Swineherd

“ For as they feed, one swineherd goes in one direction sounding his horn, and another in another: and thus the animals sort themselves of their own accord, and follow their own horns with such eagerness that it is impossible by any means to stop or hinder them. But in Greece, when the swine get mixed up in the oak forests in their search for the mast, the swineherd who has most assistants and the best help at his disposal, when collecting his own animals, drives off his neighbour’s also. ”

“ Just then one of the royal swineherds happened to lose his way in the forest, and he wandered on until he came to a little hut. There he found an old man and his wife, and with them a fair maiden, whom they called their daughter. Never had the swineherd seen any one so beautiful, and he determined to stay the night with these people, and if possible carry off the maiden. He found that her name was Hildur ”

“ The men employed in the duties—generally thralls, or borne slaves of the soil—were assisted by powerful dogs, capable of contending with a wolf, at least until the swineherd came with his heavy quarter-staff or spear to the rescue. In Sir Walter Scott's novel of Ivanhoe, the character of Gurth is a true, but of course somewhat overcolored picture of an Anglo-Saxon swineherd, as is that of his master of a large landed proprietor, a great proportion of whose property consisted in swine, and whose rude but hospitable board, was liberally supplied with the flesh. ”

“ And the swineherd took the boy, and brought him to the palace; and he was christened, and they called him Kilhwch, because he had been found in a swine’s burrow. Nevertheless the boy was of gentle lineage, and cousin unto Arthur; and they put him out to nurse.
After this the boy’s mother, Goleuddydd, the daughter of Prince Anlawdd, fell sick. Then she called her husband unto her, and said to him, “Of this sickness I shall die, and thou wilt take another wife. Now wives are the gift of the Lord, but it would be wrong for thee to harm thy son. ”

“ Esteemed, however, as the flesh of the hog was by the Greeks and Romans, commonly as the animal was kept, and carefully and even curiously as it was fed, in order to gratify the appetites of the wealthy and luxurious, yet the swineherd, as may be inferred from the silence of the classic writers, and especially of the poets who painted rural life, was not held in much estimation. No gods or heroes are described as keeping swine. ”

“ THE ROOM OF THE SWINEHERDS
"I beheld a trio in the front of the house: three dark crowntufts on them: three green frocks around them: three dark mantles over them: three forked ... (?) above them on the side of the wall. Six black greaves they had on the mast. Who are yon, O Fer rogain?"
"Easy to say," answers Fer rogain: "the three swineherds of the king, Dub and Donn and Dorcha: three brothers are they, three sons of Mapher of Tara. Long live he who should protect them! woe to him who shall slay them! for greater would be the triumph of protecting them than the triumph of slaying them!" ”

“ This Bull was one of two, of fairy descent. They had originally been the swineherds of two of the gods, Bodb, King of the Sídhe of Munster, and Ochall Ochne, King of the Sídhe of Connaught. As swineherds they were in perpetual rivalry; then, the better to carry on their quarrel, they changed themselves into two ravens, and fought for a year; 165next they turned into water-monsters, which tore one another for a year in the Suir and a year in the Shannon; then they became human again and fought as champions; and ended by changing into eels. ”

“ Sometimes also he must be ready for many labours at the lord’s will, besides boon-ploughing, and boon-harvesting, and meadow-mowing, and if he be well landed he must be horsed, that he may supply it for the lord’s horse-duty, or lead it himself, whichever he is ordered. And many things a man in such condition must do, all of which I cannot now enumerate. When he dies what he leaves pertains to his lord’s care, except what may be free.
105To the Swineherd paying pig-rent it pertains that he furnish his slaughter-beasts according to the custom of the estate. ”

“ When one of these herds in feeding meets with another they mix together, and the swineherds have no other expedient to separate them than to go to different quarters, where they sound their horn, and these animals, being accustomed to that signal, run immediately each to the horn of his own keeper. ”

“ Why, the menagerie lions can’t roar at all; they are nothing but over grown cats, compared to the lion of the desert.”
“That is very true,” observed Swinton; “however, I am delighted, for now I have not only my gemsbok, which is a gem above price, but also as fine a lion as I have ever seen. I should like to have them stuffed and set up just as they were before Alexander killed them. His rage and agony combined were most magnificent. After all, the lion is the king of the beasts. Bremen, send Swanevelt to the caravan for some of the men. ”

