Author: Edward John Moreton Drax Plunkett, 18th Baron of Dunsany (AKA. Lord Dunsany)
Themes: Heritage, Legends vs legacies
Quote: Thus wept the people of Merimna in the hour of their great victory, for men have strange moods.'
Reading/Listening Time: 34 minutes, 17 seconds
Review:
This story was written in in, like, 1908, so it's kind of got the really poetic/borderline archaic word use going on...
However I was really surprised to find that, even with that particular style of writing, the author ends up telling a pretty modern-style of tale:
It's about this relatively metropolitan-type city where the people are decended from these great warriors and heroes. The people of this city/state are really proud of their heritage and, to them, it's almost like their ancestors are still alive.
They have this big-old complex of memorial buildings that's full of graves, and artifacts, and weapons, and statues of their legendary ancestors. And these cosmopolitan people still see themselves as the ancient warrior race that could hold their own against it's enemies even though they haven't actually fought a war or done anything remotely heroic in a very, very, very long time.
Their cultural attachment to their ancestors is shown to be kinda delusional; they somehow think that their old heroes are still alive just chillin' in their gravestones or something...
This delusion particularly comes to a head when the country is threatened by a real war and everyone basically chickens out: it turns out that they are actually so cowardly that no one even has the courage to go to the memorial place and ask their ancestors for help.
What. The. Heck?
Fortunately, the spirits of their ancestors are still watching over them because otherwise they would be screwed:
"Then said Welleran [He's one of the legendary warrior dudes] to his comrades: Our hands can hold swords no more, our voices cannot be heard, we are stalwart men no longer. We are but dreams, let us go among dreams. Go all of you, and thou too, young Iraine, and trouble the dreams of all the men that sleep, and urge them to take the swords of their grandsires that hang upon the walls, and to gather at the mouth of the ravine; and I will find a leader and make him take my sword."
There's a whole dream encounter between the spirit of Welleran and a guy named Rold where Welleran does things to try and convince, and eventually ends up pleading with, Rold to take up Welleran's old Sword.
It's so funny to me, because Rold's initial response is like "BUT THAT'S ILLEGAL!!"
(^ TOTALLY the perspective of a modern person! And TOTALLY something I would probably say in his place!)
Then Welleran really starts hammering it in: If he were a live, this is something he would do. But he's not alive, he's dead and DEAD MEN CAN'T SAVE THE LIVING...
So Rold ends up taking the sword and defeats the enemy with it, but the response isn't at all "Yay we won!" Rold is still a modern man, and his response should really speak to the modern perspective on warfare: He did what he had to do, but he's disgusted by it...
"O sword, sword! How horrible thou art! Thou art a terrible thing to have come among men. How many eyes shall look upon gardens no more because of thee? How many fields must go empty that might have been fair with cottages, white cottages with children all about them? How many valleys must go desolate that might have nursed warm hamlets, because thou hast slain long since the men that might have built them? I hear the wind crying against thee, thou sword! It comes from the empty valleys. It comes over the bare fields. There are children"s voices in it. They were never born. Death brings an end to crying for those that had life once, but these must cry for ever. O sword! sword! why did the gods send thee among men?" And the tears of Rold fell down upon the proud sword but could not wash it clean.
The rest of the population is also grieving; not with the loss of life but because they've lost a huge part of their cultural identity and their personal connection to the past:
"Not any more, not any more for ever will Welleran now return...For his sword is in the hand of another. Now we know indeed that he is dead. O Welleran, thou wast our sun and moon and all our stars. Now is the sun fallen down and the moon broken, and all the stars are scattered as the diamonds of a necklace that is snapped off one who is slain by violence."
Basically the whole facade of their worldview: their identity, that they've inherited this legacy of their mighty warrior ancestors just crumbles apart around them.
This story makes me think a lot about heritage: Obviously the way we live today can be really different from the way people lived in the past, and generally our reactions to their worldview is to identify with them, romanticize them, or to despise them.
Occasionally though, we can learn from them, and respect the perspective they bring into our lives the same way we can admire the leadership abilities, tenacity, perseverance and courage of people like Gengis Khan, Ragnar Lothbrok, Shaka, or Alfred the Great without sanctioning the heinous or shady things they did.
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