The Witch-Woman Trilogy

James Branch Cabell

The Witch-Woman Trilogy

James Branch Cabell

[1879–1958]

The Witch-Woman Trilogy

From the Biography of Manuel

Being the three stories of Ettare, the daughter of Manuel the Redeemer,

Consisting of:

The Music Behind The Moon,

The White Robe,

and

The Way Of Ebcen

together with the original

Colophon.

  (The text conforms with the 1948 revisions by the author.)

Table of Contents

THE MUSIC FROM BEHIND THE MOON

PART ONE. OF MADOC IN HIS YOUTH

PART TWO. OF MADOC IN THIS WORLD

PART THREE. OF MADOC IN THE MOON

PART FOUR. OF MADOC IN THE OLD TIME

THE WHITE ROBE

1. OF HIS MANNER OF LIFE IN THE SECULAR

2. OF HIS ARDENT LOVE AND APPROACH TO MARTYRDOM

3. OF HIS CONFESSION AND CONVERSION

4. OF THE DIVINE CONDESCENSIONS SHOWN UNTO HIM

5. OF HIS YET FURTHER INCREASE IN GRACE

6. OF HIS CONTINUED ZEAL AND EFFICACY

7. OF THE SALUTARY POWER OF HIS PREACHING

8. OF THE KINDLY IMPULSES OF HIS PIETY

9. OF THE REWARD APPOINTED FOR HIM

10. OF HIS RIGHTEOUS ENDING

THE WAY OF ECBEN

Words for the Intending Reader

PART ONE: Of Alfgar in His kingdom

Chapter I. The Warring for Ettaine

Chapter II. Of Their Love-talk

Chapter III. A Dream Smites Him

Chapter IV. The Sending of the Swallow

Chapter V. The Way of Ulf

PART TWO: Of Alfgar in His Journeying

Chapter VI. We Come to Davan

Chapter VII. ‘The King Pays!’

Chapter VIII. We Approach Clioth

Chapter IX. The Way of Worship

Chapter X. The Last Giving

Chapter XI. How Time Passed

PART THREE: Of Alfgar in the Grayness

Chapter XII. The Way of All Women

Chapter XIII. What a Boy Thought

PART FOUR: Of Alfgar in a Garden

Chapter XIV. We Encounter Dawn

Chapter XV. How the King Triumphed

Chapter XVI. Contentment of a Chevalier

Chapter XVII. The Changing of Alfgar

Chapter XVIII. As to Another Marriage Feast

Chapter XIX. The Way It Ended

PART FIVE: Of Horvendile and Ettarre

Chapter XX. We Regard Other Wanderers

THE COLOPHON CALLED: “Hail and Farewell, Ettarre!”

Chapter I. Which Disposes of The Witch-Woman

Chapter II. Which Takes Up an Unprofitable Subject

Chapter III. Which Touches Youth and Uncrabbed Age

Chapter IV. Which Records a Strange Truism

Chapter V. Which Chronicles an Offset

Chapter VI. Which Becomes Reasonable

Chapter VII. Which Deals with the Deplorable

Chapter VIII. Which Slightly Anticipates

Chapter IX. Which Keeps a Long Standing Engagement

Chapter X. Which, at Long Last, Says All

THE MUSIC FROM BEHIND THE MOON

EPITOME OF A POET

  “Judge thou the lips of those that rose up against me,

  and their devices against me all the day.

  Behold their sitting down, and their rising up;

  I am their music.”

FOR

CARL VAN VECHTEN

Whatever hereinafter he may like

PART ONE. OF MADOC IN HIS YOUTH

  —De grâce, belle dame, si je puis vous demander ce que fait a coeur de savoir, dites-moi pourquoi vous êtes assise ici toute seule?

  —Je vais te le dire, man pauvre Madoc, avec franchise.

THE TEXT FROM GENESIS

  To such as will to listen I plan here to tell the story of Madoc and some little part of the story of Ettarre.

  Now this is a regrettably familiar tale. It may possibly have begun with Lamech, in the Book of Genesis,—who was, in any event, the first well-thought-of citizen upon known record to remark, “I have slain a young man to my hurt!” And poets tell us that many poets whose bodies had survived to middle age have repeated this glum observation, although probably not ever since then, when Lamech spoke without tact, to their co-partners alike in the homicide and in married life.

  Moreover, this is a regrettably inconclusive tale, without any assured ending. Nor is there any assured prophesying, either, that the next thousand years or so will remedy that defect in this tale, because the story of Ettarre is not lightly to be ended by the death of any woman’s body which for a while Ettarre has been wearing.

  And, lastly, this is a regrettably true tale such as no correct-thinking person ought to regard seriously.

1. FOUR VIEWS OF A POET