“ Swine are they now called.” “Who owneth them?” “Pryderi the son of Pwyll; they were sent him from Annwn, by Arawn the king of Annwn, and still they keep that name, half hog, half pig.” “Verily,” asked he, “and by what means may they be obtained from him?” “I will go, lord, as one of twelve in the guise of bards, to seek the swine.” “But it may be that he will refuse you,” said he. “My journey will not be evil, lord,” said he, “I will not come back without the swine.” “Gladly,” said he, “go thou forward.”
So he and Gilvaethwy went, and ten other men with them. ”

“ Seven miles from the sea-port of Boston, in Lincolnshire, lies the rural town of Swineshead, once itself a port, the sea having flowed up to the market-place, where there was a harbour. The name of Swineshead is familiar to every reader of English history, from its having been the resting-place of King John, after he lost the whole of his baggage, and narrowly escaped with his life, when crossing the marshes from Lynn to Sleaford, the castle of which latter place was then in his possession. The King halted at the Abbey, close to the town of Swineshead, which place he left on horseback ”

“ But the ode, in a more or less irregular form, whether pæan or threnody, has been the instrument of several of our leading lyrists. The genius of Mr. Swinburne, even to a greater degree than that of Shelley, is essentially dithyrambic, and is never happier than when it spreads its wings as wide as those of the wild swan, and soars upon the very breast of tempest. In these flights Mr. Swinburne attains to a volume of sonorous melody such as no other poet, perhaps, of the world xxxvi has reached, and we may say to him, as he has shouted to the Mater Triumphalis ”

“ I have no doubt but that such would have been the fate of Swanevelt or of me, had the brute got hold of us,” said the Major; “I never saw such a malignant, diabolical expression in any animal’s countenance as there was upon that buffalo’s. A lion is, I should say, a gentleman and man of honour compared to such an evil-disposed ruffian.”
“Well, Major, you have only to let them alone; recollect, you were the aggressor,” said Swinton, laughing. ”

“ When Bremen was but a short distance from them with the dogs, Swinton advised that they should dismount and take possession of a small clump of trees which grew very close together, as they would be concealed from the animal. They called Omrah to take the horses, but he was not to be seen; so they gave them to one of the Hottentots, to lead them away to some distance out of harm’s way.
“The vision of the rhinoceros is so limited,” observed Swinton, “that it is not difficult to get out of his way on his first charge; but at his second he is generally prepared for your manoeuvre. ”

“ Being possessed of a good share of brute courage, and feeling confident in his great physical strength, Swinton did not await the attack, but ran to meet his foe, swung his ponderous weapon on high, and brought it down with tremendous force on the seal’s head, but the hood received it and caused it to rebound—as if from indiarubber—with such violence that it swung the man to one side. So far this was well, as it saved him from a blow of the dog-hood’s flipper that would probably have stunned him. ”

“ As they went back to the bungalow, Finnerty, as if switched from the machinations of Prince Ananda by the touch of nature's sweet handicraft in the nest, fell into a mood so poetically gentle that Swinton could hardly subdue a sense of incongruity in its association with the huge-framed speaker. There was no doubt whatever about the pleasing thrill of sincerity in his Irish voice as he said, "One of my enjoyments is the study of bird nidification. They run true to breeding—which is more than we do. ”

“ Even if the floor is littered with delicious hog-wash, they prefer to plead in formâ pauperis, and the yearning to reach just one inch farther than their brothers seems to give an impulse to the growth of their snouts, which soon grow long, flexible, and narrow, like those of the parent-swine. The ancient breed of wild swine which haunted the great Caledonian forest may claim to have been re-established, for some of these are the third generation in descent from ancestors bred in Scotland. ”

“ Whether this be the root or not, Svein is in the North a strong youth, generally a servant, but in the form of Svend becoming the favourite name of the kings of Denmark, belonging to him whom Ethelred’s treachery brought down on England, where it was called Swayn, and translated into Latin as Sueno, while Tasso calls the crusading Swend, Sveno. Svinbjorn occurs in Iceland, and is our Swinburn. Svenke, again, is the active or slender youth. It is amusing to see how, from a strong man, the swain became a young man, then a bachelor, then a lover, and, finally, a shepherd. ”

