A FRENCH PUCK

A French Puck

Among the mountain pastures and valleys that lie in the centre of France there dwelt a mischievous kind of spirit, whose delight it was to play tricks on everybody, and particularly on the shepherds and the cowherds, and whoever herded tame animals. They never knew when they were safe from him, as he could change himself into a human adult or child, a stick, a goat, a ploughshare, any object for that matter. Indeed, there was only one thing whose shape he could not take, and that was a needle. At least, he could transform himself into a needle, but try as he might he never was able to imitate the hole, so every woman would have found him out at once (except if he had concealed himself in a haystack), and this he knew.
Now the hour oftenest chosen by this naughty sprite (whom we will call Puck) for performing his pranks was about midnight, just when the shepherds and cowherds and gooseherds, tired out with their long day's work, were sound asleep. Then he would go into the cowsheds and unfasten the chains that fixed each beast in its own stall, and let them fall with a heavy clang to the ground. The noise was so loud that it was certain to awaken the cowherds, however fatigued they might be, and they dragged themselves wearily to the stable to put back the chains. But no sooner had they returned to their beds than the same thing happened again, and so on till the morning. Or perhaps Puck would spend his night in plaiting together the manes and tails of two of the horses, so that it would take the grooms hours of labour to get them right in the morning, while Puck, hidden among the hay in the loft, would peep out to watch them, enjoying himself amazingly all the time.
One evening, more than one hundred and eighty years ago, a young man named William was passing along the bank of a stream when he noticed a sheep who was bleating loudly. William thought it must have strayed from the flock, and that he had better take it home with him till he could discover its owner. So he went up to where it was standing, and as it seemed so tired that it could hardly walk, he hoisted it on his shoulders and continued on his way. The sheep was pretty heavy, but the good man was merciful and staggered along as best he could under his load.
'It is not much further,' he thought to himself as he reached an avenue of walnut trees, when suddenly a voice spoke out from over his head, and made him jump.
'Where are you?' said the voice, and the sheep answered:
'Here on the shoulders of a donkey.'
In another moment the sheep was standing on the ground and William was running towards home as fast as his legs would carry him. But as he went, a laugh, which yet was something of a bleat, rang in his ears, and though he tried not to hear, the words reached him, 'Oh, dear! What fun I have had, to be sure!'
Puck was careful not always to play his tricks in the same place, but visited one village after another, so that everyone trembled lest he should be the next victim. After a bit he grew tired of cowherds and shepherds, and wondered if there was no one else to give him some sport. At length he was told of a young couple of fiancés who were going to the nearest town to buy all that they needed for setting up house. Quite certain that they would forget something which they could not do without, Puck waited patiently till they were jogging along in their cart on their return journey, and changed himself into a horsefly in order to overhear their conversation.
For a long time it was very dull—all about their wedding day next month, and who were to be invited. This led the bride to her wedding dress, and she gave a little scream.
'Just think! Oh! how could I be so stupid! I have forgotten to buy the different coloured reels of cotton to match my clothes!'
'Dear, dear!' exclaimed the young man. 'That is unlucky; and didn't you tell me that the dressmaker was coming in tomorrow?'
'Yes, I did,' and then suddenly she gave another little scream, which had quite a different sound from the first. 'Look! Look!'
The bridegroom looked, and on one side of the road he saw a large ball of thread of all colours—of all the colours, that is, of the dresses that were tied on to the back of the cart.
'Well, that is a wonderful piece of good fortune,' cried he, as he sprang out to get it. 'One would think a fairy had put it there on purpose.'
'Perhaps she has,' laughed the girl, and as she spoke she seemed to hear an echo of her laughter coming from the horse, but of course that was nonsense.
The dressmaker was delighted with the thread that was given her. It matched the stuffs so perfectly, and never tied itself in knots, or broke perpetually, as most thread did. She finished her work much quicker than she expected and the bride said she was to be sure to come to the church and see her in her wedding dress.
There was a great crowd assembled to witness the ceremony, for the young people were immense favourites in the neighbourhood, and their parents were wealthy, of course. The doors were open, and the bride could be seen from afar, walking under the chestnut avenue.
'What a beautiful girl!' exclaimed the men. 'What a lovely dress!' whispered the women. But just as she entered the church and took the hand of the bridegroom, who was waiting for her, a loud noise was heard.
'Crick! crack! Crick! crack!' and the wedding gown fell to the ground in shreds, to the great confusion of the wearer.
Not that the ceremony was put off for a little thing like that! Cloaks in profusion were instantly offered to the young bride, but she was so upset that she could hardly keep from tears. One of the guests, more curious than the rest, stayed behind to examine the dress, determined, if she could, to find out the cause of the disaster.
'The thread must have been rotten,' she said to herself. 'I will see if I can break it.' But search as she would she could find none.
The thread had vanished!
From 'Littérature Orale de l'Auvergne,' par Paul Sébillot.

THE RIGHTFUL LEFT-TENANT

THE RIGHTFUL LEFT-TENANT

The most relevant McGuffin in The Tragedy of Othello is the rank of lieutenant, pronounced "leftenant." As for why Shakespeare uses the name of the rank instead of "right-hand man" for some reason or another... "left-tenant", maybe because the story is about what happens when we follow our hearts blindly, and we have our hearts to the left side (laevocardia/sinistrocardia being usual and dextrocardia a rarity)... Yet the most relevant fact is how this commission is regarded: A lieutenancy which Iago views as his by right/rightfully, himself as the rightful left-tenant...
Iago himself is a rather sinister character, and, in my mind's eye, he is always left-handed (the other southpaw in the core cast of seven being his wife, the only person aware of his agenda). "Leftenant," like the hypothetical "love-tenant" from which the pronunciation hails, is a quote to be read between the lines. For instance: the only two southpaws mentioned in the Tanakh, Ehud and Joab, are shrewd, devious, and take advantage of their unusual handedness to cajole and treacherously kill right-handed opponents who are unaware of that fact. Furthermore, the sinister, ironic deaths of both Eglon and Amasa are described with a tinge of homoerotic innuendo... correlating leftiness with queerness? In classical myth, the father of Oedipus is called Laius, literally "Lefty," (compare the surnames "Izquierdo", "Gaucher", and "Hidari"), and he is left-handed and gay. Furthermore, he is said to have been the first homosexual in the Western world. And there is the Spanish idiom "cojear del pie izquierdo".
Historically, left-handedness has always been correlated with sexual deviance...
After all, 'tis a lieutenancy which Iago views as his by right/rightfully, himself as the rightful left-tenant...
It is worth noting that Iago gets his rival Cassio so drunk that the young officer cannot tell his left from his right. If we stick to the "Iago is left-handed" characterization, we'll realize that etiquette in those days (and I'm referring more to rulers' courts than taverns, but it could also apply to outposts) prescribed, to quote Erasmus's book of good manners for young courtiers: "Should you ever pour someone a drink, be careful not to do it with your left hand." Bad news for lefty cupbearers, not only because left-handedness (like freckles or red hair, or being tall for a girl) carried a stigma in those days, but also because of a more sinister reason: a left-handed cupbearer was more likely to be accused of poisoning (pouring the drink with the left hand and stealthily lacing it with the right). Though he does not spike his rival's tankard, Iago does indeed intoxicate Cassio, altering the lieutenant's internal state of health to the point of confusion, of not being right.

