1240 Gonfal goes into the Isles of Wonder. Coth travels to Sorcha, and thence westward. Kerin disappears in the May of this year. Miramon Lluagor leaves Poictesme.
1243 Execution of Gonfal, on or about the feast day of Tiburtius and Valerianus.
1244 Miraculous birth of Fauxpas de Nointel.
1245 Miramon Lluagor acquires, but gets inadequate benefit from, the bees of Toupan. Coth imprisoned at Ran Reigan.
1247 Coth reaches Porutsa, and is made Emperor of Tollan. Coth is blown back into Poictesme.
1250 Death of Miramon Lluagor. Flight of Demetrios the parricide into Anatolia.
1252 St. Ferdinand enters into eternal life. Anavalt goes into Elfhame, and perishes there.
1253 Ork and Horrig suffer martyrdom among the Peohtes.
1254 Marriage of Dom Manuel’s reputed son, Prince Edward, at fifteen years of age, to the infant daughter of St. Ferdinand.
1255 Melusine puts a magic upon King Helmas, and transfers his charmed castle called Brunbelois to the high place in Acaire. Betrothal of Melicent to King Theodoret.
1256 Perion de la Foret comes, in disguise, to Bellegarde. Jurgen goes into Gatinais. Dorothy marries Michael, the son of Guivric.
1257 Melicent escapes out of Poictesme, and is purchased by Demetrios. Jurgen makes merry with the third wife of the Vidame de Soyecourt.
1258 Ending of Dame Niafer’s regency in the name of Manuel; with the formal accession, in the June of this year, upon the feast day of St. Peter and St. Paul, of Count Emmerick the Fourth.
1260 The portrait of Queen Radegonde becomes a mortal woman, and terminates the intimacy with Holden which began at Lacre Kai in 1237. Count Emmerick marries Radegonde. Death of Holden. Death of Azra.
1261 Guivric goes east to face the Sylan. Coth dies in his sleep. Kerin returns into Poictesme after twenty-one years spent underground.
1262 Birth of Emmerick’s first son. Ninzian detected by his nine hundred and eightieth wife, and is visited by Lucifer.
1263 Rape of Ettarre, with her prompt rescue by Guiron. Maugis d’Aigremont goes into rebellion. Donander leaves Poictesme, and is killed by Palnatoki.
1265 Kerin murdered by outlaws. Continuation of Maugis’ rebellion.
1268 Death of Pope Clement the Fourth, with the resultant accession, in December, of Ayrart de Montors. Jurgen visits the Chateau de Puysange, and there meets the Vicomte’s wife.
1269 Birth of Florian de Puysange.
1270 Holmendis leaves Poictesme, and dies in Africa. Edifying decease of Guivric. Jurgen returns into Poictesme, and marries Lisa, the daughter by courtesy of old Pettipas the pawnbroker. Count Emmerick at odds with the Pope.
1271 Accession to the papal chair of Gregory the Tenth. Continuation of Maugis’ disastrous rebellion, with the partial burning of Bellegarde.
1272 Death of Balthis. Disappearance of Ninzian. Accession of Dom Manuel’s reputed son to the crown of England.
1275 Perion and Melicent come back into Poictesme. End of Maugis’ rebellion, with his just punishment by death. Marriage of Ettarre to Guiron des Rocques, who in the following year succeeds his brother, as Prince de Gatinais.
1277 Jurgen has a queer dream, upon Walburga’s Eve. Niafer visited by a queer dream during the forenoon of St. Urban’s day. Death of Niafer, in the June of this year.
1287 The second rape of Ettarre by Sargatanet, Lord of the Waste Beyond the Moon, and the beginning of her retention in his domain for 592 years.
1291 Alianora dies at Ambresbury, and is interred piecemeal, parts of her being buried in the Benedictine convent there, and the remainder at the Friars Minors in London.
1300 Count Emmerick murdered by his nephew, Raymondin de la Foret, who seeks refuge in the unhallowed forest of Columbiers, and there marries Madame Melusine the enchantress.
APPENDIX B. THE THIN QUEEN OF ELFHAME
§1
For even just how many silken ladies wept, well out of eyeshot of their husbands, when it was known that courteous Anavalt had left Count Emmerick’s court, remains an indeterminable matter. But it is certain the number was large. There were, in addition, the tale tells, three women whose grieving for him was not ever to be ended: these did not weep. In the mean while, with all this furtive sorrowing some leagues behind him, and with a dead horse at his feet, tall Anavalt stood at a sign-post, and doubtfully considered a rather huge dragon.
“No,” the dragon was saying, comfortably, “no, for I have just had dinner, and exercise upon a full stomach is unwholesome. So I shall not fight you, and you are welcome, for all of me, to go your ways into the Wood of Elfhame.”
“Yet what,” says Anavalt, “what if I were to be more observant than you are of your duty and of your hellish origin? and what if I were to insist upon a fight to the death?”
When dragons shrug in sunlight their bodies are one long green glittering ripple. “I would be conquered. It is my business to be conquered in this world, where there are two sides to everything, and where one must look for reverses. I tell you frankly, tired man, that all we terrors who keep colorful the road to the Elle Maid are here for the purpose of being conquered. We make the way seem difficult, and that makes you who have souls in your bodies the more determined to travel on it. Our thin Queen found out long ago that the most likely manner of alluring men to her striped windmill was to persuade men she is quite inaccessible.”
Said Anavalt, “That I can understand, but I need no such baits.”
“Aha,” replied the dragon, “so you have not been happy out yonder where people have souls? You probably are not eating enough: so long as one can keep on eating regularly, there is not much the matter. In fact, I see the hunger in your eyes, tired man.”
Anavalt said:
“Let us not discuss anybody’s eyes, for it is not hunger, nor indigestion either, which drives me to the Wood of Elfhame. There is a woman yonder, dragon, a woman whom ten years ago I married. We loved each other then; we shared a noble dream. To-day we sleep together, and have no dreams. Today I go in flame-colored satin, with heralds before me, into bright long halls where kings await my counsel, and my advising becomes the law of cities that I have not seen. The lords of this world accredit me with wisdom, and say that nobody is more shrewd than Anavalt. But when at home, as if by accident, I tell my wife about these things, she smiles, not very merrily. For my wife knows more of the truth as to me and my powers and my achievements than I myself would care to know: and I can no longer endure the gaze of her forgiving eyes, and the puzzled hurt which is behind that forgiveness. So let us not discuss anybody’s eyes.”
“Well, well!” the dragon returned, “if you come to that, I think it would be more becoming for you not to be discussing your married life with entire strangers, especially when I have just had dinner, and am just going to have a nap.”
With that the evil worm turned round three times, his whiskers drooped, and he coiled up snugly about the sign-post which said, “Keep Out of These Woods.” He was a time-worn and tarnished dragon, as you could see now, with no employment in the world since men had forgotten the myth through which he used to ramp appallingly; so he had come, in homeless decrepitude, to guard the Wood of Elfhame.
Anavalt thus left this inefficient and outmoded monster.
§2
And the tale tells how, when Anavalt had passed this inefficient and outmoded monster, Anavalt went into the wood. He did not think of the tilled meadows or the chests of new-minted coin or the high estate which belonged to Anavalt in the world where people have souls. He thought of quite other matters as he walked in a dubious place. Here, to the right of Anavalt’s pathway, were seen twelve in red tunics: they had head-dresses of green, and upon their wrists were silver rings. These twelve were alike in shape and age and loveliness: there was no flaw in the appearance of any, there was no manner of telling one from another.