The Gold Sickle; Or, Hena, The Virgin of The Isle of Sen. A Tale of Druid Gaul

Abundance and Heaven
Are for the Just and the Pure.
He is Pure and Holy
Who Performs Celestial Works and Pure.

When Joel stepped into the house, he approached the copper basin in which stood the seven branches of mistletoe and reverently put his lips to each. His guest followed his example, and then both walked towards the hearth.

At the hearth was Mamm' Margarid, Joel's wife, with a distaff. She was tall of stature, and wore a short, sleeveless tunic of brown wool over a long robe of grey with narrow sleeves, both tunic and robe being fastened around her waist with her apron string. A white cap, cut square, left exposed her grey hair, that parted over her forehead. Like many other women of her kin, she wore a coral necklace round her neck, bracelets inwrought with garnets and other trinkets of gold and silver fashioned at Autun.

Around Mamm' Margarid played the children of Guilhern and several other of her kin, while their young mothers busied themselves preparing supper.

"Margarid," said Joel to his wife, "I bring a guest to you."

"He is welcome," answered the woman without stopping to spin. "The gods send us a guest, our hearth is his own. The eve of my daughter's birth is propitious."

"May your children when they travel, be received as I am by you," answered the stranger respectfully.

"But you do not yet know what kind of a guest the gods have sent us, Margarid," rejoined Joel; "such a guest as one would request of Ogmi for the long autumn and winter nights; a guest who in the course of his travels has seen so many curious things and wonderful that a hundred evenings would not be too many to listen to his marvelous stories."

Hardly had Joel pronounced these words when, from Mamm' Margarid and the young mothers down to the little boys and girls, all looked at the stranger with the greed of curiosity, expectant of the marvelous stories he was to tell.

"Are we to have supper soon, Margarid?" asked Joel. "Our guest is probably as hungry as myself; I am hungry as a wolf."

"The folk have just gone out to fill the racks of the cattle," answered Margarid; "they will be back shortly. If our guest is willing we shall be pleased of his company at supper."

"I thank the wife of Joel, and shall wait," said the unknown.

"And while waiting," remarked Joel, "you can tell us a story – "

But the traveler interrupted his host and said smiling:

"Friend, as one cup serves for all, so does the same story serve for all… The cup will shortly circulate from lip to lip, and the story from ear to ear… But now tell me, what is that brass belt for that I see hanging yonder?"

"Have you not also in your country the belt of agility?"

"Explain yourself, Joel."

"Here, with us, at every new moon, the lads of each tribe come to the chief and try on the belt, in order to prove that their girth has not broadened with self-indulgence, and that they have preserved themselves agile and nimble. Those who cannot hitch the belt around themselves, are hissed, are pointed at with derision, and must pay a fine. Accordingly, all see to their stomachs lest they come to look like a leathern bottle on two skittles."

"A good custom. I regret it fell into disuse in my province. And what is the purpose of that big old trunk? It is of precious wood and seems to have seen many years."

"Very many. That is the family trunk of triumph," answered Joel opening the trunk, in which the stranger saw many whitened skulls. One of them, sawn in two, was mounted on a brass foot like a cup.

"These are, no doubt, the heads of enemies who have been killed by your fathers, friend Joel? With us this sort of family charnel houses has long been abandoned."

"With us also. I preserve these heads only out of respect for my ancestors. Since more than two hundred years, the prisoners of war are no longer mutilated. The habit existed in the days of the kings whom Ritha-Gaür shaved of their hair, as you mentioned before, to make himself a blouse out of their beards. Those were gay days of barbarism, were those days of royalty. I heard my grandfather Kirio say that even as late as in the days of his father, Tiras, the men who went to war returned to their tribes carrying the heads of their enemies stuck to the points of their lances, or trailed by the hair from the breast-plates of their horses. They were then nailed to the doors of the houses for trophies, just as you see yonder on the wall the heads of wild animals."

"With us, in olden days, friend Joel, these trophies were also preserved, but preserved in cedar oil when they were the heads of a hostile chieftain."

"By Hesus! Cedar oil!.. What magnificence!" exclaimed Joel smiling. "That is the way our wives reason: 'for good fish, good sauce.'"

"These relics were with us, as with you, the book from which the young Gaul learned of the exploits of his fathers. Often did the families of the vanquished offer to ransom these spoils; but to relinquish for money a head conquered by oneself or an ancestor was looked upon as an unpardonable crime of avarice and impiousness. I say with you, those barbarous customs passed away with royalty, and with them the days when our ancestors painted their bodies blue and scarlet, and dyed their hair and beard with lime water to impart to them a copper-red hue."

