Fifty-One Tales by Lord Dunsany 1915

The Hen

All along the farmyard gables the swallows sat a-row,

twittering uneasily to one another, telling of many things,

but thinking only of Summer and the South, for Autumn was

afoot and the North wind waiting.

   And suddenly one day they were all quite gone.  And

everyone spoke of the swallows and the South.

   "I think I shall go South myself next year," said a hen.

   And the year wore on and the swallows came again, and the

year wore on and they sat again on the gables, and all the

poultry discussed the departure of the hen.

   And very early one morning, the wind being from the

North, the swallows all soared suddenly and felt the wind in

their wings; and a strength came upon them and a strange old

knowledge and a more than human faith, and flying high they

left the smoke of our cities and small remembered eaves, and

saw at last the huge and homeless sea, and steering by grey

sea-currents went southward with the wind.  And going South

they went by glittering fog-banks and saw old islands

lifting their heads above them; they saw the slow quests of

the wandering ships, and divers seeking pearls, and lands at

war, till there came in view the mountains that they sought

and the sight of the peaks they knew; and they descended

into an austral valley, and saw Summer sometimes sleeping

and sometimes singing song.

   "I think the wind is about right," said the hen; and she

spread her wings and ran out of the poultry-yard.  And she

ran fluttering out on to the road and some way down it until

she came to a garden.

   At evening she came back panting.

   And in the poultry-yard she told the poultry how she had

gone South as far as the high road, and saw the great

world's traffic going by, and came to lands where the potato

grew, and saw the stubble upon which men live, and at the

end of the road had found a garden, and there were roses in

it -- beautiful roses! -- and the gardener himself was there

with his braces on.

   "How extremely interesting," the poultry said, "and what

a really beautiful description!"

   And the Winter wore away, and the bitter months went by,

and the Spring of the year appeared, and the swallows came

again.

   "We have been to the South," they said, "and the valleys

beyond the sea."

   But the poultry would not agree that there was a sea in

the South: "You should hear our hen," they said.