the elders ? . . . that in the first seven years The 

 of the life of the young Christ there was peace Children 

 in the world, and that the souls of men were ° d /J 1 

 like souls in a dream, and that the hearts of Clan of 

 women were at rest. In the second seven Peace, 

 years it is said that the world was like an 

 adder that sloughs its skin : for there was 

 everywhere a troubled sense of new things to 

 come. So wide and far and deep was this, 

 that men in remote lands began moving across 

 swamps and hills and deserts ; that the wild 

 beasts shifted their lairs and moaned and cried 

 in new forests and upon untrodden plains ; 

 that the storks and swallows in their migration 

 wearied their wings in high, cold, untravelled 

 ways ; that the narwhals and great creatures 

 of the deep foamed through unknown seas ; 

 that the grasses of the world wandered and 

 inhabited hills ; that many waters murmured 

 in the wilderness and that many waters 

 mysteriously sank from pools and wellsprings. 

 In the third seven years, men even on the last 

 ocean-girdled shores were filled with further 

 longing, and it is said that new stars were 

 flung into the skies and ancient stars were 

 whirled away, like dust and small stones 

 beneath the wheels of a chariot. It was at 

 the end of the third seven years that a Face 

 looked out of Heaven, and that from the 



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