"Eternal Champion - 05 - The Skrayling Tree" - читать интересную книгу автора (Moorcock Michael)

more than a half-remembered whisper, a fleeting image. Only the power will stay
with me, come what may.
Elric Sadric's son, last Emperor of Melnibone

Should you ask me, whence these stories?
Whence these legends and traditions,
With the odors of the forest,
With the dew and damp of meadows,
With the curling smoke of wigwams,
With the rushing of great rivers,
With their frequent repetitions
And their wild reverberations,
As of thunder in the mountains?
I should answer, I should tell you,
"From the forests and the prairies,
From the great lakes of the Northland,
From the land of the Ojibways
From the land of the Dacotahs,
From the mountains, moors, and fen-lands
Where the heron, the Shuh-shuh-gah,
Feeds among the reeds and rushes.
I repeat them as I heard them
From the lips of Nawadaha,
The musician, the sweet singer."
LONGFELLOW, "The Song of Hiawatha"

THE FIRST BRANCH
OONA'S STORY

Nine Black Giants guard the Skraelings' Tree,
Three to the South and to the East are Three,
Three more the Westward side win shield,
But the North to a White Serpent she will yield;
For he is the dragon who deeply sleeps
Yet wakes upon the hour to weep,
And when he weeps fierce tears of fire,
They form a fateful funeral pyre
And only a singer with lute or lyre,
Shall turn the tide of his dark desire.
WHELDRAKE, "The Skraeling Tree"

CHAPTER 0NE The House on the Island

Hearing I ask from the Holy Races,
Prom Heimdall's sons, coin high ana low;
Thou wilt know, Valfather, now well I relate
Ola tales I remember of men long ago.
I remember yet the giants of yore,
Who gave me bread in me days gone by;
Nine worlds I knew, the nine in the tree