"Without wronging their memory, friend guest, our ancestors must have been unpleasant beings to look upon, and must have resembled the frightful red and blue dragons that ornament the prows of the vessels of those savage pirates of the North that my son Albinik the sailor and his lovely wife Meroë have told us some curious tales about. But here are our men back from the stables; we shall not have to wait much longer for supper. I see Margarid unspitting the lambs. You shall taste them, friend, and see what a fine taste the salt meadows on which they browse impart to their flesh."

All the men of the family of Joel who entered the hall wore, like him, a sleeveless blouse of coarse wool, through which the sleeves of their jackets or white shirts were passed. Their breeches reached down to their ankles; and they were shod with low slippers. Several of these laborers, just in from the fields, wore over their shoulders a cloak of sheep-skin, which they immediately took off. All wore woolen caps, long hair cut round, and bushy beards. The last two to enter held each other by the arm; they were especially handsome and robust.

"Friend Joel," inquired the stranger, "who are those two young fellows? The statues of the heathen god Mars are not better shaped, nor have so valiant an aspect."

"They are two relatives of mine; two cousins, Julyan and Armel. They love each other like brothers… Quite recently an enraged bull rushed at Armel and Julyan saved Armel at the peril of his own life. Thanks to Hesus we are not now in times of war. But should it be necessary to take up arms, Julyan and Armel have taken 'the pledge of brotherhood'… But supper is ready… Come, yours is the seat of honor."

Joel and the unknown guest drew near the table. It was round and raised somewhat above the floor which was covered with fresh straw. All around the table were seats bolstered with fragrant grass. The two broiled muttons, now quartered, were served up in large platters of beechwood, white as ivory. There were also large pieces of salted pork and a smoked ham of wild boar. The fish remained in the large pot that they had been boiled in.

At the place where Joel, the head of the family, took his seat, stood a huge cup of plated copper that even two men could not have drained. It was before that cup, which marked the place of honor, that the stranger was placed with Joel at his left and Mamm' Margarid at his right.

The old men, the young girls and the children then ranked themselves around the table. The grown up and the young men sat down behind these in a second row, from which they rose from time to time to perform some service, or, every time that, passing from hand to hand, beginning with the stranger, the large cup was empty, to fill it from a barrel of hydromel, that was placed at a corner of the hall. Furnished with a piece of barley or wheat bread, everyone received or took a slice of broiled or salted meat, which he cut up with his knife, or into which he bit freely without the help of knife.

The old war-dog Deber-Trud, enjoying the privileges of his age and long years of service, lay at the feet of Joel, who did not forget his faithful servitor.

Towards the end of the meal, Joel having carved the wild boar ham, detached the hoof, and following an ancient custom, said to his young relative Armel, handing it to him:

"To you, Armel, belongs the bravest part! To you, the vanquisher in last evening's fight!"

At the moment when, proud of being pronounced the bravest in the presence of the stranger, Armel was stretching out his hand to take the wild boar's hoof that Joel presented to him, an exceptionally short man in the family, nicknamed "Stumpy" by reason of his small stature, observed aloud:

"Armel won in yesterday's fight because he was not fighting with Julyan. Two bullocks of equal strength avoid and fear each other, and do not lock horns."

Feeling humiliated at hearing it said of them, and before a stranger, that they did not fight together because they were mutually afraid of each other, Julyan and Armel grew red in the face.

With sparkling eyes, Julyan cried: "If I did not fight with Armel it was because someone else took my place; but Julyan fears Armel as little as Armel fears Julyan; and if you were but one inch taller, Stumpy, I would show you on the spot that, beginning with you, I fear nobody – not even my good brother Armel – "

"Good brother Julyan!" added Armel whose eyes also began to glisten, "we shall have to prove to the stranger that we do not fear each other."

"Done, Armel – let's fight with sabres and bucklers."

The two friends reached out their hands to each other and pressed them warmly. They entertained no rancor for each other; they loved each other as warmly as ever; the combat decided upon by them was a not uncommon outbreak of foolhardiness.

Joel was not sorry at seeing his kin act bravely before his guest; and his family shared his views.

At the announcement of the battle, everybody present, even the little children and young women and girls felt joyful; they clapped their hands smiling and looked at each other proud of the good opinion that the unknown visitor was to form of the courage of their family.

Mamm' Margarid thereupon addressed the young men: "The fight ends the moment I lower my distaff."

"These children are feasting you at their best, friend guest," said Joel to the stranger; "you will, in turn, have to feast them by telling them and all of us some of the marvelous things that you have seen in your travels."

"I could not do else than pay in my best coin for your hospitality, friend," answered the stranger. "I shall tell you the stories."

"Let's hurry, brother Julyan," said Armel; "I have a strong desire to hear the traveler. I can never get tired of listening to stories, but the story-tellers are rare around Karnak."