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‘Now are you two lawfully seized and possessed of all Old England,’ began Puck, in a sing-song voice. ‘By Right of Oak, Ash, and Thorn are you free to come and go and look and know where I shall show or best you please. You shall see What you shall see and you shall hear What you shall hear, though It shall have happened three thousand year; and you shall know neither Doubt nor Fear. Fast! Hold fast all I give you.’ |
This is from “Weland’s Sword” in Puck of Pook’s Hill. In a fairy ring under Pook’s Hill on Midsummer Eve, after performing scenes from Shkespeare’s “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” three times, Dan and Una have encountered Puck, Robin Goodfellow, the last of the People of the Hills. He is giving them ‘seizin of Old England’ which will allow them—with him—to meet men and women who have lived in or near their valley over the past three thousand years. This they do in the later stories, and in Rewards and Fairies. |
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