









                    A Legend of the Dawn

                       by Lord Dunsany


When the worlds and All began the gods were stern and old
and They saw the Beginning from under eyebrows hoar with
years, all but Inzana, Their child, who played with the
golden ball.  Inzana was the child of all the gods.  And the
law before the Beginning and thereafter was that all should
obey the gods, yet hither and thither went all Pegana's gods
to obey the Dawnchild because she loved to be obeyed.
   It was dark all over the world and even in Pegana, where
dwell the gods, it was dark when the child Inzana, the Dawn,
first found her golden ball.  Then running down the stairway
of the gods with tripping feet, chalcedony, onyx,
chalcedony, onyx, step by step, she cast her golden ball
across the sky.  The golden ball went bounding up the sky,
and the Dawnchild with her flaring hair stood laughing upon
the stairway of the gods, and it was day.  So gleaming
fields below saw the first of all the days that the gods
have destined.  But towards evening certain mountains, afar
and aloof, conspired together to stand between the world and
the golden ball and to wrap their crags about it and to shut
it from the world, and all the world was darkened with their
plot.  And the Dawnchild up in Pegana cried for her golden
ball.  Then all the gods came down the stairway right to
Pegana's gate to see what ailed the Dawnchild and to ask her
why she cried.  Then Inzana said that her golden ball had
been taken away and hidden by mountains black and ugly, far
away from Pegana, all in a world of rocks under the rim of
the sky, and she wanted her golden ball and could not love
the dark.
   Thereat Umborodom, whose hound was the thunder, took his
hound in leash, and strode away across the sky after the
golden ball until he came to the mountains afar and aloof. 
There did the thunder put his nose to the rocks and bay
along the valleys, and fast at his heels followed
Umborodom.  And the nearer the hound, the thunder, came to
the golden ball the louder did he bay, but haughty and
silent stood the mountains whose plot had darkened the
world.  All in the dark among the crags in a mighty cavern,
guarded by two twin peaks, at last they found the golden
ball for which the Dawnchild wept.  Then under the world
went Umborodom with his thunder panting behind him, and came
in the dark before the morning from underneath the world and
gave the Dawnchild back her golden ball.  And Inzana laughed
and took it in her hands, and Umborodom went back into
Pegana, and at its threshold the thunder went to sleep.
   Again the Dawnchild tossed the golden ball far up into
the blue across the sky, and the second morning shone upon
the world, on lakes and oceans, and on drops of dew.  But as
the ball went bounding on its way, the prowling mists and
the rain conspired together and took it and wrapped it in
their tattered cloaks and carried it away.  And through the
rents in their garments gleamed the golden ball, but they
held it fast and carried it right away and underneath the
world.  Then on an onyx step Inzana sat down and wept, who
could no more be happy without her golden ball.  And again
the gods were sorry, and the South Wind came to tell her
tales of most enchanted islands, to whom she listened not,
nor yet to the tales of temples in lone lands that the East
Wind told her, who had stood beside her when she flung her
golden ball.  But from far away the West Wind came with news
of three grey travellers wrapt round with battered cloaks
that carried away between them a golden ball.
   Then up leapt the North Wind, he who guards the pole, and
drew his sword of ice out of his scabbard of snow and sped
away along the road that leads across the blue.  And in the
darkness underneath the world he met the three grey
travellers and rushed upon them and drove them far before
him, smiting them with his sword till their grey cloaks
streamed with blood.  And out of the midst of them, as they
fled with flapping cloaks all red and grey and tattered, he
leapt up with the golden ball and gave it to the Dawnchild.
