So he sat and listened to pigeons talking, till it seemed to him they were trying to lull the restlessness of Earth, and thought that they might by drowsy incantation be putting some spell against time, through which it could not come to harm their nests; for the power of time was not made clear to him yet and he knew not yet that nothing in our fields has the strength to hold out against time.
Lord DunsanyThere passed a child of four, a small girl on a footpath over the fields, going home in the evening to Erl. They looked at each other with round eyes.
"Hullo," said the child.
"Hullo, child of men," said the troll.
. . . "What are you?" said the child.
"A troll of Elfland," answered the troll.
"So I thought," said the child.
"Where are you going, child of men?" the troll asked.
"To the houses," the child replied.
"We don't want to go there," said the troll.
"N-no," said the child.
"Come to Elfland," the troll said.
The child thought for a while. Other children had gone, and the elves always sent a changeling in their place, so that nobody quite missed them and nobody really knew. She thought awhile of the wonder and wildness of Elfland, and then of her own house.
"N-no," said the child.
"Why not?" said the troll.
"Mother made a jam roll this morning," said the child. And she walked on gravely home. Had it not been for that chance jam roll she had gone to Elfland.
"Jam!" said the troll contemptuously and thought of the tarns of Elfland, the great lily-leaves lying flat upon their solemn waters, the huge blue lilies towering into the elf-light above the green deep tarns: for jam this child had forsaken them!
Tags: children choices elfland
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