The Silver Stallion: A Comedy of Redemptio
BOOK TEN

AT MANUEL’S TOMB

66.

Old Age of Niafer

67.

The Women Differ

68.

Radegonde is Practical

69.

Economics of Jurgen

70.

All Ends Perplexedly

COMPENDIUM OF LEADING HISTORICAL EVENTS

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

NEW YORK      MCMXXVI

COPYRIGHT, 1926, BY JAMES BRANCH CABELL

FIRST PUBLISHED, 1926

First Printing, April, 1926

Second Printing, April, 1926

Third Printing, May, 1926

Fourth Printing, May, 1926

PRINTED IN THE U.S.A. BY

QUINN & BODEN COMPANY, INC.

RAHWAY, N.J.

I

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.

vii

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.

viii

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.]

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