We are given a flashback account of how an elderly faun woman came to stay at Lindenlea farm for ten years with great purpose, before leaving for Aslan's country.
This is an adjunct chapter to "The Gryphon, the River and the Wildcat" but acts as a one-shot so it does not intrude on the main story line's progress.
...
From the age of six, Gwyn had attended school in Beruna for a few days each month after market day. In this way he made friends and learned about the word beyond his farm and how to do sums and practiced his writing and running. But he learned other things that were just as important from an old faun woman who came to live on the farm just before Gwyn was born.
Her skills as a midwife and herbalist were legendary in this part of Narnia.
She had helped more young fauns, satyrs, humans, unicorns and deer, bears and goats (talking or otherwise) into the world than you have shelled peas. Her move to the farm was as much to help out Angharad as herself, for her snug little cave about six miles up the valley had been the victim of an earth tremor after which water began to trickle in from an underground stream.
Like many but not all fauns she was also learned and bookish, so she had bundled all her books and simples up in bedsheets and sacking in a wheelbarrow and wrestled it down the valley and appeared at the farm, her slim, bent form with dark red brown skin and curly white fleece bright against the green of the garden. As Albanac came out to find out who had unlatched the houseyard gate, she had looked up at him with her clever dark eyes and said, "I think you'll be needing me for a while". That was that.
So Dorcas came to stay at Lindenlea farm and not only did she help out Angharad through the last months of a difficult pregnancy and the birth of Gwyn, she stayed beyond this time and acted as nanny and teacher to Gwyn.
When he was 4, she and his father taught him to read and when he was 6 to write. His father also taught him how to get milk from the goats and how to make cheese from it. Dorcas and his mother taught him about the many small secrets of the woods and fields, the turning of the seasons and the ways of growing things, moulds, worms and the soil.
They introduced him to some of the dryads who inhabited several of the trees in the neighbourhood, who in turn gave Gwyn extraordinary experiences in the ways of trees, their roots and seeds. In May the whole family joined the dryads of a local grove of beeches in stately dances of thanksgiving.
When Gwyn played with the local dwarf children and talking deer fawns, flitting with them through the orchard, climbing trees, disappearing behind trees, sometimes mysteriously, or when he was learning how to plant seeds and cuttings with unusual care and gravity, Dorcas would fix him with her bright black eyes and say, "Aye, there's no mistaking it, there's dryad blood in you young Gwyn."
These words, he had no meaning for until he was five and didn't grasp fully till he was eleven.
Gwyn had developed the ability to grow almost anything he took his mind to and with great rapidity. Roots would grow on green sticks he planted within a week and seeds that would normally take weeks to sprout would be showing their heads above soil in a few days. His mother had these skills too, even more strongly, which was why their garden was so healthy and full of life.
But his mother did not have the knack of seemingly disappearing into trees or appearing at the tops of trees with no branches between the ground and the crown.
Even Gwyn could not always describe how this happened. He just seemed to bind to the tree, find footholds and he never fell.
Angharad and Albanac had had many early frights but they learned that Gwyn's natural affinity with trees of all kinds meant that he was safe as long as he didn't jump from a great height. As for Dorcas, she would look sidelong at him, raise an eyebrow on her wise happy-sad face, and turn to Angharad or Albanac and say "there's a reason for this, mark my words".
When Gwyn was only 10, the dear old faun became very ill. She had a cough that would not get better and she became very thin and weak.
On a bleak autumn day, the leaves turning yellow and beginning to fall, she called him to her. With Angharad looking on, Dorcas held his youthful hand in her weathered one and in a whispy faint voice, her now filmy dark eyes seeming to stare into the shadows, she told him something that he never forgot.
Dorcas's soft husky voice was halting and her breath was laboured. "I'm not prone to foretelling my love... but you must understand something... my day is coming to an end at last... yes, sad but true... now I must speak what I saw... and heard and what I... see now before my lips are... stilled."
