Echo and Narcissus

but young sharptongue now that we have caught you we will put you into a trap that you cannot get out of weld an iron collar on his neck so i lived and now am your tooth-troll well it is the luck of war but by the share of odin i kept my vow yes cried harald jumping to his feet and had a joke into the bargain ah some time i will make a brave vow like that end of olaf's farm by jenny hall echo

and narcissus in a book of myths by jean Echo and Narcissus in the solitudes of the hills we find her and yet we may come on her unawares in the din of a noisy city she will answer us where the waves are lashing themselves against the rugged cliffs of our own british coast or we may find her where the great yellow pillars of fallen temples lie hot in the sun close to the vivid blue water of the african sea at nightfall on the lonely northern moors she mimics the cry of a wailing bird that calls for its mate but it is she who prolongs the roll of the great organ in a vast cathedral she who repeats the rattle and crack and boom of the guns no matter in what land the war may be raging in the desolate australian bush she makes the crash of the falling limb of a dead gum-tree go on and on and tortures the human being who is lost hopelessly lost and facing a cruel death by repeating his despairing calls for help through the night in old country houses she sports at will and gives life to sad old tales of the restless dead who restlessly walk but she echoes the children's voices as they play by the seashore or pick primroses in the woods in spring, and when they greet her with laughter, she laughs in merry response.

They may fear her when the sun has gone down, and when they are left all alone, they begin to dread her mockery.

Yet the nymph who sought for love and failed to gain what she sought must surely find some comfort on those bright days of summer and of spring when she gives the little children happiness and they give her their love.

Deaf to light's zephyrus it would not move, but still would seem to droop, to pine, to love.

Keats.

End of Echo and Narcissus by Jean Lange

In every large tree there lives a gnat, and it is a custom very strictly adhered to that before any tree can be touched the permission of the spirit must be asked and obtained.