A Dreamers Tales

恬A Dreamer's Tales

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by Lord Dunsany [Edward J. M. D. Plunkett] #4 in our series by Lord Dunsany [Edward J. M. D. Plunkett]
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Title: A Dreamer's Tales
Author: Lord Dunsany [Edward J. M. D. Plunkett]
Release Date: May, 2005 [EBook #8129] [Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule] [This file was first posted on June 17, 2003]
Edition: 10
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-Latin-1
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A DREAMER'S TALES

LORD DUNSANY
1910

CONTENTS
Preface
Poltarnees, Beholder of Ocean
Blagdaross
The Madness of Andelsprutz
Where the Tides Ebb and Flow
Bethmoora
Idle Days on the Yann
The Sword and the Idol
The Idle City
The Hashish Man
Poor Old Bill
The Beggars
Carcassonne
In Zaccarath
The Field
The Day of the Poll
The Unhappy Body

PREFACE
I hope for this book that it may come into the hands of those that were kind to my others and that it may not disappoint them.
--Lord Dunsany

POLTARNEES, BEHOLDER OF OCEAN
Toldees, Mondath, Arizim, these are the Inner Lands, the lands whose sentinels upon their borders do not behold the sea. Beyond them to the east there lies a desert, for ever untroubled by man: all yellow it is, and spotted with shadows of stones, and Death is in it, like a leopard lying in the sun. To the south they are bounded by magic, to the west by a mountain, and to the north by the voice and anger of the Polar wind. Like a great wall is the mountain to the west. It comes up out of the distance and goes down into the distance again, and it is named Poltarnees, Beholder of Ocean. To the northward red rocks, smooth and bare of soil, and without any speck of moss or herbage, slope up to the very lips of the Polar wind, and there is nothing else there by the noise of his anger. Very peaceful are the Inner Lands, and very fair are their cities, and there is no war among them, but quiet and ease. And they have no enemy but age, for thirst and fever lie sunning themselves out in the mid-desert, and never prowl into the Inner Lands. And the ghouls and ghosts, whose highway is the night, are kept in the south by the boundary of magic. And very small are all their pleasant cities, and all men are known to one another therein, and bless one another by name as they meet in the streets. And they have a broad, green way in every city that comes in out of some vale or wood or downland, and wanders in and out about the city between the houses and across the streets, and the people walk along it never at all, but every year at her appointed time Spring walks along it from the flowery lands, causing the anemone to bloom on the green way and all the early joys of hidden woods, or deep, secluded vales, or triumphant downlands, whose heads lift up so proudly, far up aloof from cities.
Sometimes waggoners or shepherds walk along this way, they that have come into the city from over cloudy ridges, and the townsmen hinder them not, for there is a tread that troubleth the grass and a tread that troubleth it not, and each man in his own heart knoweth which tread he hath. And in the sunlit spaces of the weald and in the wold's dark places, afar from the music of cities and from the dance of the cities afar, they make there the music of the country places and dance the country dance. Amiable, near and friendly appears to these men the sun, and as he is genial to them and tends their younger vines, so they are kind to the little woodland things and any rumour of the fairies or old legend. And when the light of some little distant city makes a slight flush upon the edge of the sky, and the happy golden windows