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The Brown man with the Queer Feet
Description
From Chapter 19 - "The Brown Man with Queer Feet"
Jurgen goes into a Druid forest where he follows Merlin's instructions.
So he presently observed a sun-browned brawny fellow, who sat upon the bank of a stream, dabbling his feet in the water, and making music with a pipe constructed of seven reeds of irregular lengths. To him Jurgen displayed, in such a manner as Merlin had prescribed, the token which Merlin had given. The man made a peculiar sign, and rose. Jurgen saw that this man's feet were unusual.
Jurgen bowed low, and he said, as Merlin had bidden: "Now praise be to thee, thou lord of the two truths! I have come to thee, O most wise, that I may learn thy secret. I would know thee, and would know the forty two mighty ones who dwell with thee in the hall of the two truths, and who are nourished by evil-doers, and who partake of wicked blood each day of the reckoning before Wennofree. I would know thee for what thou art.
The brown man answered : "I am everything that was and that is to be. Never has any mortal been able to discover what I am."
Then this brown man conducted Jurgen to an open glen, at the heart of the forest.
"Merlin dared not come himself, because," observed the brown man, "Merlin is wise. But you are a poet. So you will presently forget that which you are about to see, or at worst you will tell pleasant lies about it, particularly to yourself."
"I do not know about that," says Jurgen, "but I am willing to taste any drink once. What are you about to show me?"
The brown man answered: "All."
Afterwards, Jurgen does not believe what he's seen–
You would have me believe that men, that all men who have ever lived or shall ever live hereafter, that even I am of no importance! Why, there would be no justice in any such arrangement, no justice anywhere!" …
Then the brown man stamped his foot, and the striking of his foot upon the moss made a new noise such as Jurgen had never heard: for the noise seemed to come multitudinously from every side, at first as though each leaf in the forest were tinily cachinnating; and then this noise was swelled by the mirth of larger creatures, and echoes played with this noise, until there was a reverberation everywhere like that of thunder. The earth moved under their feet very much as a beast twitches its skin under the annoyance of flies. Another queer thing Jurgen noticed, and it was that the trees about the glen had writhed and arched their trunks, and so had bended, much as candles bend in very hot weather, to lay their topmost foliage at the feet of the brown man. And the brown man's appearance was changed as he stood there, terrible in a continuous brown glare from the low-hanging clouds, and with the forest making obeisance, and with shivering and laughter everywhere.
Topical Subject
Historical fiction; Fantasy fiction; Linoleum block-printing
Personal Name Subject
Cabell, James Branch, 1879-1958; Ogden, Samuel Robinson, Jr. (1896-1985)
Language
eng
Genre
linocuts (prints); books
Local Genre
artwork; text
Type
Still Image
Digital Format
image/jpg
Rights Statement URL
https://rightsstatements.org/vocab/NoC-US/1.0/
Rights
This material is in the public domain in the United States and thus is free of any copyright restriction. Acknowledgement of Virginia Commonwealth University Libraries as a source is requested.
Collection
Twenty-two Plates From Cabell's Jurgen
Source
Ogden S, James Branch Cabell Collection, James Branch Cabell Collection. Twenty-Two Plates from Cabell’s Jurgen. [publisher not identified]; 1929.
File Name
jurgenplates_017.jpg