To have a peek at a different culture, the Japanese words for handedness are also used to denote ethyl tolerance. Those who hold their liquor well, and hard drinkers, are called 左利き "hidarikiki" (literally, lefties) and those who can't hold themselves are called 右利き "migikiki" (literally, righties). Iago winds up far more sober than Cassio, but the latter, bereft of reason, has even forgotten what is right (and what is left/wrong as well). (Incidentally, there is a Japanese idiom 右も左もわからない "migi mo hidari mo wakaranai," literally "I don't know either left or right," which means "not to have a clue, to have no idea." This expression may have a Western parallel in the Book of Jonah, when the LORD arguments against Jonah about why He has decided to spare thousands of Assyrian "persons that cannot discern between their right hand and their left hand," to quote the King James version [אשר לא־ידע בין־ימינו לשמאלו "asher yada bein-yeminov lismolov" in original Hebrew]. The expression may be taken to refer to innocent, ignorant young children, or to confused, ignorant adult sinners: in any way, it refers to immature humans whose ignorance makes them unaware of the difference between right and left as well as of that between right and wrong. 

persons that cannot discern between their right hand and their left hand; i.e. children of tender years, who did not know which hand was the strongest and fittest for use; or, metaphorically, who had no knowledge between good and evil", at present incapable of moral discernment. This limitation would include children of three or four years old. that cannot discern between their right hand and their left hand; do not know one from another; cannot distinguish between good and evil, right and wrong; are not come to years of maturity and discretion; and therefore there were room and reason for pity and sparing mercy; especially since they had not been guilty of actual transgressions, at least not very manifest; and yet must have perished with their parents. that cannot discern between their right hand and their left—children under three or four years old. And besides, these persons are young, and have not offended, [for they knew not the difference between their right hand and their left] who, in the weakness of infancy, knew not which hand, "the right" or "the left," is the stronger and fitter for every use. 
the infants that have not come to so much use of understanding as to know their right hand from their left, for they are yet but babes. These are taken notice of because the age of infants is commonly looked upon as the age of innocence. They had not been guilty of any actual transgression, 
infants only, as next described: that cannot discern between their right hand and their left hand;
do not know one from another; cannot distinguish between good and evil, right and wrong; are not come to years of maturity and discretion; and therefore there were room and reason for pity and sparing mercy; especially since they had not been guilty of actual transgressions, at least not very manifest,

Those who cannot discern between their right hand and their left are those who unable to make moral judgments.  

Aquellos que no saben discernir entre su mano derecha y su mano izquierda son aquellos que son incapaces de hacer juicios morales. 

lo que consideramos era una multitud de niños que “no sabían discernir entre su mano derecha y su izquierda”.)
Los miles que no podían "discernir entre su mano derecha y su mano izquierda" eran los jóvenes (niños) y las personas inocentes.

[···] innocent children [···]

"persons that cannot discern between their right hand and their left hand", that is, so many children under two years of age. [···] these would have been destroyed [···] And what have these done? If grown-up people are wicked and deserve to die, these have done no action worthy of death. And yet had [···] been swallowed by an earthquake, all these harmless babes must have gone down alive into the bowels of the earth [···] for helpless offspring's sake.
11. that cannot discern between their right hand and their left--children under three of four years old ( Deuteronomy 1:39:  children who do not yet know good from bad ). 

and your children, which in that day had no knowledge between good and
evil;
not being at years of understanding, and which is a common description of children

In any way, both this biblical quote (We can understand this with regard to the age of infancy, which is innocent and simple [···] did not know the diference between good and evil::: people who cannot tell their right hand from their left --

Their ignorance is so great they “cannot tell their right hand from their left.” ) and this Japanese idiom of left-right confusion may be applied to Cassio when intoxicated. These expressions suggest ignorance, immaturity, and innocence, as well as weakness, helplessness, existential confusion, and/or error. And clouded judgement. Knowledge of the left-right distinction is considered a sign of maturity: I myself learned the difference upon hitting puberty, i.e. that my left faces the right of what I see through my eyes and vice versa. Before that, I thought that the left was always the side of my writing hand and the two/three birthmarks on my forearm. One of the ways I learned real left-right distinction was through the clever use of colour-coded Kickers shoes: red for left and green for right. Thus, I learned that my left side faces the right side of others and vice versa. The gunshot on Lord Nelson's left shoulder at Trafalgar and my handedness and birthmarks, however, proved more influential in this aspect than the Kickers; from looking at depictions of the wounded and dying admiral, I realized that my right faced Horatio's (and everyone else's) left.

The left-tenant drugged to the point of not knowing what is right (and what is wrong)... is, due to his actions under the influence, subsequently cashiered and wants to claim the rank he had left. The commanding officer, the general, is thought to believe his wife has left him for the younger and more well-spoken former lieutenant, who is more similar to her and more "upright", and who stands upright (even though stabbed in the right leg), following his fall from grace, throughout the play (thus... right-tenant?). In Swedish, infidelity is called "vänsterprassel," literally "crackle to the left." "Att vänstra," "to go left" literally, means to cheat on one's partner. (BTW, "vänster" is cognate with "vän," "friend...") The punning on "left" and "right," like that on "to lie," or that on "darkness" and "fairness," is one of the leitmotives that vertebrate the whole play.

