THE WEE FOLK
One fine,
harvest day early in the century, Lord O'Ronald was
taking his customary afternoon stroll around his estate. The sound of the reaper in the cornfield was
music to his ears. The hum of industry always gave him a fine sense of
satisfaction, as did the sight, presently revealed, of a long, orderly row of
workers bending to lift the corn.
The estate
lay in one of the more remote parts of
Lord O'Ronald had no patience with idlers. As he strolled around his field, was pleased
to see that everyone was working hard.
The clear sky which foretold a stretch of fine weather, seemed to be on
his side. If everyone kept at it,
another rich harvest would be won. He
halted in his rambling and rested his elbows on a five-barred gate to enjoy a
pipe. The aroma of tobacco mingled with
the heavy smell of meadowsweet and new-mown oats. The steady rhythm of the reaper provided a
background to the short, sudden rushes of birdsong from the hedges.
At first he
scarcely noticed that a new stave had crept into the orchestra. Was it a thrush trying out a new melody? No, it was sweeter and wilder than the song
of any thrush. It rose and trembled on
the warm air for a moment, long enough for him to locate its origin in the open
ground beyond his own tidy fence. A
tumbledown stone wall ran across the barren slope of the hill. It was from behind that wall the music
came. A frown of annoyance crossed Lord O'Ronald's face.
Seamus again! He swung himself over the boundary fence and strode
towards the wall. Sure enough, Seamus
was crouched behind the wall. In his
hand was the flute he had carved so cunningly from a length of boortree. Lord O'Ronald was in a fine tantrum.
"What
are you doing?” he roared. "Don't
you know that every pair of hands is needed in the field on a day like
this?"
Seamus
jumped to his feet, tucking his flute away in his ragged shirt. Though he came obediently, his face betrayed
no alarm nor cowering humility. The cool, detached expression in his eyes
maddened Lord O'Ronald.
"I'm
getting sick of you," he roared, "you do nothing but idle around,
dreaming and playing that infernal whistle.
It's bad enough on an ordinary day. But in the middle of the harvest,
it’s ..... it's ..... it’s intolerable! Just let me catch you once more .....
and ....."
Seamus did
not wait to hear more. He was off like
the wind to join the harvest. O'Ronald sighed as he watched him leap nimbly over the
fence and sprint across the stubble.
Seventeen years old he was ..... all wiry strength and as fleet as a
mountain goat. He could do the work of
two heavy-limbed labourers, if he wanted to.
It was a sore disappointment that he could not he induced to want to.
No one ever
rightly knew who Seamus was, or where he had come from. He had been found one day seventeen years
before, laughing and cooing to himself in a wicker basket, under the weeping
willow on Lord O'Ronald's lawn. Since his parents could not be traced, O'Ronald had taken charge of him and placed him in the care
of one of his cottiers, a kindly little woman who had lost her own son in
infancy. She doted on the strange child,
but her husband watched him grow with a jealous eye and, when she died, it was
not long till he threw Seamus out of the cottage. Aged fourteen, he should have been able to a
earn his keep, but since he worked only in fits and starts, he was tolerated
rather than employed on the estate and had to do with a bed in the stables and
a bite when and where he could find it.
He was a
strange looking lad, with a pale face, melancholy eyes and tousled fair
hair. He drifted about on his own,
rarely speaking to anyone. He never seemed to belong to any company and the
workers on the estate regarded him with a mixture of amazement and
distrust. They liked to fool themselves
that he was half-witted and, when they were all together and feeling brave,
they would make him the butt of their jokes and derogatory remarks. Secretly, they were afraid of his strange silences
and his melancholy eyes that could flash with sudden, disturbing
intelligence. One day he had turned his
fire on them:
"You
think me a fool ..... but it is you who are the fools. You think that it is a wise thing to work
from dawn to dusk, sweating your guts out to keep Lord O'Ronald
living in luxury in his mansion. You pay
in toil and sweat ten times over for your miserable little cottages and the
poor bite you eat. You get pains from
working out in all weathers. Hardly one
of you has a warm coat or a pair of good boots to his feet."
This speech
was greeted by a loud burst of laughter which maddened him. He fixed his compelling eyes on them and spoke
in an even voice:
"There
is more to life than work and sleep. You
are so blind you do not see the beauty that is in the world for your enjoyment.
It's not for the likes of you, you
think. You are so deaf you do not hear the music. It has nothing to say to you. You are not
people. You're just human spades and
pitchforks. When you are done, you will be left out in the rain to rot and
rust. As you lie under the hedge you
will see nothing and hear nothing. You
will only feel the damp rising in your bones."
He was
silent after that. They did not attempt
to tease him any more, but left him to his whittling of boortree
flutes and to his strange, wild music. The
music made them uneasy. There was
something not right about it. Even on
this hot afternoon, it sent a chill up the spine. They were relieved when the master had spotted
him and put an end to it. As he joined
them he could sense their thick, dumb satisfaction. He bent to work, a secret
smile playing about his mouth.
Seamus did
more work than two men that afternoon, yet not once did they see a drop of
sweat on his brow, nor did his eyes lose their cool serenity. Come dusk, he
walked from the field as a young man might to his work in the morning. As the others stumbled wearily home to their
cottages, the night air was sweet with the sound of the strangest music they
had yet heard. They heard it in their
dreams, and Lord O'Ronald heard it, and turned and
twisted uneasily in his fine feather bed.