She paused for breath and swallowed.
"Long ago, long before you were even born... I had a dream... it came in the night... I was in a beautiful wood with many pools... it was warm and fragrant. A Lion came pacing through the wood towards me. It was Aslan as sure as eggs are eggs..."
"His golden light was about me... I could almost smell his sweet lion-scent... his voice was like strong honey and it spoke to my very soul."
His voice was a voice of peace and hope and strength. He told me how much he adored and admired my life and my work... that has stayed with me ever since... but his voice also held a command. He stood by me and told me that by and by a sign would come to leave my cave and that I was to use my skills to bring into the world someone who one day would save many Narnians from a terrible fate."
"I waited many years, continuing my work and waiting for the sign. It turned out to be an earth tremor. It fractured the hills slightly and water began coming through my cave. So I had to leave and I followed the water, to here. When I arrived, I realised that this one would be you once I saw your mother. She was heavy with you and she was having a time of it. That is why I have stayed. Watching you grow, and encouraging the talents you have."
"So when you were born, I knew that you was my special charge. I've tried to teach you well. I've seen the things you can do, though you don't know it yourself always. You have a knack for... dryad ways shall we say... and that's a gift no son of Adam should waste."
Dorcas paused and swallowed again, her chest heaving a little.
"Those gifts are tools young one, not toys as I have told you before. I lay no charge on you sweet boy, and I do not foretell, but I say this... you will find other teachers… and a day may come when your special gifts will save not only your own life but that of many others as well".
Gwyn stood feeling burdened, confused and bereft and nodded glumly. After this long speech Dorcas's head sank into the pillows and closed her eyes. She beckoned to Angharad, who bent over her and she whispered to her something. Angharad nodded, holding back tears.
Shortly after, Angharad went to the linden tree across the house yard, stood with arms out-stretched and then clasped the tree with her head bent, forehead against the trunk. After this, she stood in the centre of the garden and put her fingers in her mouth and let out a shrill whistle, which was repeated several times. Then she waited patiently. After a few minutes, a pair of large black birds appeared to whom spoke briefly. A short while later, she returned inside and said to Dorcas, "I've put out the call."
Dorcas remained in bed for three days, drinking little, eating nothing, mostly sleeping or appearing to. Angharad and Albanac wiped her brow and sometimes carried her shrunken body to the outdoor privy.
On the third day at dawn, there was a light tap at the door and Gwyn stumbled down wonderingly. To his surprise, at the door were the startling shapes of a tall deep chested brown haired centaur, a tall grey linden dryad and two faun women.
"Mother!" called Gwyn, startled and not sure what to say or do. Angharad was already on her way, wrapping a robe about herself. When she saw who was there her eyes widened, then she curtseyed deeply and with palm up, touched her forehead and then gestured for them to enter.
The centaur demurred, and just tapped a hoof, but the dryad and both fauns did enter, then crossed the room to Dorcas's bedside.
Dorcas opened her filmy black eyes and settled her gaze upon her visitors. She did not smile but opened her hands out a little. Each faun took one hand each to help her sit and the dryad bent her beautiful tall form and gathered up the little old faun woman and lifted her from her bed, her coverlet falling away.
Dorcas' ivory horns showing the slight curl of age, her naturally dark red brown skin and patchy silver-grey fleece and horny old cloven hooves were visible now as they gently bore her outside and into the garden amidst her herbs and the scent of spruce and fir woods from up the valley drifted down in the early mist.
The sun peeped over the eastern horizon and sent shafts of glorious golden light across the world, lighting the clouds behind them in lemon and apricot tones, lighting up the fluttering yellow leaves of the linden tree. The dryad lifted Dorcas high into the air, seeming to stretch taller than ever to meet the sun.
