s? They come to visit us, the puny things."

And Ulenspiegel and Nele flew from one to another, crying:

"Mercy!"

But the spirits paid no heed, and both went fluttering, legs in air, head down, turning and circling like feathers in the winter winds, while the spirits said:

"Glory to the manlings male and female, let them dance like us!"

The flower-maidens, wis.h.i.+ng to sever Nele from Ulenspiegel, smote her and would have killed her, had not King Springtide, staying the dance with a gesture, cried out:

"Let these two lice be brought before me!"

And they were separated one from the other; and each flower-maiden said, endeavouring to take Ulenspiegel from her rivals:

"Thyl, wouldst thou not die for me?"

"I will do so in a moment," said Ulenspiegel.

And the dwarf wood sprites that were carrying Nele said:

"Why art thou not a spirit like us, that we might take thee to us!"

Nele answered:

"Have patience."

Thus they arrived before the king's throne; and they trembled sore seeing his golden axe and his iron crown.

And he said to them:

"What are ye come hither to do, ye puny things?"

They made no answer.

"I know thee, witches' shoot," added the King, "and thee too, sprout of the coalman; but having by the power of spells achieved the deed of penetrating to this laboratory of Nature, why have ye now your beaks locked like capons stuffed with crumb?"

Nele trembled, looking at the terrible demon; but Ulenspiegel, recovering his manly hardihood, replied:

"The ashes of Claes beat upon my heart. Divine Highness, death goeth throughout the land of Flanders, mowing down, in the Pope's name, the strongest men, the sweetest women; her privileges are destroyed, her charters abolished, famine gnaweth her, her weavers and cloth merchants leave her to go to the foreigner seeking freedom for their work. She will die soon if no one comes to her help. Highness, I am but a poor mean fellow come into the world like any other, who have lived as I could, imperfect, limited, ignorant, not virtuous, in no wise chaste or deserving of any favour human or divine. But Soetkin died of the effects of the torture and her grief, but Claes burned in a terrible fire, and I was minded to avenge them, and did so once; I was minded also to see this poor soil happier, this poor soil in which their bones are sown, and I asked G.o.d for the death of the persecutors, but he did not hearken to me nor heed me. Weary and sick of complaints, I evoked thee by the potency of Katheline's spell, and we come, I and my trembling she-comrade, to thy feet, to ask you, Divine Highnesses, to save this poor earth."

The king and his spouse replied together:

"Through war and through fire Through death, through the sword.

Seek the Seven.

"In death and blood In ruin and tears, Find the Seven.

"Foul, cruel, bad, deformed, Mere Scourge of the poor earth.

Burn the Seven.

"Wait, hear and see!

Say, wretch, art thou not glad?

Find the Seven."

And all the spirits fell to chanting in unison:

"In death and blood, In ruin and tears Find the Seven.

"Wait, hear and see!

Say, wretch, art thou not glad?

Find the Seven."

"But," said Ulenspiegel, "Highness, and ye, spirits, I understand not your talk. Ye make a mock of me, sans doubt."