   Again Inzana tossed the ball into the sky, making the
third day, and up and up it went and fell towards the
fields, and as Inzana stooped to pick it up she suddenly
heard the singing of all the birds that were.  All the birds
in the world were singing all together and also all the
streams, and Inzana sat and listened and thought of no
golden ball, nor ever of chalcedony and onyx, nor of all her
fathers the gods, but only of all the birds.  Then in the
woods and meadows where they had all suddenly sung, they
suddenly ceased.  And Inzana, looking up, found that her
ball was lost, and all alone in the stillness one owl
laughed.  When the gods heard Inzana crying for her ball
They clustered together on the threshold and peered into the
dark, but saw no golden ball.  And leaning forward They
cried out to the bat as he passed up and down: "Bat that
seest all things, where is the golden ball?"
   And though the bat answered none heard.  And none of the
winds had seen it nor any of the birds, and there were only
the eyes of the gods in the darkness peering for the golden
ball.  Then said the gods: "Thou hast lost thy golden ball,"
and They made her a moon of silver to roll about the sky. 
And the child cried and threw it upon the stairway and
chipped and broke its edges and asked for the golden ball. 
And Limpang Tung, the Lord of Music, who was least of all
the gods, because the child cried still for her golden ball,
stole out of Pegana and crept across the sky, and found the
birds of all the world sitting in trees and ivy, and
whispering in the dark.  He asked them one by one for news
of the golden ball.  Some had last seen it on a neighbouring
hill and others in trees, though none knew where it was.  A
heron had seen it lying in a pond, but a wild duck in some
reeds had seen it last as she came home across the hills,
and then it was rolling very far away.
   At last the cock cried out that he had seen it lying
beneath the world.  There Limpang Tung sought it and the
cock called to him through the darkness as he went, until at
last he found the golden ball.  Then Limpang Tung went up
into Pegana and gave it to the Dawnchild, who played with
the moon no more.  And the cock and all his tribe cried out:
"We found it.  We found the golden ball."
   Again Inzana tossed the ball afar, laughing with joy to
see it, her hands stretched upwards, her golden hair afloat,
and carefully she watched it as it fell.  But alas! it fell
with a splash into the great sea and gleamed and shimmered
as it fell till the waters became dark above it and could be
seen no more.  And men on the world said: "How the dew has
fallen, and how the mists set in with breezes from the
streams."
   But the dew was the tears of the Dawnchild, and the mists
were her sighs when she said: "There will no more come a
time when I play with my ball again, for now it is lost for
ever."
   And the gods tried to comfort Inzana as she played with
her silver moon, but she would not hear Them, and went in
tears to Slid, where he played with gleaming sails, and in
his mighty treasury turned over gems and pearls and lorded
it over the sea.  And she said: "O Slid, whose soul is in
the sea, bring back my golden ball."
   And Slid stood up, swarthy, and clad in seaweed, and
mightily dived from the last chalcedony step out of Pegana's
threshold straight into ocean.  There on the sand, among the
battered navies of the nautilus and broken weapons of the
swordfish, hidden by dark water, he found the golden ball. 
And coming up in the night, all green and dripping, he
carried it gleaming to the stairway of the gods and brought
it back to Inzana from the sea; and out of the hands of Slid
she took it and tossed it far and wide over his sails and
sea, and far away it shone on lands that knew not Slid, till
it came to its zenith and dropped towards the world.
   But ere it fell the Eclipse dashed out from his hiding,
and rushed at the golden ball and seized it in his jaws. 
When Inzana saw the Eclipse bearing her plaything away she
cried aloud to the thunder, who burst from Pegana and fell
howling upon the throat of the Eclipse, who dropped the
golden ball and let it fall towards earth.  But the black
mountains disguised themselves with snow, and as the golden
ball fell down towards them they turned their peaks to ruby
crimson and their lakes to sapphires gleaming amongst
silver, and Inzana saw a jewelled casket into which her
plaything fell.  But when she stooped to pick it up again
she found no jewelled casket with rubies, silver or
sapphires, but only wicked mountains disguised in snow that
had trapped her golden ball.  And then she cried because
there was none to find it, for the thunder was far away
chasing the Eclipse, and all the gods lamented when They saw
her sorrow.  And Limpang Tung, who was least of all the
gods, was yet the saddest at the Dawnchild's grief, and when
the gods said: "Play with your silver moon," he stepped
lightly from the rest, and coming down the stairway of the
gods, playing an instrument of music, went out towards the
world to find the golden ball because Inzana wept.