The fauns took out their flutes and began a light but melancholy tune, subtended by the slow sonorous droning hum of the /
Angharad knelt on the damp ground, Albanac and Gwyn by her side, barefoot, still in their nightshirts. It was only then as he looked sadly and a little shyly about at the visitors that Gwyn noticed that the yard was lined with creatures of the woods and fields. There were hundreds of talking rabbits, moles, hedgehogs and hares, a whole herd of roe deer, even a great elk, and to Gwyn's lasting astonishment a mixed group of unicorns, winged horses and centaurs.
The entire clan of local dwarves and a few visitors stood holding their hats looking sad and solemn. Then as the sun's rays began to shine brightly, cutting through the mist, the troupe of sad merry fauns reached the height of their tune, the sun's rays shone on Dorcas directly who have a gasp and all was still.
Only the small birds of dawn could now be heard.
Gwyn's eyes were sore with hot salty tears and he howled a sharp dirge into the sunrise. Clinging to his father and mother he sobbed his first real grief.
...
They buried Dorcas later that day.
Over the morning, a grave was dug out of the red clay soil just outside the house gate on the edge of a thicket. It was dug by a small army of stout dwarves and lithe energetic fauns and some talking rabbits. Everyone got very dirty, hot and sticky.
Any farm chores that might have been forgotten were seen to by some of the visitors without being asked. Rastus the Talking Ibex who helped manage the goats on the farm had far more help than he needed in keeping the goats in order as they would not be let roam today. And there were many willing hands to pluck small branches and armsful of grass to feed them, although he did say they needed to leave some more for tomorrow.
Clive, the resident Talking Bulldog was simply overwhelmed by the crowd and retreated.
The garden became a makeshift kitchen with trestles and cooking fires. Some of the talking animals such as rabbits, hares and deer, pretended to not eye the rows of vegetables and controlled their appetites out of respect for both Dorcas' memory and the farm.
By early afternoon, Dorcas had been laid gently on birch bark, her eyes closed, her horns and hooves rubbed in red clay, her skin with white ashes and sweet oil. Her hands were folded in and her legs crossed gently and holding a mixed bunch of pink yarrow, torch lily and Narnian fresny.
Gwyn cried more bitter tears as looking on, he saw how they wrapped the birch bark gently around Dorcas and bound it firmly around and around with willow bark strips before, with more piping and droning, the bundle was lowered gently into the grave. Then came a very long time of silence broken by sobs and sniffles and some crying out loud, in which every person and talking beast present came to the graveside and dropped in a handful or with their feet pushed in a small pile of soil and clay.
One or two talking hedgehogs lost their footing and fell in, rolling themselves into balls in their embarrasment. But no-one laughed and they were simply and gently helped out with branches by others nearby.
Finally the fauns brought the shovels and mounded the remaining soil over the grave, sprinkled seeds over it and then laid turves of grass and meadow flowers all over the mound and round about.
Then everyone gathered about, the smallest in the middle and the tallest around the outside and they all sang some verses from the Great Song as it is called in Narnian memory, the song of the beginning.
For it was said that when Aslan had sung the earth and divine waters and plants and animals and talking peoples into being, most had struggled out of mounds much like this one. So everyone who knew and loved her sang, so that Dorcas could find her way into Aslan's country in something like the same way.
At the very moment the song was completed and it hung in the air and still thrummed in the earth for a few seconds, the seeds sprouted and pushed their way up through the turf. They burst open to reveal many little white and red flowers which opened to release a sweet and delicious perfume that made everyone remember the good faun with even greater clarity and affection, and they knew their work was done.
So the tears of grief became tears of joy and wonder.
After this the rest of the afternoon was spent in making sure that everyone had had enough to eat and drink before they went on their way.
As for Gwyn, the unexpected events of this day were at once confusing, exhausting and exhilarating. But they also helped him make sense of the last few weeks because he had never really known death before now.
He also found he had a new awe for the old faun who had helped bring him into the world and taught him so much. He had never before realised how important she was and how respected she was by so many. It gave him pause for thought about why it was that she had considered him so important.