You shall see What you shall see and you shall hear What you shall hear, though It shall have happened three thousand year; and you shall know neither Doubt nor Fear. Fast! Hold fast all I give you.'
The children shut their eyes, but nothing happened.
'Well?' said Una, disappointedly opening them. 'I thought there would be dragons.'
"'Though It shall have happened three thousand year,"' said Puck, and counted on his fingers. 'No; I'm afraid there were no dragons three thousand years ago.'
'But there hasn't happened anything at all,' said Dan.
'Wait awhile,' said Puck. 'You don't grow an oak in a year - and Old England's older than twenty oaks. Let's sit down again and think. I can do that for a century at a time.'
'Ah, but you're a fairy,' said Dan.
'Have you ever heard me say that word yet?' said Puck quickly.
'No. You talk about "the People of the Hills", but you never say "fairies",' said Una. 'I was wondering at that.
Don't you like it?'
'How would you like to be called "mortal" or "human being" all the time?' said Puck; 'or "son of Adam" or "daughter of Eve"?'
'I shouldn't like it at all,' said Dan. 'That's how the Djinns and Afrits talk in the Arabian Nights.'
'And that's how I feel about saying - that word that I don't say. Besides, what you call them are made-up things the People of the Hills have never heard of - little buzzflies with butterfly wings and gauze petticoats, and shiny stars in their hair, and a wand like a schoolteacher's cane for punishing bad boys and rewarding good ones. I know 'em!'
'We don't mean that sort,'said Dan. 'We hate 'em too.'
'Exactly,' said Puck. 'Can you wonder that the People of the Hills don't care to be confused with that painty-winged, wand-waving, sugar-and-shake-your-head set of impostors? Butterfly wings, indeed! I've seen Sir Huon and a troop of his people setting off from Tintagel Castle for Hy-Brasil in the teeth of a sou'-westerly gale, with the spray flying all over the Castle, and the Horses of the Hills wild with fright. Out they'd go in a lull, screaming like gulls, and back they'd be driven five good miles inland before they could come head to wind again.
Butterfly-wings! It was Magic - Magic as black as Merlin could make it, and the whole sea was green fire and white foam with singing mermaids in it. And the Horses of the Hills picked their way from one wave to another by the lightning flashes! That was how it was in the old days!'
'Splendid,' said Dan, but Una shuddered.
'I'm glad they're gone, then; but what made the People of the Hills go away?' Una asked.
'Different things. I'll tell you one of them some day - the thing that made the biggest flit of any,' said Puck. 'But they didn't all flit at once. They dropped off, one by one, through the centuries. Most of them were foreigners who couldn't stand our climate. They flitted early.'
'How early?' said Dan.
'A couple of thousand years or more. The fact is they began as Gods. The Phoenicians brought some over when they came to buy tin; and the Gauls, and the Jutes, and the Danes, and the Frisians, and the Angles brought more when they landed. They were always landing in those days, or being driven back to their ships, and they always brought their Gods with them. England is a bad country for Gods. Now, I began as I mean to go on. A bowl of porridge, a dish of milk, and a little quiet fun with the country folk in the lanes was enough for me then, as it is now. I belong here, you see, and I have been mixed up with people all my days. But most of the others insisted on being Gods, and having temples, and altars, and priests, and sacrifices of their own.'
'People burned in wicker baskets?' said Dan. 'Like Miss Blake tells us about?'
'All sorts of sacrifices,' said Puck. 'If it wasn't men, it was horses, or cattle, or pigs, or metheglin - that's a sticky, sweet sort of beer. I never liked it. They were a stiff-necked, extravagant set of idols, the Old Things. But what was the result? Men don't like being sacrificed at the best of times; they don't even like sacrificing their farm-horses. After a while, men simply left the Old Things alone, and the roofs of their temples fell in, and the Old Things had to scuttle out and pick up a living as they could. Some of them took to hanging about trees, and hiding in graves and groaning o' nights. If they groaned loud enough and long enough they might frighten a poor countryman into sacrificing a hen, or leaving a pound of butter for them. I remember one Goddess called Belisama. She became a common wet water-spirit somewhere in Lancashire. And there were hundreds of other friends of mine. First they were Gods. Then they were People of the Hills, and then they flitted to other places because they couldn't get on with the English for one reason or another. There was only one Old Thing, I remember, who honestly worked for his living after he came down in the world. He was called Weland, and he was a smith to some Gods. I've forgotten their names, but he used to make them swords and spears. I think he claimed kin with Thor of the Scandinavians.'
'Heroes of Asgard Thor?' said Una. She had been reading the book.
'Perhaps,' answered Puck. 'None the less, when bad times came, he didn't beg or steal. He worked; and I was lucky enough to be able to do him a good turn.'
'Tell us about it,' said Dan. 'I think I like hearing of Old Things.'
They rearranged themselves comfortably, each chewing a grass stem. Puck propped himself on one strong arm and went on:
'Let's think! I met Weland first on a November afternoon in a sleet storm, on Pevensey Level.'
'Pevensey? Over the hill, you mean?' Dan pointed south.
'Yes; but it was all marsh in those days, right up to Horsebridge and Hydeneye. I was on Beacon Hill - they called it Brunanburgh then - when I saw the pale flame that burning thatch makes, and I went down to look.