   And into the world he went till he came to the nether
cliffs that stand by the inner mountains in the soul and
heart of the earth where the Earthquake dwelleth alone,
asleep but astir as he sleeps, breathing and moving his
legs, and grunting aloud in the dark.  Then in the ear of
the Earthquake Limpang Tung said a word that only the gods
may say, and the Earthquake started to his feet and flung
the cave away, the cave wherein he slept between the cliffs,
and shook himself and went galloping abroad and overturned
the mountains that hid the golden ball, and bit the earth
beneath them and hurled their crags about and covered
himself with rocks and fallen hills, and went back ravening
and growling into the soul of the earth,and there lay down
and slept again for a hundred years.  And the golden ball
rolled free, passing under the shattered earth, and so
rolled back to Pegana; and Limpang Tung came home to the
onyx step and took the Dawnchild by the hand and told not
what he had done but said it was the Earthquake, and went
away to sit at the feet of the gods.  But Inzana went and
patted the Earthquake on the head, for she said it was dark
and lonely in the soul of the earth.  Thereafter, returning
step by step, chalcedony, onyx, chalcedony, onyx, up the
stairway of the gods, she cast again her golden ball from
the Threshold afar into the blue to gladden the world and
the sky, and laughed to see it go.
   And far away Trogool upon the utter Rim turned a page
that was numbered six in a cipher that none might read.  And
as the golden ball went through the sky to gleam on lands
and cities, there came the Fog towards it, stooping as he
walked with his dark brown cloak about him, and behind him
slunk the Night.  And as the golden ball rolled past the Fog
suddenly Night snarled and sprang upon it and carried it
away.  Hastily Inzana gathered the gods and said: "The Night
hath seized my golden ball and no god alone can find it now,
for none can say how far the Night may roam, who prowls all
round us and out beyond the worlds."
   At the entreaty of Their Dawnchild all the gods made
Themselves stars for torches, and far away through all the
sky followed the tracks of Night as far as he prowled
abroad.  And at one time Slid, with the Pleiades in his
hand, came nigh to the golden ball, and at another
Yoharneth-Lahai, holding Orion for a torch, but lastly
Limpang Tung, bearing the morning star, found the golden
ball far away under the world near to the lair of Night.
   And all the gods together seized the ball, and Night
turning smote out the torches of the gods and thereafter
slunk away; and all the gods in triumph marched up the
gleaming stairway of the gods, all praising little Limpang
Tung, who through the chase had followed Night so close in
search of the golden ball.  Then far below on the world a
human child cried out to the Dawnchild for the golden ball,
and Inzana ceased from her play that illumined world and
sky, and cast the ball from the Threshold of the gods to the
little human child that played in the fields below, and
would one day die.  And the child played all day long with
the golden ball down in the little fields where the humans
lived, and went to bed at evening and put it beneath his
pillow, and went to sleep, and no one worked in all the
world because the child was playing.  And the light of the
golden ball streamed up from under the pillow and out
through the half shut door and shone in the western sky, and
Yoharneth-Lahai in the night time tip-toed into the room,
and took the ball gently (for he was a god) away from under
the pillow and brought it back to the Dawnchild to gleam on
an onyx step.
   But some day Night shall seize the golden ball and carry
it right away and drag it down to his lair, and Slid shall
dive from the Threshold into the sea to see if it be there,
and coming up when the fishermen draw their nets shall find
it not, nor yet discover it among the sails.  Limpang Tung
shall seek among the birds and shall not find it when the
cock is mute, and up the valleys shall go Umborodom to seek
among the crags.  And the hound, the thunder, shall chase
the Eclipse and all the gods go seeking with Their stars,
but never find the ball.  And men, no longer having light of
the golden ball, shall pray to the gods no more, who, having
no worship, shall be no more the gods.
   These things be hidden even from the gods.
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