The Kith of the Elf Folk
Chapter I
The north wind was blowing, and red and golden the last days of Autumn were streaming hence.
Solemn and cold over the marshes arose the evening.
It became very still.
Then the last pigeon went home to the trees on the dry land in the distance, whose shapes already had taken upon themselves a mystery in the haze.
Then all was still again.
As the light faded and the haze deepened, mystery crept nearer from every side.
Then the green plover came in crying, and all alighted.
And again it became still, save when one of the plover arose and flew a little way uttering the cry of the waste.
And hushed and silent became the earth, expecting the first star.
Then the duck came in, and the widgeon, company by company: and all the light of day faded out of the sky saving one red band of light.
Across the light appeared, black and huge, the wings of a flock of geese beating up wind to the marshes.
These, too, went down among the rushes.
Then the stars appeared and shone in the stillness, and there was silence in the great spaces of the night.
Suddenly the bells of the cathedral in the marshes broke out, calling to evensong.
Eight centuries ago on the edge of the marsh men had built the huge cathedral, or it may have been seven centuries ago, or perhaps nine—it was all one to the Wild Things.
So evensong was held, and candles lighted, and the lights through the windows shone red and green in the water, and the sound of the organ went roaring over the marshes.
But from the deep and perilous places, edged with bright mosses, the Wild Things came leaping up to dance on the reflection of the stars, and over their heads as they danced the marsh-lights rose and fell.
The Wild Things are somewhat human in appearance, only all brown of skin and barely two feet high.
Their ears are pointed like the squirrel's, only far larger, and they leap to prodigious heights.
They live all day under deep pools in the loneliest marshes, but at night they come up and dance.
Each Wild Thing has over its head a marsh-light, which moves as the Wild Thing moves; they have no souls, and cannot die, and are of the kith of the Elf-folk.
All night they dance over the marshes, treading upon the reflection of the stars (for the bare surface of the water will not hold them by itself); but when the stars begin to pale, they sink down one by one into the pools of their home.
Or if they tarry longer, sitting upon the rushes, their bodies fade from view as the marsh-fires pale in the light, and by daylight none may see the Wild Things of the kith of the Elf-folk.
Neither may any see them even at night unless they were born, as I was, in the hour of dusk, just at the moment when the first star appears.
Now, on the night that I tell of, a little Wild Thing had gone drifting over the waste, till it came right up to the walls of the cathedral and danced upon the images of the coloured saints as they lay in the water among the reflection of the stars.
And as it leaped in its fantastic dance, it saw through the painted windows to where the people prayed, and heard the organ roaring over the marshes.
The sound of the organ roared over the marshes, but the song and prayers of the people streamed up from the cathedral's highest tower like thin gold chains, and reached to Paradise, and up and down them went the angels from Paradise to the people, and from the people to Paradise again.
Then something akin to discontent troubled the Wild Thing for the first time since the making of the marshes; and the soft grey ooze and the chill of the deep water seemed to be not enough, nor the first arrival from northwards of the tumultuous geese, nor the wild rejoicing of the wings of the wildfowl when every feather sings, nor the wonder of the calm ice that comes when the snipe depart and beards the rushes with frost and clothes the hushed waste with a mysterious haze where the sun goes red and low, nor even the dance of the Wild Things in the marvellous night; and the little Wild Thing longed to have a soul, and to go and worship God.
And when evensong was over and the lights were out, it went back crying to its kith.
But on the next night, as soon as the images of the stars appeared in the water, it went leaping away from star to star to the farthest edge of the marshlands, where a great wood grew where dwelt the Oldest of the Wild Things.
And it found the Oldest of Wild Things sitting under a tree, sheltering itself from the moon.
And the little Wild Thing said:
'I want to have a soul to worship God, and to know the meaning of music, and to see the inner beauty of the marshlands and to imagine Paradise.'
And the Oldest of the Wild Things said to it:
'What have we to do with God?
We are only Wild Things, and of the kith of the Elf-folk.'
But it only answered,
'I want to have a soul.'
Then the Oldest of the Wild Things said:
'I have no soul to give you; but if you got a soul, one day you would have to die, and if you knew the meaning of music you would learn the meaning of sorrow, and it is better to be a Wild Thing and not to die.'
So it went weeping away.
But they that were kin to the Elf-folk were sorry for the little Wild Thing; and though the Wild Things cannot sorrow long, having no souls to sorrow with, yet they felt for awhile a soreness where their souls should be, when they saw the grief of their comrade.
So the kith of the Elf-folk went abroad by night to make a soul for the little Wild Thing.
And they went over the marshes till they came to the high fields among the flowers and grasses.
And there they gathered a large piece of gossamer that the spider had laid by twilight; and the dew was on it.
Into this dew had shone all the lights of the long banks of the ribbed sky, as all the colours changed in the restful spaces of evening.
And over it the marvellous night had gleamed with all its stars.
Then the Wild Things went with their dew-bespangled gossamer down to the edge of their home.