61.Vanadis, Dear Lady of Reginlief
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THEN, from the highest part of this paradise, and from the unimaginable yew-vales of Ydalir which rise above the topmost branches of the tree called Lærath, descended blue-robed Vanadis, the lady of Reginlief, dear to the Ænseis. She had disposed of five inefficient husbands, in impetuous mythological manners, but still a loneliness and a desire was upon her; and with the eternal optimism of widowhood she came to look for a sixth husband among these great-thewed heroes who jeered at women and their wiles.
But Donander of Évre was the person who for two reasons found instant favor in her eyes when she came upon Donander refreshing himself after the pleasant fatigues of that morning’s combat, and about his daily bath in the shining waters of the river Gipul. So did the dead call that stream which flowed from the antlers of the monstrous stag who stood eternally nibbling and munching above the Hall of the Chosen.
“Here is an eminently suitable person,” Vanadis reflected. Aloud, she said, “Hail, friend! and does astout fine fellow of your length and of your thickness go languidly shunning work or seeking work?”
Stalwart Donander climbed out of the clear stream of Gipul. He came, smilingly and with a great exaltation, toward the first woman whom he had seen in seven hundred years. And, so constant is the nature of woman, that divine Vanadis regarded Donander in just the reflective wonder with which, more than seven hundred years ago, barbarian Utsumé had looked at Coth in the market-place of Porutsa.
Donander said, “What is your meaning, madame?”
Vanadis replied, “I have a desire which, a fine portent has informed me, agrees with your desire.”
Then Vanadis, with god-like candor, made wholly plain her meaning. And since Donander’s nature was affectionate, he assented readily enough to the proposals of this somewhat ardent but remarkably handsome young woman, who went abroad thus unconventionally in a car drawn by two cats, and who, in her heathenish and figurative way, described herself as a goddess. He stipulated only that, so soon as he was dressed, they be respectably united according to whatever might be the marriage laws of her country and diocese.
The Ænseis were not used in such matters to stand upon ceremony. Nevertheless, they conferred together,—Aduna and Ord and Hleifner and Rönn and Giermivul, and the other radiant sons of Sidvrar. It was they who good-humoredly devised a ceremony, withcandles and promises and music and a gold ring, and all the other features which seemed expected by the quaint sort of husband whom their beloved Vanadis had fetched up from the Hall of the Chosen. But her sisters took no part in this ceremony, upon the ground that they considered such public preliminaries to be unheard-of and brazen.
Thus was Donander made free of Ydalir, the land that is above Lærath and all the other heavens and paradises: and after Donander’s seven hundred years of celibacy, he and his bride got on together in her bright palace lovingly enough. Vanadis found that she too, comparatively speaking, had lived with her five earlier husbands in celibacy.