In Swedish, infidelity is called "vänsterprassel," literally "crackle to the left." "Att vänstra," "to go left" literally, means to cheat on one's partner. Which leads to a second theme as close to the left-right innuendo as the rank of left-tenant... which is infidelity. Right is left and left is right, yet having left (oneself, one's place, one's loved ones) or being left (behind, alone) is as wrong (as sinister) as being upright and doing the right things (and being righteous and rightful) is right.
The lieutenant is called left-tenant because he always stands to the left of the commander, like the bride to the left of the bridegroom. In this story, there are two husband and wife couples (one happily married, the other one turned cold as ice) and a fiancé couple, plus a brokenhearted lover left (!) on his own. The climax is the oath of Othello and Iago, exchanging vows like a bride and groom, culminating in "Now are you my lieutenant" (which implies "I am your rightful commanding officer"). A gay wedding without a priest or church, disguised as a military command and as a gentlemen's agreement. A metaphorical wedding in which there are not a bride and groom, but a lieutenant and commander, in the same positions (the former to the left, the latter to the right). The traditional stance of both the bride and the lieutenant, to the left of their superiors, actually hails from the same origin: Swordfighters wear their sheathed weapon on the opposite side from their dominant hand (righties on the left, lefties on the right) to make it easier to draw steel. Most people are right-handed, and thus, both the bridegroom at the altar (should the bride get captured by wedding crashers) and the commander on the battlefield needed to leave their respective sword hands free and to guard their respective scabbard sides. Hence the reason why both the bride and the lieutenant stood to the left of their superiors. Conflating these two related traditions into a symbolic "gay wedding" is one of the best climaxes ever created by the Bard.
If vanilla sex is all right, everything else, everything deviant, is considered sinister.
Lefty/Sinister Iago deceives mainly men, right-handed, righteous men above him on the social ladder... yet the female characters are immune to his flattery. In my depictions, Emilia is the only left-handed female, like Iago the only left-handed male, not only to pair them, but to signify that she is most immune to his deception as well as the savviest female character, compared to innocent Desdemona and perky Bianca (right-handed like their male counterparts), as well as taking an older-sister stance with Des and preferring her company to that of the male characters. Des is to Milly as Othello is to Iago, a foil to her, after all.
If vanilla sex is all right, everything else, everything deviant, is considered sinister. We left-handers are far more likely to deviate from the sexual norm than right-handers (and it has been scientifically proven).
And a Mecano song uses the euphemism "culear de estribor" (compare "cojear del pie izquierdo", a more usual expression for the same sexual orientation), "to steer towards starboard," for a gay male. But starboard is considered the right side, vs. port/larboard side being left... There could be either irony here, or the reflection that port/larboard and starboard marks are of a different colour depending on whether you're following or against the direction of the channel:

• Following the direction of the channel: there's red port left (and green on the right).
• Against the direction of the channel: red, right, return (left, green, return).

But the meaning of the expression actually comes from the fact that commands on board refer to the tiller direction: if you want the boat to go left, you have to steer it moving the tiller to starboard (in the opposite direction), for instance in the command "hard to starboard!" meaning that you have to move the tiller to the right to sail left, in the opposite direction. The same goes for The Tragedy of Othello when it comes to both the themes of rank and gender/sexuality.
Othello, as a subversive story, goes against the channels tragedy (and Shakespeare) has sailed before, confusing directions and sexual orientations, making sure that left is right and right is left and wrong is right and right is wrong... (Just like, in real life, my left is your right, and vice versa, and what we approve and disapprove of often depends of the person who has the opinion...)
The lieutenant's place was given by right not to the one who claims he is the rightful lieutenant... the one who believes he is left behind and encourages the others to share his views, forgetting what is right, yet is defeated in the end by the righteous left-hander who once stood by his left side... this is a game with which we are tested ourselves in real life time after time, after all.


POST SCRIPTUM I.
"We live as in a crossroads. [···] Let others rule the army. Our army is that of our thoughts: we are distraught with foreign wars," a certain Renaissance philosopher once wrote on the condition of free will and human life, and on the constant challenge of self-control. The solution he gave to the issue was not that of fight, but that of flight to the refuge of solitude, of spiritual retirement, a contemplative life free from ambition, from warfare, and from the pleasures of the flesh. Try to apply all of this to Othello, with its military backdrop and ethical themes!!

POST SCRIPTUM II.
It's interesting how, in a misogynistic twist, the Pearl Poet or Gawain Poet, in his Patience, applies the left-right confusion metaphor in Jonah 4 to Assyrian women, said to be foolish or mentally challenged ("unwitted," in the original; "handicapped," "foolish," "witless," and "light-headed" in translation). I am a woman, once a child, with a mental disorder, for whom it took about a pair of decades and many a pair of Kickers to be able to tell left from right. But I can, and could in my childhood, tell a staircase from a steel handrail...
MODERN VERSION (PROSE): 
[···] and handicapped women who cannot tell their left hands from their right, nor a stair from a handrail even. 

MODERN VERSION (VERSE I):
And foolish women, that could not choose
512* one hand from the other, for all this high world;
that cannot discern between the handrail and the stair;***
what secret suggestion runs between the right hand
and the left, though their life should be lost therefore;

MODERN VERSION (VERSE II):
And witless women who could not distinguish their 
one hand from the other, for all this high world.

MODERN VERSION (VERSE III):
And light-headed ladies, who lack wit to tell
the one hand from the other, for all this wide world.


MEDIEVAL ORIGINAL:

511 & wymmen vnwytte Þat wale ne couÞe

512Þat on hande fro Þat oÞer, fo[r] alle Þis hy₃e worlde.

513Bitwene Þe stele & Þe stayre disserne no₃t cunen,

514What rule renes in roun bitwene Þe ry₃t hande

515& his lyfte, Þa₃ his lyf schulde lost be Þerfor;

LISA AMPLEMAN - RESPONSE TO THE POEM PATIENCE
[···] that there are fools 
who can't tell their left from
their right, or accept the LORD's
judgement. Those stupid little bairns,
those unwitted women.



POST SCRIPTUM III.
In Japanese, the kanji for "left" 左 can be pronounced "hidari" or "sa," while the kanji for "right" 右 can be pronounced "migi" or "u/yú." Both kanji together can be written as 右左, pronounced "migi hidari," which translates to "right and left (in that order)," or more frequently as 左右, pronounced "sayú," which means "left and right," or "symmetry," but also "control of one's life," "determining," "influencing," "swaying..." in general, "to have something completely under one's control". Here lies something more to ponder upon regarding the plot and the characters of The Tragedy of Othello.
The expression "sayú suru" (transitive form) means to have something completely under one's control; the intransitive form is "sayú sareru."
UPDATE:
The kanji are pronounced "sa" and "u" in compound words. To put some examples: 左心室 sashinshitsu, left ventricle (literally, left chamber of the heart - compare the equivalent terms in Germanic languages); 右心室 ushinshitsu, right ventricle.