Very early
the next morning, Seamus rose and walked out of the stable yard and across the
dewy lawn past the weeping willow, and down the long avenue where the trees
stood rigid as sentries. At the bend he
turned for a glance at the big, sleeping house and the warm stables where he
had bedded down with his dear friends, the horses. His eyes were deep pools of sadness. As he turned and lifted them to the mountains
they kindled with a new light. He strode forward into the morning haze and by
the time the sun showed itself to the world, he was
nothing but a tiny speck in the distance. By the time it was
He walked
and walked, maybe for hours, or days, or even weeks. Or was it for some measure of time not
reckoned by clocks and calendars? The
landscape grew wilder and lonelier. Every mile widened the gulf between him and
his first seventeen years. It felt like
the slow tearing of roots out of familiar soil. With every pang he experienced
a mingled sense of loneliness and liberation. But there was no going back.
The narrow
track rose into the mountains. When the
last habitation dipped from sight, Seamus found himself alone in a vast
wilderness. Night was coming and already
the valleys and plains were blotted out by dense shadows. A sudden wind whipped up, cold rain began to
fall. Horrible screeching sounds filled
the air and fierce hands seemed to pluck at him. He clung to the rocks, trembling.
The wind
dropped and dawn broke, silent and serene. He found himself on top of a high mountain. The sun rose in a clear, blue sky to disclose
the most immense and beautiful panorama of hill and valley, field and forest
that he had ever seen. His heart rose
with a vast sense of freedom and lordship. He took out his flute and began to
play and the joy of his music through the hills.
Seamus
gradually accommodated himself to his isolation. His needs were simple. He discovered where the water sprang from the
rock and where to find roots and berries to eat. He built himself a shelter to sleep. By day he would wander among the hills,
playing his flute and listening for the echoes. At first he was very happy but,
as time passed, he grew lonely. A deep
depression settled on him. The tunes he
played were sad and despairing.
He had
found one hardy tree springing from a cleft in the rock. One day he sat under this tree playing a
melancholy tune. A slight breeze stirred
the branches above him. Suddenly
something fell at his feet. He started.
It seemed like a living thing ..... a small
snake perhaps. He picked it up to throw
it from him. It was only a dry piece of wood ..... a strangely shaped piece
..... just like a little wooden man. He studied it thoughtfully.
Over the
next few months he was too busy to feel lonely or sad. He spent all the spare hours of daylight
fashioning little figures from scraps of wood.
He would take a day off now and then, and scour the mountainsides for
more materials for he did not want to use the wood of his own tree. He had acquired skill in whittling flute. Now
he developed his skill to a fine art.
Each little
figure was more lifelike than the previous one. He learnt how to make figures with moveable
arms and legs and quite striking, facial features. He experimented with herbal dyes to colour
their skin and their tufts of woolly hair gleaned from thorn hedges around the
lower pasture. Occasionally he found scraps of rag which he dyed and fashioned
into clothing. It was not long till he
had a numerous family of wee folk to keep him company.
Seamus
played merry tunes again. He longed to
see his wee folk dancing. He collected
delicate fibres and wove them into strings. With these he suspended the little figures
from a low branch of his tree. He would
sit up among the leaves and play his flute and work the strings with his bare
feet so that the whole company danced on the ground below. Every evening there would be a dance and, on
moonlight nights, the dance would go on till past
One summer
night two young cross-country hikers lost their way among the hills. Moonlight on strange rock formations cast
eerie shadows. The stillness seemed to
breathe. As in a dream, they stumbled on
up the mountain track. Perhaps the view
from the top would help them to fix their position, help them to locate the
read to the hostel. It was a long, long
trudge up the kill. They had not much
breath for talking. They imagined they
heard music. Then they were sure. Someone
was playing a flute. Maybe somebody
lived in this isolated place. Maybe they
could rest till morning.
As they
neared the mountain top, they saw the tree shimmering in the moonlight and
casting its restless shadows across the stony space. It seemed to beckon them to come and rest. As they moved towards it, the tree broke into
music. It was the strangest thing to
hear that wild, sweet air coming from a lone tree. At close on
A strange
sight rose before their tired eyes ..... a whole company of tiny people were dancing round a little
fire of twigs in time to the music. Where the music came from was a mystery. It seemed to come from the tree itself, or
from the ground at its roots. They
crouched where they had halted, and stared.
The dancers stopped in their tracks and turned to stare them back. Then the music changed to an angry screech and
the dancers began to stamp and gesticulate.
They began to advance on the two young men. In the shadow of the tree, their faces
appeared contorted with rage. They were
a fearsome sight. The young men rose and
hurried down the mountainside as though pursued by devils. The music changed to a malicious laugh.
None of
their fellow-lodgers believed the young men's story. They tried it on the local people who shook
their heads and were non-committal. Lord
O'Ronald was a very old man by now. When the tale reached his ears, he sent for
the two travellers and questioned them closely. He followed their answers very seriously as
though he really believed every word.
The story
was not forgotten after the strangers left. It grew with repetition. They joked about it, but were secretly
terrified of the mountain. Eventually, it became a test of courage for a young
man to climb alone on a moonlight night as far as the tree. Many young men made this pilgrimage over the
years. None ever again heard the music
of the flute, nor saw the wee folk dancing. Seamus and they had vanished whence he came.