Free The Lad of the Gad by Alan Garner Page B

fair gold about him, clustering golden hair and a diadem of gold on the head by the body. Lusca never beheld the same number of men who were more remarkable than that dead band.
    There was a sandal of gold on the foot of the hero, and Lusca stretched out his hand to take it, but the foot cast him over seven ridges from it backwards. Then the head of the body spoke.
    â€œThis time yesterday,” said the head, “no man could have insulted that foot.”
    â€œHead?” said Lusca. “Have you speech?”
    â€œI have,” said the head.
    â€œWhat is the story?” said Lusca.
    â€œDig a grave for my men and me,” said the head, “and you shall get the story.”
    Lusca dug with the great broad spear that he had near his shield.
    â€œThe grave is ready,” said the head.
    â€œIt is ready now,” said Lusca.
    â€œGold-arm lollan is the man whose head I am,” said the head, “son of the King of the Birds. I could not but go to seek the Tree of Virtues, and my twelve foster-brothers came with me. But enchantment was worked upon us here: for the first we saw was a musical harper walking in the forest, and the little man reached over his fist and struck the man ofus who was nearest him between the nose and the mouth, and that man drew his sword to strike the musical harper, but it was not the harper he struck but the man next to himself; so that it was ourselves we beheaded, one after one, through the spells of the musical harper, and he took off the head of the last man with my own sword. But what marvel is that? There is many a greater marvel in the Forest of Wonders.”
    Lusca put his hands around Gold-arm Iollan and laid him in the grave. He placed six on each side of him and covered them with earth.
    After that work, Lusca looked at the forest until he saw a musical harper coming towards him, his harp with him, a rusty sword by his side. Lusca gave a leap at the harper without speaking, and smashed the harp on the rock of stone that was nearest him, sending fragments of the harp into every fifth of the forest. The musical harper gathered up the harp again, piece after piece, so that it seemed that neither stroke nor blow had ever touched it. Lusca took the harper and lifted his head from his body, but the little man departed with his head in his hand by the hair, his harp in the other hand, into the forest; and Lusca marvelled at that.
    It was not long after the little man had gone that Lusca saw a wild ox. He smote a blow on it.
    And there was never cat nor hag
    Nor hideous senseless spectre
    In crag nor in hollow
    Nor in rock nor in house
    Nor on land nor in the dreadful clouds of air
    But came at the roar of that ox.
    Lusca passed a hand round his great broad spear that was beside his shield. He gave a cast of it, so that he sent it through the ox. When the spear reached it, not greater was the screaming of any other beast than the screaming of the spear itself; and Lusca marvelled at the nature of that spear.
    This is how the creatures of the forest were in that hour:
    Some scream and
    Some bellow and
    Some moan and
    Some of them stamp the ground
    With their heads and their feet.
    It is impossible to count or to tell all the evil and the confusion of enchantment that was in the forest at the joint of that hour, for there was neither stone nor tree in it but was in one shaking and in one thunder.
    Lusca took out a venomous stone that was in the hollow of his shield, and he collected the senseless creatures, until he drove them into the mouth of a cave in the forest; and it had been a good cause of confusion to a bad hero in the Forest of Wonders at that time to be listening to the wailing, the screeching, the tremulous bellowing of those many-shaped spectres.
    Lusca came back through the forest after thatwork, tired, anxious, sorrowful; and many was the wandering wolf nimbly-going, rising up on every side of him. He did not overtake them, but they were going away