POST SCRIPTUM IV.
A black cat brings good luck if it crosses your path from left to right. However, if it crosses from right to left, it brings misfortune. Consider the connotations of this distinction.

POST SCRIPTUM V.

Wherein are more than six score thousand {persons), 

that are so young, and voide are of all {reason), 

that by no means they able are to learne, 

the right hand from the left, for to discerne ? 

Should I subvert so many infants too?

persons, that can- 
not discern between their right hand and their 
left hand

persons that cannot discern be- 
tween their right hand and their left hand. 
These are young children and infants, who are 
not old enough yet to understand the difference 
between right and wrong. For this is what the 
Jews meant, when they spake of a person not be- 
ing able to discern between right hand and 
left hand.  
Must all these little ones perish? The young 
children and infants, have had no share in the 
dreadful wickedness hat has been committed.
the tender and interesting little children

...

ORPHEUS AND EURYDICE - II

Adapted from the retelling by Elsie Finnimore Buckley

Second Story
In which Orpheus discovers true love, but also sorrow and despair

Thus did the gift of song fall upon Orpheus, so that he became the greatest of all singers upon earth. All day long he would wander about the woods and the hills, and tame the heart of every living thing with the magic of his voice.

One day it chanced that he came into a wood where he had never been before, and he followed a grass-grown track which led to the mouth of a cave. On one side of the cave stood a tall beech-tree, whose moss-covered roots offered a tempting seat, and close by a clear stream gushed forth from the rocks. He drank eagerly of the water, for he had wandered far and was thirsty; and when he had quenched his thirst, he sat down on the roots of the beech-tree and began his song. As before, the wild things gathered about him, and crouched at his feet, tame and silent, as he sang; and from the shadow of the cave crept a wood-nymph, and lay upon the grass, with her chin between her hands, looking up into his face. For a time he did not see her, so silently had she come; but at last the power of her eyes drew his eyes upon her, and he turned his head and looked at her. When he saw her, his arm fell useless by his side and his voice died away in his throat, for he had never looked upon anyone so fair. Her hair was black as the storm-cloud, but her eyes were blue as the summer sky, and she lay like a white flower in the grass at his feet. For a long moment he gazed into her face without speaking, as she gazed back at him, and at last he spoke.

"Who art thou, maiden?" he asked.

"I am Eurydice," she answered.

"Thy hair is black as midnight, Eurydice," he said, "and thine eyes are bright as the noonday."

"Are not midnight and noonday fair to thine eyes?" she asked.

"They are fair indeed, but thou art fairer."

"Then I am well content," she said.

"I know not thy name nor thy face, Eurydice," said he, "but my heart beats with thy heart as though we were not strangers."

"When two hearts beat together, Orpheus, they are strangers no more, whether they have known each other all their days, or have met as thou and I have met. Long ago the fame of thee, and of thy singing, reached mine ears, but I hardened my heart against thee, and said, 'It is an idle rumour, and he is no better than other men, before whose face I flee.' But now the gods have brought thy steps to the hollow cave where I dwell, and thou, by thy magic, hast drawn me to thy feet, so that I, who doubted thy power, must follow thee whithersoever thou wilt."

"Shall I sing thee a song, Eurydice—the song thou hast sown in my heart?"

"Yes, sing me that song," she answered.

So he struck the chords of his lyre and sang her the song that was born of her beauty. One by one the wild creatures stole back to the forest, for that song was not for them, and they two were left alone beneath the spreading boughs of the beech-tree. As he sang, Eurydice crept closer to him, till her head rested on his knee and her long black hair fell in a cloud about his feet. As she drew nearer his voice grew lower, till it became but a whisper in her ear. Then he laid his lyre on the ground beside him and put his arms about her, and their hearts spoke to each other in the tongue that knows not sound nor words.

So it came to pass that Orpheus returned no more to dwell with Cheiron and his companions in the hollow cave below Pelion, but lived with Eurydice, his wife, in her cave in the heart of the forest. But he never forgot his boyhood's happy days, nor all that Cheiron had done for him. He would come often to see him and take counsel with him, and sing to the lads his magic song. For a few short years he lived a life the gods might envy, till the dark days came, when not even music could bring comfort to his heart. For one day, as he roamed with Eurydice through the dark forest, it chanced that she unwittingly trod upon a snake, and the creature turned upon her and pierced her white foot with its venomous fang. Like liquid fire the poison ran through her veins, and she lay faint and dying in his arms.

"O Eurydice," he cried, "Eurydice, open thine eyes and come back to me!"

For a moment the agony of his voice awoke her to life.

"Orpheus," she said, "beloved, this side of the river of death we can dwell together no more. But love, my dear one, is stronger than death, and some day our love shall prevail, never again to be conquered."

When she had spoken her head sank down upon his breast, and her spirit fled away, to return no more. So he bore the fair image of his wife in his arms, and laid her in the depths of the cave that had been their home. Above her head he placed a great pine torch, and all the long night watches he sat with his arms about her and his cheek against her cheek; and his heart groaned within him with a grief too great for words. Ere the day dawned he kissed for the last time the lips that could speak to him never again, and laid back her head on a pillow of leaves and moss. Then he pulled down the earth and stones about the mouth of the cave, so that no one could find the opening, and left for evermore the home he had loved so well. Onward he walked in the grey light of dawn, little caring where he went, and struck the chords of his lyre to tell all the earth of his grief. The trees and the flowers bowed down their heads as they listened, the clouds of heaven dropped tears upon the ground, and the whole world mourned with him for the death of Eurydice his wife.

"Oh, sleep no more, ye woods and forests!" he sang, "sleep no more, but toss your arms in the sighing wind, and bow your heads beneath the sky that weeps with me. For Eurydice is dead. She is dead. No more shall her white feet glance through the grass, nor the field-flowers shine in her hair. But, like last year's snow, she is melted away, and my heart is desolate without her. Oh! why may the dried grass grow green again, but my love must be dead for ever? O ye woods and forests, sleep no more, but awake and mourn with me. For Eurydice is dead; she is dead, dead, dead!"

