The Silver Stallion
Books by MR. CABELL
Biography:
Beyond Life
Figures of Earth
The Silver Stallion
Domnei
Chivalry
Jurgen
The Line of Love
The High Place
Gallantry
The Certain Hour
The Cords of Vanity
From the Hidden Way
The Rivet in Grandfather’s Neck
The Eagle’s Shadow
The Cream of the Jest
Straws and Prayer-Books
Scholia:
The Lineage of Lichfield
Taboo
The Jewel Merchants
Jurgen and the Law
(Edited by Guy Holt)
The Silver Stallion
A Comedy of Redemption by
JAMES BRANCH CABELL
“Now, the redemption which we as yet
await (continued Imlac), will be that of
Kalki, who will come as a Silver Stallion:
all evils and every sort of folly will perish at
the coming of this Kalki: true righteousness
will be restored, and the minds of men will
be made clear as crystal.”
Robert M. McBride & Company
QUINN & BODEN COMPANY, INC.
RAHWAY, N.J.
TO
CARL VAN DOREN
Could but one luring dream rest dead forever
As dreamers rest at last, with all dreams done,
Redeemers need not be, and faith need never
Lease, for the faithful, homes beyond the sun.
Victoriously that dream—above the sorrow
And subterfuge of living,—still lets fail
No heart to heed its soothing lure.... To-morrow
Dreams will be true, and faith and right prevail.
Out of the bright—and, no, not vacant!—heavens
Redeemers will be coming by and by,
En route to make our sixes and our sevens
Neat as a trivet or an apple-pie.
In this volume the text of Bülg has not been followed over-scrupulously: but it is hoped that, in a book intended for general circulation, none will deplore such excisions and euphemisms, nor even such slight additions, as seemed to make for coherence and clarity and decorum.
The curious are referred to the pages of Poictesme en Chanson et Légende for a discussion of the sources of The Silver Stallion; and may decide for themselves whether or not Bülg has, in Codman’s phrase, “shown” these legends to be “spurious compositions of 17th century origin.” For myself, I here confess to finding the evidence educed, alike, a bit inadequate and, as far as goes my purpose, wholly immaterial. These chronicles, such as they are, present the only known record of the latter days of champions whose youthful exploits have long since been made familiar to English readers of Lewistam’s Popular Tales of Poictesme: authentic or not, and irrespective of whether such legends cannot be quite definitely proved to have existed earlier than 1652, here is the sole account we have anywhere, or are now likely ever to receive, of the changes that followed in Poictesme after the passing of Manuel the Redeemer.
It is as such an account—which for my purpose was a desideratum,—that I have put The Silver Stallion into English.
THE LORDS THAT POICTESME HAD IN DOM MANUEL’S TIME
These ten were of the Fellowship of the Silver Stallion:
¶ Dom Manuel, Count of Poictesme, held Storisende and Bellegarde, the town of Beauvillage and the strong fort at Lisuarte, with all Amneran and Morven.
¶ Messire Gonfal of Naimes, Margrave of Aradol, held Upper Naimousin.
¶ Messire Donander of Évre, the Thane of Aigremont, held Lower Naimousin.
¶ Messire Kerin of Nointel, Syndic and Castellan of Basardra, held West Val-Ardray.
¶ Messire Ninzian of Yair, the High Bailiff of Upper Ardra, held Val-Ardray in the East.
¶ Messire Holden of Nérac, Earl Marshal of St. Tara, held Belpaysage.
¶ Messire Anavalt of Fomor, the Portreeve and Warden of Manneville, held Belpaysage Le Bas.
¶ Messire Coth of the Rocks, Alderman of St. Didol, held Haut Belpaysage.
¶ Messire Guivric of Perdigon, Heitman of Asch, held Piemontais.
¶ Messire Miramon of Ranec, Lord Seneschal of Gontaron, held Duardenois.
Likewise there were the fiefs of Dom Meunier, Count of Montors, Dom Manuel’s brother-in-law. Meunier was not of this fellowship: he held also Giens. Here his wife ruled over Lower Duardenois.
¶ Othmar Black-Tooth, whom some called Othmar the Lawless, long held Valnères and Ogde, until Manuel routed him: thereafter these villages, with the most of Bovion, stayed masterless.
¶ Helmas the Deep-Minded, after a magic was put upon him in the year of grace 1255, held, in his fashion, the high place at Brunbelois: but the rest of Acaire, once Lorcha had been taken and Sclaug burned, was no man’s land. Also upon Upper Morven lived disaffected persons in defiance of all law and piety.
—Poictesme en Chanson et Légende. G. J.
Bülg. Strasburg, 1785. [Pp. 87-88.]
Last Siege of the Fellowship
“They shall be, in the siege, both against Judah and against Jerusalem.”
—Zechariah, xii, 2.
—Et la route, fait elle aussi un grand tour?
—Oh, bien certainement, étant donné qu’elle circonvient à la fois la destinée et le bon sens.
—Puisqu’il le faut, alors! dit Jurgen; d’ailleurs je suis toujours disposé à goûter n’importe quel breuvage au moins une fois.
—La Haulte Histoire de Jurgen.