Time and the Gods | Page 5

is now no longer a great green valley in the
south, but all that Tintaggon had guarded against Slid he gave back to
the gods. Very calm the sea lies now about Tintaggon's feet, where he
stands all black amid crumbled cliffs of white, with red rocks piled
about his feet. And often the sea retreats far out along the shore, and
often wave by wave comes marching in with the sound of the tramping
of armies, that all may still remember the great fight that surged about
Tintaggon once, when he guarded the gods and the green earth against
Slid.
Sometimes in their dreams the war-scarred warriors of Slid still lift
their heads and cry their battle cry; then do dark clouds gather about
Tintaggon's swarthy brow and he stands out menacing, seen afar by
ships, where once he conquered Slid. And the gods know well that
while Tintaggon stands They and Their world are safe; and whether
Slid shall one day smite Tintaggon is hidden among the secrets of the
sea.

A LEGEND OF THE DAWN
When the worlds and All began the gods were stern and old and They
saw the Beginning from under eyebrows hoar with years, all but Inzana,
Their child, who played with the golden ball. Inzana was the child of
all the gods. And the law before the Beginning and thereafter was that
all should obey the gods, yet hither and thither went all Pegana's gods
to obey the Dawnchild because she loved to be obeyed.
It was dark all over the world and even in Pegana, where dwell the gods,
it was dark when the child Inzana, the Dawn, first found her golden ball.
Then running down the stairway of the gods with tripping feet,
chalcedony, onyx, chalcedony, onyx, step by step, she cast her golden
ball across the sky. The golden ball went bounding up the sky, and the

Dawnchild with her flaring hair stood laughing upon the stairway of the
gods, and it was day. So gleaming fields below saw the first of all the
days that the gods have destined. But towards evening certain
mountains, afar and aloof, conspired together to stand between the
world and the golden ball and to wrap their crags about it and to shut it
from the world, and all the world was darkened with their plot. And the
Dawnchild up in Pegana cried for her golden ball. Then all the gods
came down the stairway right to Pegana's gate to see what ailed the
Dawnchild and to ask her why she cried. Then Inzana said that her
golden ball had been taken away and hidden by mountains black and
ugly, far away from Pegana, all in a world of rocks under the rim of the
sky, and she wanted her golden ball and could not love the dark.
Thereat Umborodom, whose hound was the thunder, took his hound in
leash, and strode away across the sky after the golden ball until he
came to the mountains afar and aloof. There did the thunder put his
nose to the rocks and bay along the valleys, and fast at his heels
followed Umborodom. And the nearer the hound, the thunder, came to
the golden ball the louder did he bay, but haughty and silent stood the
mountains whose plot had darkened the world. All in the dark among
the crags in a mighty cavern, guarded by two twin peaks, at last they
found the golden ball for which the Dawnchild wept. Then under the
world went Umborodom with his thunder panting behind him, and
came in the dark before the morning from underneath the world and
gave the Dawnchild back her golden ball. And Inzana laughed and took
it in her hands, and Umborodom went back into Pegana, and at its
threshold the thunder went to sleep.
Again the Dawnchild tossed the golden ball far up into the blue across
the sky, and the second morning shone upon the world, on lakes and
oceans, and on drops of dew. But as the ball went bounding on its way,
the prowling mists and the rain conspired together and took it and
wrapped it in their tattered cloaks and carried it away. And through the
rents in their garments gleamed the golden ball, but they held it fast and
carried it right away and underneath the world. Then on an onyx step
Inzana sat down and wept, who could no more be happy without her
golden ball. And again the gods were sorry, and the South Wind came

to tell her tales of most enchanted islands, to whom she listened not,
nor yet to the tales of temples in lone lands that the East Wind told her,
who had stood beside her when she flung her golden ball.