So he wandered, making his moan and wringing the hearts of all who heard him, with the sorrow of his singing. And when he could find no comfort upon earth he bethought him of the words of his wife:

"This side of the river of death we can dwell together no more. But love, my dear one, is stronger than death, and some day our love shall prevail, never again to be conquered."

He pondered the words in his heart, and wondered what she might mean.

"If love is stronger than death," he thought, "then my love can win her back. If I can charm the hearts of all living things with the magic of my song, I may charm, too; the souls of the dead and of their pitiless king, so that he shall give me back Eurydice, my wife. I will go down to the dark halls of Hades, and bring her up to the fair earth once more."

THE RINGSTETTEN SAGA XIX: THE FATE OF KRISTIAN

Previously on The Ringstetten Saga:
In late springtime, when the birch trees are in bloom, the Ringstettens get a visit from a van der Heide friend, a lecturer at Uppsala University itself. He doesn't hesitate to take after Kristian (in an innocent way, that is), though the young boy is paying attention to a frog until startled with a pat in the back. They discover passions they have in common, and soon they are showing each other plants and bugs. The next day, the Count and Countess do not hesitate to accept an offer without any equal: Kristian will study at Uppsala and live with one Lindelius, a colleague of the Walloon's, as a son in the Lindelius household.
The next day, Kristian leaves the estate in the scientist's carriage.
There's a little estate on the outskirts of Uppsala, and it can be easily recognized by its winter garden, or greenhouse. Confident freshman Kristian von Ringstetten arrives to meet his lecturer and guardian, Karl Johan Lindelius (who looks slightly like a bespectacled Elrond in eighteenth-century bourgeois clothes), and his reserved only daughter Erika, a violet-eyed, spirited brunette, three years younger than Kristian, who loves reading and natural science. The young girl, who has learned everything she knows through reading, is as shy as her new companion, who has to share a bedroom with her, in spite of the guest-room, which already houses a couple of students.
It takes a couple of weeks, being bullied at university, and picking flowers with Erika for the drawing of her late mother Astrid in the living room to break the ice between her and Kristian. And discuss life forms and myths, and find friends or surrogate siblings in each other.
At this point, one may recognize Erika as an intellectual and auburn-haired Liselotte.
The Lindeliuses support the pacifist and Enlightened Cap Party, one of two factions at the Swedish Parliament, their opponents being the warlike and jingoist Hats.
For a while, every Sunday afternoon, the Lindeliuses and their ward treat each other to buttered scones and Ceylon tea on the flower-studded meadows, following the English tradition, instead of going to church.
Soon, after the Midsummer celebrations, Herr Lindelius has a pair of secrets to tell his ward at the dinner table:

• One: Kristian is betrothed to Erika, to unite the wealth of both families. They merely see each other as good friends and surrogate siblings, neither of them has ever fallen in love, and they are both reluctant towards marriage. They will marry within six years in Uppsala Cathedral, also to make up for Karl Johan's habit of not going to church, because...
• Two: The Lindeliuses are freethinkers, id est, Enlightened atheists. Karl Johan, once a reverend's son and student, fell for his widowed landlady's daughter Astrid and married her... but Astrid died of a fever when Erika was five years old, and this event plunged Herr Lindelius into a faith crisis. The fact that they're freethinkers must never be revealed in public, or they would be arrested by the military itself and subsequently imprisoned: in mid-eighteenth-century Sweden, freethought is a crime that leads to persecution and prosecution by state authorities.

But this issue is soon solved, as Gustavus III's coup d'état and storming of a subsequently dissolved Parliament, one year later, signals the dawn of a new regime that tolerates freethought as well as other banned religions (Catholicism, Judaism, Saami animism) within the Kingdom of Sweden.
Kristian has even been "converted" to freethought, and he starts to open up and "preach this religion" at class.
The tradition of having afternoon tea outdoors or in the winter garden depending on the season, and that of celebrating a pagan Yule feast in the winter garden, behind frosty panes and among colourful flowers, have become a staple of the Lindelius clan's everyday life. Erika and Kristian start to fall in love, though they are both too shy to admit the truth about their feelings. They have gradually developed an intellectual relationship, not unlike that of the Clever Princess and her equal in the Fourth Story of "The Snow Queen".
In mid-summer, a week after the modest wedding, and five years before an unexpected war between Sweden and Russia, Karl Johan Lindelius and his son-in-law set sail for the warm latitudes of the vast oceans, to discover the wonders of the New World, while Erika waits at home and tends to the few servants (and winter garden). Pretty soon, she realizes that she is with child. And she receives a letter from the other side of the world, from her father and husband.
Meanwhile, Herr Lindelius and Kristian have entered a British outpost where native villagers act as servants to the landowners and the fort's garrison. They are staying within the white-washed fort, in the Governor's residence, in a spacious apartment with a view of Coral Bay. The Governor, Lord Anson, is a kindly and merry old bachelor not unlike the gentlemen in Dickens's novels (Fezziwig, for instance).
The colony is covered with interminable plantations of sugar cane and coffee, in which a considerate number of dark-skinned "indentured servants" are busily employed, and magnificent Neoclassical estates here and there. The rich and highly cultivated plains are encircled with rocks and rainforests which reach almost to the clouds.
When the rainy season sets in, the Governor being engaged on duty from dawn to dusk, the Swedes have to sit for whole days in their apartment, through the window of which they can see nothing but heavy clouds and a stormy ocean. To beguile tedium, they play chess against each other, and read books in English: Gulliver, Tom Jones, and the complete works of Shakespeare from the Governor's library.
When the mild and clear weather of the dry season returns, Lord Anson usually comes home at dusk, and he usually brings the Swedes with him to explore the woods, all three spending much time, while they range through fields and forests, over hill and valley, searching for endemic plants. And, whenever the Governor discovers some hitherto unknown new plant, he bursts out into exclamations of wonder.
Thus, the Swedes' studies and collection of plants increase gradually. Sometimes, they play croquet with Lord Anson in lush estate gardens. Their letter exchange with Erika increases, and soon she has even better news to tell: her healthy twin girls have been christened Linnéa and Tradescantia. They are not being breastfed by any nanny, but by Erika herself.
After three years of field studies abroad, Kristian and his father-in-law return to Sweden, to their usual routine and to make up for the effect of their absence on the children. As soon as they have reached their hometown and the Lindelius estate, Karl Johan and Kristian receive a warm welcome from all of their acquaintances, but most notably, from the female half of their family. The war is finally over, and the King and Czarina have luckily made peace after a draw.
However, three years after their reunion, tragedy strikes the Lindelius household.
One autumn day, while giving his first lecture on the orchids he has discovered, Kristian collapses before the class. Soon he starts to feel increasingly dizzy and thirsty, finally compelled to stay at home. His wife and children, friends and father-in-law, even Lord Anson himself, are all consternated. By November, Kristian has come down with a blazing fever, and he is finally bedridden due to his weakness. Karl Johan and Erika are soon compelled to watch him write his own will.
On Gustavus Adolphus's death day, the struggle for life Kristian is fighting comes finally to a close. He says farewell to the loved ones by his bed, then mentions there is no better life beyond this one, because the afterlife is still uncharted, wishes his wife, daughters, and father-in-law good luck while kissing them... and falls unconscious, ceasing to breathe.
A grief-stricken Erika is soon reading the will: her husband wishes to be buried in the Ringstetten estate garden in Värmland, he has appointed his twin brother Krister (who survived the war, as he has stated in a letter sent to Kristian) his heir, consoled his own parents in another previous letter, and there is even an arrangement of a levirate marriage between the widowed Erika and the still unmarried Krister. Yet the young mother is somewhat stirred by the idea of marrying a stranger so unlike, yet so like, her late husband!
The promise has nevertheless to be fulfilled. A modest gentleman, his daughter, and her twin children soon arrive at Vänersvik, all dressed in black and having travelled in a black-draped carriage with the lifeless form of a young scholar across a cold, snowy landscape. At the funeral, in a French garden covered in a blanket of snow, they encounter a young man with Kristian's exact appearance, dressed in an officer's uniform. The next day, as Karl Johan returns to Uppsala, Erika and the twins stay on the estate and prepare a second wedding while getting to know Krister. He has become a reserved and cold veteran, at first indifferent to Erika yet compelled to marry her, but soon he feels sorry for her and opens up to his new relatives, though he is at first reluctant to make love and produce an heir, as Linnéa and Tradescantia gradually start to accept him.

