Bluebells

Badbury Clump, near Faringdon, Oxfordshire.

 

HINGEFINKLE'S LOGBOOK (Eighteenth Instalment)

 

Otherworld and Underworld:

An Essay in Metaphysics

 

My dear little Alias, it was only this morning - as the snow lay on the ground outside, and caused the needled branches of the yew-tree to bend and sag, and the fire crackled newly-lit upon the grate - why, it was only this morning that you asked me the question that every child wants answered, the question which provokes the jeering of fools and the perplexity of the wise; the question which is on all of our minds now and then, and yet the answer is only found in glimpses, transitory glints of sunlight on the surface of the waters in the moments before a drifting cloud obscures the source of illumination. It is the question which occurs to us when we walk in a woodland dell, our footfalls cushioned by the leaf-mould, and the whole world seems to wait and listen. And then a jay hurtles past on azure pinions, cackling raucously, and the question and its possible answers are gone, and we are back in the real world again. “The real world”, we call it, as if we knew what that meant, because in that moment, another world seemed real, and in the time that it takes a single grain of sand to fall through the aperture of an hourglass, we realised that it was that other world which was the more real, and that this world was the more transitory.

 

And so you asked me. “But Hingefinkle, what about the other worlds? I have heard you and Agrimony speak of them, but always in hushed tones. And the history of Pwyll the father of Pryderi speaks of them too, but with such strange words that I am none the wiser. Where do the elves go when they walk into the Bluebell Wood one Samhain and do not return until the next? Is the Bluebell Wood the way to the Otherworld, or the Underworld, or where?”

“Hum,” I said, “it is one way, one way among many. But knowing that, and that alone, will not get you there. You have to know the time as well as the place. There are appointed hours -”

“But there is more than one way?”

“Well, of course there is, my dear boy. Why, don’t you remember the boy Elidyr, the boy you met by the river last Samhain?”

 

*

 

He was weeping. Never had I seen a boy weep so quietly, or with such palpable sadness and desolation. He did not notice us when we came upon him, our boots spattered with mud, our clothes creased and grimy from our pursuit of water-voles. Indeed, the intensity of his emotion made me wonder if we should disturb him at all, but before I could stop you, you were sitting on the bank beside him, with your arm about him. I perceived that you were approximately the same age, though his hair was raven-black, and his eyes, bloodshot from the tears, a deep shade of brown.

“What’s wrong?” you said, and I suppose it was the only thing to say.

“The hole is gone,” he wept anew. “The hole is gone, and the elves will never come again.”

“Hum,” I said, “Precisely which hole do you mean, dear boy?”

“The hole in the river-bank where the elves came and went,” he said. “The hole to a world with horses small as greyhounds, where none swears an oath but all tell the truth, where none have ambitions but everyone is loved, where there is no moon or stars, but yet there is light -”

“I see,” I said, thinking of how Agrimony might respond to such a description, “and you have been to this other world, have you?”

“Oh yes, yes,” cried the boy, “but I never will, ever again.”

 

Oh, come Alias, you remember. Why, I do believe that when he had told his tale, it was your song that brought cheer back into his cheeks! Perhaps if I remind you, you will sing it for me again tonight. And for once, I may hold back my willing pen, and let your song tell all of the story.

 

A boy was learning how to read;

His teacher, harsh and cruel,

Beat him when he made mistakes

And made him eat cold gruel.

 

One day he threw away his book

And ran away outside;

His mother saw him through the window,

Opened it and cried:

 

The ground outside is hard and cold,

And soon it will be snowing.

Elidyr, dear Elidyr,

Whither art thou going?

 

“I’m going to the river, mother

To hide myself away,

And I’ll not see my teacher cruel

For twelve months and a day.”

 

He came at length up to the bank,

His purpose never doubting,

And upon the chilly air

He heard his mother shouting:

 

The ground outside is hard and cold,

And soon it will be snowing.

Elidyr, dear Elidyr,

Whither art thou going?

 

He put his head into a hole

And found another land,

Where faerie minstrels sang and danced,

A joyful, happy band.

 

He met a boy of his own age,

And played with a golden ball,

And when a twelvemonth was all gone,

The faerie boy did call:

 

The ground outside is hard and cold,

And soon it will be snowing.

Elidyr, dear Elidyr,

Whither art thou going?

 

He went back home to his mother,

She wept with heartfelt joy,

But when his teacher came next day

She flogged the wayward boy.

 

And when the twelvemonth was all gone,

He threw away his pen,

And as he ran, he heard his mother

Shouting out again:

 

The ground outside is hard and cold,

And soon it will be snowing.

Elidyr, dear Elidyr,

Whither art thou going?

 

He came upon the river wide

And climbed in through the hole,

With faerie friends he kicked the ball

And scored the winning goal.

 

But when the twelvemonth was all gone

He stole the golden ball;

He heard the voice of the faerie King,

And quivered at the call:

 

The ground outside is hard and cold,

And soon it will be snowing.

Elidyr, dear Elidyr,

Whither art thou going?

 

“Oh I am going home to mother

With your ball of gold!”

Then out streamed faeries from the hole,

Seven score all told.

 

They snatched the gold ball back again

And promptly disappeared,

And faerie voices taunted him

As he groped and peered:

 

The ground outside is hard and cold,

And soon it will be snowing.

Elidyr, dear Elidyr,

Whither art thou going?

 

And every year he comes that way,

And searches up and down,

And bitter tears cries he then

For the hole may not be found.

 

“Oh to play at ball again,

And dance with my lost friends!

Perhaps some day they’ll let me in

So I can make amends.

 

And when I leave, they’ll cry sweet tears,

And whisper at my going,

Elidir, dear Elidir,

Stay, for it is snowing.”

 

*

 

I grow old, my dear Alias, I grow old. The night is dark, and the windows are encrusted with frost-flowers, which seem to resonate and waft in an invisible wind, lighted by the bonfires on the hills beyond. You sit at my workbench beside me as I write, your neck craned over Gladys Sparkbright’s microscope. Behind you, the stone basilisk seems to writhe in the flickering light of the embers in the grate. Chronometers tick. You move away from the eyepiece, take up the astrolabe, turned to gold by Agrimony all those years before, and run delicate musician’s fingers over the rete: the whole universe lies mapped out in your hand, all constellations and the arc of the sun’s ecliptic; your index finger traces them, carved in the gold. You are not so little as you once were, my dear boy. No, not so little, and the wicker box in which you arrived gathers dust in the back room, filled with the maps of our travels, and of expeditions from times before you were born. And I begin to wonder whether the day is not coming when I must lay down my pack, and put my pen aside awhile. There are other worlds, dear Alias, running like intersecting planes through the plate of the astrolabe; tangents in time and space. Of this much I am sure. But I permit myself one fond hope. For when I think of what Gwydion did to Coxcold and Catriona, of what happened during the Great Goblin War, of the anonymous dead of the city of the Easterners, of the victims of the dragons Atropa and Amanita, of those overwhelmed by the venom of the Amphisbena, of Archdruid Vervain lying atop the moors, I entertain the hope that there is a place, somewhere in that infinite multiplicity of worlds, where the Demiurge, who has caused such beautiful and perplexing varieties to evolve, has more control, if not over the hearts of his creatures, then surely over their destinies. It is only human, my dear young man, to believe such things. And, frail old man that I am, not so wise as I might have hoped to become, and yet somehow happier than I dared to believe, I hope the day may come when you and I will meet again, and explore that place together. And perhaps those who have disappeared will be waiting for us when we arrive. I like to think it. It is only human to do so.

 

The End

 

Done