作者: raiderho@smth.edu.cn
標題: MORRED silverharpe(轉寄)
時間: Fri May 7 08:17:13 2004
MORRED
The Song of the Young King, sung annually at
Sunreturn, the festival of the winter solstice, tells
the story of Morred, called the Mage-King, the
White Enchanter, and the Young King. Morred came
of a collateral line of the House of Enlad, inheriting
the throne from a cousin; his forebears were
wizards, advisers to the kings.
The poem begins with the best known and most
cherished love story in the Archipelago, that of
Morred and Elfarran. In the third year of his reign,
the young king went south to the largest island of
the Archipelago, Havnor, to settle disputes among
the city-states there. Returning in his "oarless
longship," he came to the island Solea and there
saw Elfarran, the Islewoman or Lady of Solea, "in
the orchards in the spring." He did not continue on
to Enlad, but stayed with Elfarran. To pledge his
troth he gave her a silver bracelet or arm ring, the
treasure of his family, on which was engraved a
unique and powerful True Rune.
Morred and Elfarran married, and the poem
describes their reign as a brief golden age, the
foundation and touchstone of ethic and governance
thereafter.
Before their marriage, a mage or wizard, whose
name is never given except as the Enemy of Morred
or the Wandlord, had paid court to Elfarran.
Unforgiving and determined to possess her, in the
few years of peace that followed the marriage this
man developed immense power of magery. After
five years he came forth and announced, in the
words of the poem,
If Elfarran be not my own, I will unsay
Segoy's word,
I will unmake the islands, the white waves
will whelm all.
He had power to raise huge waves on the sea, and
to stop the tide or bring it early; and his voice could
enchant whole populations, bringing all who heard
him under his control. So he turned Morred's people
against him. Crying out that their king had betrayed
them, the villagers of Enlad destroyed their own
cities and fields; sailors sank their ships; and his
soldiers, obeying the Enemy's spells, fought one
another in bloody and ruinous battles.
While Morred sought to free his people from these
spells and to confront his enemy, Elfarran returned
with their year-old child to her native island, Solea,
where her own powers would he strongest. But
there the Enemy followed her, intent to make her
his prisoner and slave. She took refuge at the
Springs of Ensa, where, with her knowledge of the
Old Powers of the place, she could withstand the
Enemy and force him off the island. "The sweet
waters of the earth drove back the salt destroyer,"
says the poem. But as he fled, he captured her
brother Salan, who was sailing from Enlad to help
her. Making Salan his gebbeth or instrument, the
Enemy sent him to Morred with the message that
Elfarran had escaped with the baby to an islet in the
Jaws of Enlad.
Trusting the messenger, Morred entered the trap.
He barely escaped with his life. The Enemy pursued
him from the east to the west of Enlad in a trail of
ruin. On the Plains of Enlad, meeting the
companions who had stayed loyal to him, most of
them sailors who had brought their ships to Enlad
to aid him, Morred turned and gave battle. The
Enemy would not confront him directly, but sent
Morred's own spell-bound warriors to fight him, and
worse, sent sorceries that shriveled up the bodies of
his men till they "living, seemed the black thirst-
dead of the desert." To spare his people, Morred
withdrew.
As he left the battlefield it began to rain, and he
saw his enemy's true name written in raindrops in
the dust.
Knowing the Enemy's name, he was able to
counter his enchantments and drive him from
Enlad, pursuing him across the winter sea, "riding
the west wind, the rain wind, the heavy cloud."
Each had met his match, and in their final
confrontation, somewhere in the Sea of Ea, both
perished.
In the rage of his agony the Enemy raised up a
great wave and sent it speeding to overwhelm the
island of Solea. Elfarran knew this, as she knew the
moment of Morred's death. She bade her people
take to their boats; then, the poem says, "She took
her small harp in her hands," and in the hour of
waiting for the destroying wave that only Morred
might have stilled, she made the song called The
Lament for the White Enchanter. The island was
drowned beneath the sea, and Elfarran with it. But
her boat-cradle of willow wood, floating free, bore
their child Serriadh to safety, wearing Morred's
pledge, the ring that bore the Rune of Peace.
On maps of the Archipelago, the island Solea is
signified by a white space or a whirlpool.
After Morred, seven more kings and queens ruled
from Enlad, and the realm increased steadily in size
and prosperity.