THE RINGSTETTEN SAGA XVII: A HARD TEST

Previously on The Ringstetten Saga:
On a warm springtime's night, Katia, dressed as a Cossack, finally makes it past the fence and wakes Gustav Adolf up, while whispering about their freedom plans. The Russians did not confiscate the Swedish officers' weapons after Poltava: the young lieutenant in blue is still armed on parole and able to defend his beloved.
Both leap over the fort palisade, in the most iconic scene in the story arc, on twin mares stolen from the officers' stables: Gustav Adolf on white Foudre (Lightning) and Katinka on black Poudre (Gunpowder). When the garrison's officers give chase, the fugitives seek shelter in the woods, where they transform into flying squirrels and their steeds into flycatchers (black and white passerines). When the detachment returns empty-handed to the guardhouse, the commandant suffers from a heart attack, clenching his chest and falling unconscious.
In the meantime, the two shapeshifters are still bound for Sweden, always heading towards the setting sun. Until, in late summer, they (as squirrels once more) reach a vast and elegant baroque palace, that Katia mistakes for Versailles. They fall off a fir tree becoming human again.
But they are wearing court dresses instead of their military uniforms, and approached in that state by finely dressed and French-speaking lords and ladies, who mistake them for newcomers of their rank from the provinces. Turns out that their "Versailles" was the Czar's French-style court, on the outskirts of Saint Petersburg, and our hero and heroine receive some aid from His Imperial Majesty to board a clipper, across the Baltic, bound for Kalmar, Sweden. Once they have landed and resume their ride on land towards the Ringstetten estate, summer turns into autumn.
In the Swedish woods, Gustav Adolf and his fiancée transform back into their usual selves, Katia discarding her Cossack's uniform and putting on the frock she had packed in advance. The two young riders, galloping through copses of emerald firs and golden birches, are completely unaware of what will occur once they have reached Värmland. Something that will shatter their hopes and put them on trial.
For a white hare crosses the riders' path before they reach the Ringstetten estate. Just like before the Poltava debacle, the omen repeats itself...
During the cross-country ride, Gustav Adolf decides to tell Katia his favourite story, a tale of the old gods told by his nanny a thousand times, which reminds him of the path he's chosen to take now:
"In Elfland (Alvhem), it was always a cool northern summer, and elves and nature lived in harmony. Their ruler Frey was responsible for the friendly climate and the growth of vegetation.
One day, the smith of Elfland, called Völund, made a sword that could even threaten the gods themselves in order to protect the magical land. He gave this sword to his liege lord Frey, for him to guard Elfland from the trolls and the frost-folk who might arrive as invaders and bring a perpetual winter. This sword was a rapier with runes inlaid on its blade, and Völund had called it Lävatein.
Frey, the ruler of all the elves, was fair-haired and tall, young and dashing forever like all of his subjects. He had a younger foster brother called Skirner, who was more than a friend to him. One day, Skirner persuaded Frey to move his throne to the tallest peak in Elfland. From there, the fair lord could see into the enemy country of Giantland (Jotunheim), and there, in a hall in a rocky glacier valley, he saw a bonnie maiden as young and fair-haired as he was himself. From that day on, he neglected his duties as ruler and guardian of Elfland, and as responsible for the plants' growth and welfare.
In the end, Frey confided in his good friend Skirner that he had fallen in love with a young frost giantess, which might lead to tragedy (being members of enemy species). He couldn't leave his kingdom, or else it would be invaded by his beloved Gerd's own kin... and thus, Skirner volunteered to visit the maiden at her birthplace, the great hall outside which she had been seen.
Thus, the young lad took Frey's reflection from the pond where the secret had been told, and he put this reflection in his drinking-horn canteen. He also asked for Lävatein, for he intended to bring the sword to the in-laws in exchange for their daughter, as a gift of peace. Though Frey knew the price he had to pay, he gladly sacrificed his rapier, the only weapon in Elfland, to attain a romance with his intellectual equal.
After a warm leave-taking, Skirner went through many pitfalls and perils to reach fair Gerd's residence. There, he asked the servants to let him have a tête-à-tête with the young heiress... and then, he told her of Elfland and the fair folk, of vast gardens and calm lakes, of Frey's pocket-sized ship that could grow at his will and also fly through the skies, of the golden pig Gyllenborste, that Frey kept as a pet... and, not least, of Frey himself: young and handsome, cheerful and clever, the only match for a maiden like Gerd. Yet she didn't believe the Elven messenger... until Skirner, the sharp lad, put Frey's reflection in her drink (which made her nearly swoon with infatuation), made the engagement known to her caregivers, and handed over the rune-inlaid Lävatein to the household. 
Once the bonnie Gerd had reached the Great Hall of Elfland, a wedding without an equal was celebrated among the Fair Folk. The bride and groom received countless gifts, and the revels lasted from that full moon till the next one. No one regretted having given up the sword..." Gustav Adolf ostensibly concludes the story. The Sidhe has watched her ward return as a young and dashing officer, in spite of the many privations he has suffered. He may be wearing a steel rapier, but it remains in his scabbard, as his pistols do in their holsters. She has fallen in love with the young lieutenant, and is thus determined to take his freedom and make him hers. 
Thus, she casts ferns and strange mushrooms into the spring from which Charles XI had drunk at the start of the season, enchanting it for a second time. This spell, though, is to make any young warrior who drinks from the spring lose all his feelings, his heart freezing to ice.
Katia and Gustav Adolf soon arrive, both unaware of the impending threat to their relationship. As the thirsty lieutenant drinks his fill, he feels a sharp, stabbing pain in his chest, like a stab with a blade of ice, while the enchanted draught lands in his stomach (like if he were "warmed" with brandy, but "cooled" instead). Katia springs to his aid, but he rejects her with an ice-cold glare and continues solo, on Foudre, towards the Ringstetten estate, leaving Katia and Poudre on their own by the spring.
Then, right before the rectory, the Sidhe pulls the dragonfly trick on Birgitta, one of the Reverend's young daughters. The little redhead follows the dragonfly to a clearing where there are rune stones: the Sidhe turns her into a rune stone and takes her form to supplant her.
The Count and Countess are overjoyed with their prodigal son's homecoming, deciding to celebrate it, but he reacts coldly and without one word. His highborn parents attribute this change of character to the war and the subsequent captivity.
When Etienne and Christina pay the estate a visit, the Walloon (next in line for the title and lands of Count of Ringstetten after Gustav Adolf) is surprised by the appearance of the missing rightful heir... and by his change of personality. He tries to reconcile with the young lieutenant, but in vain. In fact, Gustav Adolf looks coldly at Etienne, insinuates that he has tried to claim the lands in his absence, and calls him a usurper. The Wallonian industrialist, feeling offended, challenges his brother-in-law to a duel on Midsummer Green, the day after the harvest fête at sunrise.
Katia makes it to the soldier's croft, where she finds his widow Kerstin and her seven children. The Northlander was called up and killed at Poltava. The young foreigner decides to help them work for their lords: the Count and Countess of Ringstetten, whose only son has just come home from the wars.
Now it's her turn to experience toil and trouble!
During the harvest celebrations, Gustav Adolf announces his intention to leave the Swedish Army and his parents having betrothed him to Birgitta. Katia, who hoped to get to dance with him but was violently shoved aside, feels completely deserted: did she leave everything she knew in vain?
So she takes the knife she had brought from the outpost and slashes her own wrists at dusk, on the edge of the woods, veiled by the evening fog... as Gustav Adolf, returning home from the dance on Midsummer Green with his parents, sees her bleeding and asks her why. A weeping and bleeding Katia calls him a traitor in response. The maiden's blood and tears on the lieutenant's skin break the spell. He asks her for forgiveness, being forgiven, and she is taken back to the estate, where her beau tends to her wounds. The Count and Countess accept Katinka for a daughter-in-law. 

