Merlin by Jane Yolen

Author:Jane Yolen [Yolen, Jane]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

10. DREAM CAGE

HE HAD NO IDEA HOW MANY DAYS HE REMAINED in the cage. He tried to keep them separate in his mind, but they tended to run together. Each time he woke, the women gave him an herbal draught, then listened to his latest dreams. He never lied about the dreams, nor made one up. Indeed, he could not have, even had he wanted to.

He dreamed of a table round as a wheel that rolled across the land leaving great wide ruts. He dreamed of huge stones walking across the ocean. He dreamed of a giant, green as May, who threw his head in the air like a child with a ball. He dreamed of a man and a woman asleep in one bed, a sword between them sharper than any desire.

He told the wild women all these dreams.

At each telling, they listened politely, then debated among themselves the meanings of the dreams. The table, they said, was the year, sometimes winter and sometimes summer. The stones, they said, were the Saxon army come across the sea. The giant, they said, was the Green Man come to save them. The man and woman and sword, they said, were of no consequence, having naught to do with them, but with the nobles in their fancy houses.

They never asked him what he thought of the dreams, and here they erred. For they were mistaken in every particular about the dreams, this he knew. The dreams were each a slantwise reading of his own future. He was sure of it. They had nothing to do with the wild folk at all.

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