“ The exotic grace, the honeyed charm of Swinburne, came from Greek and French poets. No wonder the perfection of Swinburne made would-be poets take to new verse. It was hopeless to contend with him. When you reach the top of the hill there is nothing to do but go down. Swinburne reached the top of the mountain.
The long winged dapple swallows, (Aristophanes) , is a Swinburnian phrase. From the choruses of Euripides, he learned music, swift-swinging resonant movement. That breathless on-rushing, which no poet of today has, came from here. They are astonishingly alike in sound-quality. ”

“ A full copy of the parchment roll being too long, I shall only quote a few particulars. No persons having swans could appoint a new swan-herd without the licence of the king’s swan-herd. Every swan-herd on the stream was bound to attend upon the king’s swan-herd upon warning, or to suffer fine. The king’s swan-herd was bound, under heavy penalties for disobedience, to keep a book of swan-marks, and no new marks were permitted to interfere with the old ones. ”

“ As a result, a great deal of his verse—and still more of his prose—has the heat of an argument rather than the warmth of life.
His posthumous book on the Elizabethans is liveliest when it is most argumentative. Swinburne is less amusing when he is exalting the Elizabethans than when he is cleaving the skull of a pet aversion. His style is an admirable one for faction-fighting, but is less suitable for intimate conversation. He writes in superlatives that give one the impression that he is furious about something or other even when he is being fairly sensible. ”

“ Swinburne is ready to write in any known form of verse, with an equal facility and (this is the all-important point) the same inspiration. Loving the form of the drama, and capable of turning it to his uses, not of bending it to its own, he has filled play after play with music, noble feeling, brave eloquence. Here in this briefest and most actual of his plays—an act, an episode—he has concentrated much of this floating beauty, this overflowing imagination, into a few stern and adequate words, and made a new thing, as always, in his own image. ”

“ The Hottentots rushed out, regardless of Swinton’s calling out to them to be careful, as the animal was not dead, and had surrounded it within a few yards, when it rose again and fiercely charged Swanevelt, who narrowly escaped. A shot from the Major put an end to its career, and they then walked up to where the animal lay, when a cry from Omrah, who was standing near the river, attracted their notice, and they perceived that the male rhinoceros, of whose presence they were not aware, had just burst out of the same covert, and was charging towards them.
Every one immediately took to his heels ”

“ The grey stallion leaped from the rake of a spur, his thundering gallop all but drowning the blasphemous reproach that issued from Swinton's lips, as, in a fury of sudden passion, he took a deliberate swing at the young nobleman's nose.
"THE GRAY STALLION'S THUNDERING GALLOP ALL BUT DROWNING THE BLASPHEMOUS REPROACH THAT ISSUED FROM SWINTON'S LIPS."
Finnerty unostentatiously crowded his bulk between the two, saying, with an inward laugh: "You're a dangerous man; you've winded the captain, and you've frightened that horse into a runaway. He may break the girl's neck." ”

“ His blank verse marches, pauses, lingers, and charges. It feels the strain, it yields, it resists; it is all-expressive. But if the practice of some of the poets succeeding him had tended to make it rigid and tame again, Swinburne was a new liberator. He writes, when he ought, with a finely appropriate regularity, as in the lovely line on the forest glades
That fear the faun’s and know the dryad’s foot,
in which the rule is completely kept, every step of the five stepping from the unaccented place to the accented without a tremor. ”

“ Why had the German drawn Finnerty into wrestling the Punjabi? Why had some one stolen the uncut sapphire? What was behind the prince's pose in religion? Who was the woman behind the lattice—yes, it was a woman——Then Swinton drowsed off.
It is soul racking to awaken in a strange room, startled from sleep by unplaceable sounds, to experience that hopeless lostness, to mentally grope for a door or a window in the way of a familiar mark to assist one's location. When Captain Swinton was thrust out of deep slumber by a demoniac tumult he came into consciousness in just such an environment. ”