The young officer spends the whole night awake thinking also of Etienne and the fact that either of them may die the next day. He tells Katia of the argument he had with the Walloon while frozenhearted. The maiden can’t be more worried either.

As the sun rises, Gustav Adolf runs off with Erik, one of the household servants, and a loaded pistol to Midsummer Green. There, he finds Etienne and a younger Walloon, who appears to be a servant of his or someone important at the steelworks.

Katia looks from behind a linden, as both duelists take their steps apart, and soon they are aiming at each other with their loaded guns. She still looks on as two gunshots are heard, scaring the crows off their nests and the rabbits away, and, a second later, she sees Etienne unscathed and Gustav Adolf reeling, bleeding and clutching his left thigh where it joins the hip. The Walloon reaches out to his brother-in-law and offers him to lean against him. Carrying a half-conscious lieutenant leaning by his side, Etienne meets Katia and tells them that he never intended to kill Gustav Adolf, whom he knows and loves since the Ringstetten heir was a child. Moreover, the soldier stationed in next shire is an old surgeon with battlefield experience from the Polish Wars, and Etienne takes his brother-in-law there for this surgeon to tend to his wounds. A draught of brandy and a bullet removal later, everyone is reconciled.
The Sidhe disenchants Birgitta and returns to her usual form, promising that she'll get revenge on the Ringstettens for losing her beau.
Pretty soon, in a modest church by Lake Vänern, merry bells are pealing over treetops and rooftops. Gustav Adolf and Katia are now husband and wife, and soon they will be count and countess!
During the wedding celebrations, the Veiled Singer reveals herself as Ilse and reconciles herself with her family. The old Count and Countess give her the right to roam free with her new loved ones, but she is welcomed, with her spouse and their three children, to the Ringstetten shire whenever she pleases.
And Gustav Adolf concludes, after the wedding fête, the ostensibly finished story of Frey:
"Years went by, elves always young and good-looking, Elfland always friendly and inviting. Then, suddenly, came the great battle of Ragnarök, the confrontation that would put an end to many worlds, including Elfland itself. And Lord Frey was merely armed with a stag's antler, helpless, against a powerful enemy.
The leader of the invading host was Surt, made of fire, the primeval ancestor of all the giants and trolls of Jotunheim. Surt, chaos incarnate, a blade of flaming steel in his right hand, 
It didn't take long for Frey to recognize his own sword, the sacred rapier Lävatein. Though that was the last instant of his existance: no sooner had a flash of regret crossed his mind that the fair lord fell, a blade of fire run through his chest into his throbbing heart.
Thus, Frey was slain with his own sword, the one he had given up for love's sake.
At the same time, the enemy fell as well, Surt's left eye pierced by the antler that Frey had thrust into it as he had lunged forward... to get run through with flaming steel.
The good lord and the devastator had, thus, slain each other at unison.
Subsequently, the land of the elves was completely devastated with fire and sword risen from the vengeful ranks of Surt, and a widowed Gerd and her little son Fjölner were slain, along with most of the fair folk of Elfland: those who didn't make it to the Middle-land (or Earth)."
Like Frey, the former Carolean sees himself as one not afraid of death or dishonour after having left the military profession to contrive to marry his intellectual equal.
Peace seems to have returned to the nation, and to the Northern world at large. The Walloons have, once more, made up with the Ringstettens. King Charles XII dies young and childless, during the siege of Fredrikshald, "a petty fortress", shot in the nape of the neck at night by "an unknown hand", still unclear if of friend or foe, on the 30th of November 1718. General Rehnskiöld, released from captivity, rejoined the Swedish Army and witnessed the death of his liege lord. Aurora von Königsmarck, in her ancestral seat, has died peacefully in her sleep, having accidentally pricked herself with a brooch, which may have been poisoned. And Parliament has been reinstated in Sweden.
Gustav Adolf, now done with his military career and resting on his laurels, is made aware of it all and reflects on the effects of all of these changes. What are great people but mortals, and aren’t empires condemned to decadence? How will the world, or at least the province, remember his legacy?
Three decades after that, two more rune stones stand next to each other, beside Liselotte's, on the road to church, and Katia and her spouse are rulers of the peaceful shire. Etienne, now widowed and elderly, having handed over the steel mill to his eldest son, lives in the hall with them, and he is the children's tutor. The foreign countess has given birth to seven children, of which only the youngest three have survived their first year as punishment from the Sidhe: twin boys, both blond and amber-eyed, and a slightly younger platinum blond and blue-eyed little girl. But... has the Sidhe really forgotten her oath of revenge and decided to put daring Krister, curious Kristian, and self-indulgent Ulrika to the test?

