Song of the Winter King

Song of the Winter King

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Hair of crystal and hands of iceThe snow sieves down above him,He shakes in his palm two silver diceAnd whoever sees him loves him.
Now one of the dice is marked with a cross,The other is marked with a ring –And the cross is the seal of paradiseWhere the holy angels sing,
But the ring is the seal of the fairy queen,Queen Morgan is her name,Who dresses in red and elfin greenWho rules in fair Elfhame.
She and her train come riding byIn cloaks as red as blood:She lashes her seamed and grunting sowWith a switch of elder wood,
‘O young snow king, shake down your dice,Find what the chance shall be!’He shakes them once, he shakes them twice,He shakes them three times three –
O silver, silver fall the moonAnd golden fall the sun –The nine bright planets in the skyLeaped as Queen Morgan won.
Hair of crystal, hands of ice,The white snow falls about him.He drops from his palm the silver dice,Queen Morgan cannot doubt him.
She leads him up, she leads him downOver the Seven DaysWhere toothed heads grin from every pool And quickfire beacons blaze,
Under the hill, the hollow hill,The peaty darkness waits:She leads him down the fairy roadBehind the narrow gates,

She seats him by a dropping poolWhere ghostly fishes glide,‘And here you’ll stay for evermoreBy the dark fountain side.’
Hair of crystal and hands of ice,He counts the fishes’ scales,He strokes their armoured, slimy sides,Tickles their filmy tails.

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Now Mary Queen of ParadiseOne day came riding byHer robe was made of fine new woolThe colour of the sky,
Light as a loaf she sat uponA milky-mouthed young lambAs big as any dappled horseThat pulls the plough for man.
She saw the double land lie warmUnder the standing sun – All the white spires of Castle CloudIn the blue distance shone.
Long, long the heath before her stretched,The clear miles shook with heat,Anemones like drops of bloodSprang up beneath her feet,And where she passed, the grinning headsPlopped back into the water.Said she, ‘I would the Queen of FaysWere one of Heaven’s daughters,’And all the harebells rang for her.She left the lamb to graze,Went strolling on the hollow hillsBehind the Seven Days And spied the dice like burning ice,Smoking where they lay.
Swift through the golden grate she stepsAnd down the golden stair:All the white daisies craned their necks To see her enter there;
Under the hollow hills she passed And called the young king’s name.Before the echoes copied her,The fairy challenge came: Queen Morgan as a cloud of bees,Then a red bitch, but lame:Last as a lady tall and proudTo rival Mary’s fame.
‘Why have you come, you Queen of HeavenWithin this land of mine?You may not steal the silver king,For he is none of thine.
‘He shook the dice and fell to me,Body and life and soul,And here he’ll sit for evermoreBy the dark fountain’s bowl.
‘He shook the dice and fell to me:I won the winter king.He shall be mine for evermore,Till these dumb fishes sing.’
‘You won his life but not his soul,’Tall Mary answered free, ‘For that was bought with iron cold Upon a hawthorn tree.
‘Keep what you can, but for my part,What I can do, I will’ – Shakes in her hand the crossways diceThrice, thrice beneath the hill –
And shadows fly, and blazing lightLeaps for the young king’s sake:‘Until the fishes sing, you sleep,But then you shall awake.’
Hair of crystal, hands of iceThe snow sieves down above him.Stone in the crystal cave he lies, And nobody sees or loves him,
And he dreams no dream, but the fishes dreamOne day they will wake the kingWhen they poke their red snouts out of the pool,And open their mouths and sing.






© Katherine Langrish 2017











 


Illustrations

Knight in pen and ink by Aubrey Beardsley, illustration from the Morte d'Arthur, 1909, V&A
Other illustrations by Aubrey Beardsley: facsimile edition of his Morte d'Arthur, Dent 1990.