THE RINGSTETTEN SAGA IX: MUTINY AND MAYHEM

Previously on the Ringstetten Saga:

Alois happens to have made friends with Thekla, though merely like siblings... but they must keep the distances, for His Lordship, drunk on success as he is, is rather protective of his wife's faithfulness and of his daughter's innocence. Thekla is courted by many suitors, three of which are actually a fifth column sent by the Kaiser from Vienna to watch the Duke of Friedland and inform the central government of his moves (though the would-be in-laws are unaware of the youths' agenda). Alois gets promoted to generalissimo's aide-de-camp's ensign, having to share entourage with Ladies Neubrunn and Brandeiss. He also gets to admire Wallenstein, and to learn of the duke's plans to team up with the Swedish regency for overthrowing the German Empire with a meticulously planned coup d'état!

Winter changes to spring, and both armies take to the field. But Sweden has lost power since the King's untimely death: the Regent reveals himself as a much worse leader, and a long and bloody losing streak ensues. Gerhard and Liselotte marry in the woods in spring, while more officers defect to Wallenstein's army following each lost confrontation...

To Gerhard, these defectors who trade their loyalty for lucre appear as turncoat traitors. He consequently snaps and kickstarts a mutiny in the ranks under the influence, right before he could be rewarded with a promotion to Rittmeister (cavalry captain), and they are subsequently expelled from the Swedish ranks: Gerhard (still a lieutenant), his wife and sister, and the few loyal to him (including Natasha, whose twin children have just died of the scarlet fever... and Volker, Horst having fallen at Lützen). 
He has also seen Alois wearing the scarlet coat as a Wallensteinian ensign (for the Croatian has risen to such a high rank) on the battlefield, yet distanced from the frontline due to his status as an aide.
After faking their deaths to avoid certain execution by firing squad, they become a band of outcast highwaymen that scour battlefields and ruins to survive. They get to fight other bands of similar criminals, that compete against them. The young blond in charge of our ragtag team (he has been an officer, alright?) defeats the leaders of other bands with Gustavus's battle-cry "Gott mit uns!" on his lips. But the young Prussian has also become a harsher and bloodthirstier leader than before, corporally punishing his followers (except Liselotte and Hedwig) if they dare contradict him... while within, the guilt for Gustavus's death tears at his broken heart.

In winter, Gerhard and Liselotte catch fish, trap hares, hunt crows with slingshots, and melt snow in a kettle to drink. Natasha dies while trying to protect her leader from a falling ice stalactite in a cave, getting impaled and asking the lieutenant to drink her blood if he can't wait until the snow-water du jour has cooled. It is disgusting, but Gerhard has no other choice. The bloodless carcass is subsequently used as bait for catching more crows and fish.
During later winters, however, these marauders will be able to procure strong drink and overindulge in it during their revels.

Meanwhile the same winter, in December 1633, during the Wallensteins' extravagant and outrageous Christmas revels, the Catholics lay siege to Friedland,  threatening to burn the chateau to the ground if the traitor Wallenstein does not surrender. The beleaguered duke flees abroad with his closest generals and officers, leaving the rest of the shire's residents, his wife and daughter among them, at the mercy of the Kaiser's men and their blazing flames. To make things worse, the garrison rises up in arms and sides with the Kaiser...

Luckily, Alois, who has regained his memories and witnessed a similar scene during the storming of Magdeburg (he couldn't save that seamstress and her daughter), conducts a daring plan to leave a burning Schloss Friedland with Isa and Thekla in tow, as the whole province is left to the mercy of the Kaiser's ranks. He succeeds, but they are captured by the Kaiser's men in the woods three days later, and all three are subsequently sent to a watchtower dungeon somewhere in the southern Rhineland. 
There, the lady and her daughter, broken down by excruciating torture on the rack, fall ill with high fever. Alois, the girl, and her mother survive, standing strong in face of privation. They manage to have the commandant send a letter of pardon, written by the maiden, to the Kaiser.
Then, weeks or maybe months later, Isabella and Thekla are surprisingly set free by order of the Kaiser himself, and they leave for a little chateau near Friedland, a gift from His Imperial Majesty (quite a consolation prize, after losing their father and husband).  
And then, winter changes into spring...

One day in the late spring of 1635, the prisoners suddenly hear loud and clear cannon shots: the Swedes are besieging their prison!

In the nearby woods, a familiar rag-tag band of ravenfolk, dwindled to three people (a blond young man and two girls) are waiting for the outcome of this confrontation. Guess their names!