Panegyric

Gather round, be silent, and I shall tell you a story of a boy named Anan.

"If he wants to hatch a gryphon," said his mother, "then let him hatch a gryphon."

So he did.

This, then, is how it happened:

A falconer heard of a moon-crazed boy who longed to hatch a gryphon and came to the village out of curiosity. Anan was respectful as he listened, and when the falconer saw that the boy could not be dissuaded from his quest, he told him all that he knew of raising a hawk or falcon.

That spring, Anan hid a basket of sand in a sun-warmed spot near the nests. He knew that the mothers would be lax guarding the first few, and would be easiest to get around before the egg had a nest-mate. So, at an opportune moment, he stole the first egg laid, and brought it down to his home in a little basket of hot sand on his back. There he was very careful to keep coals under it, and yet not too near; to turn it regularly, but not so violently as to scramble the brains of the chick inside; and he did this all throughout the night, and spoke to it. But the sixth se'day passed, the time when it was supposed to hatch, and he began to fear – and then the seventh. Anan recalled, then, that cats kept their kittens until the ninth se'day, and waited until it came.

Nothing happened. Nor were there any signs of life within the egg after the tenth se'day, and at the eleventh he despaired, thinking that the egg was infertile or had died long ago, and opened it.

Inside there was a tiny thing without fur or feathers that had only the barest form of wings. As he watched it took several quick gasping breaths and died.

He buried it at the base of a cliff, and never sought gryphons again.

You rage. So that was not what happened, you think? Listen, and I will tell you a different path.

Anan watched and watched and finally stole an egg two se'days before Midsummer. But the pride-parents were watchful, and though he escaped with the egg he was lamed, and barely managed to return to his home. Confined to his pallet, he attended to the egg with painstaking care, and when the chick inside began to hatch he helped it chip away the shell, finishing it himself when the chick fell silent and rested. Too soon: weakened, the young gryphon struggled through most of a seven-day and died.

For the rest of his life, Anan struggled with his leg, desperate to have a second chance – but he never regained enough mobility to climb the steep cliffs where the gryphons nested.

Do not look at me so. See, I will spin you another.

At Midsummer Anan had still not managed to take an egg, nor yet two se'days later when the last of the eggs broke open. But a moon past Midsummer there came a time when Anan was watching nearby and all the adults were gone. Then he rushed forth and took a chick, hardly noting that he had taken one of the oldest, and brought it down the mountains to his home. It cried on the way down, and scratched at him, but he did not feel it.

After a week he had coaxed it into taking food from him, though it recoiled if he tried to touch it. He named it Friend anyway, and continued trying to tame it. His sisters thought him mad for the wounds on his hands and arms, but Anan ignored them.

A moon after he had taken it his father opened the door and let it out while Anan was hunting. The cub disappeared and did not return; and, though Anan would have tried again, the pride did not return to their grounds the next spring.

It is not to your liking. Why? Ought the cub to love him, then, to make of it a story? Would that be better? Then here is your devising:

Anan waited a long time, through the winning of the nest-guardians, the hatching of the eggs, and took a female just before her eyes opened. She grew and grew and grew, and though Anan was careful of her temper she never wounded him, nor any other. Indeed, she was as friendly and affectionate as the Magister's house cat, prone to leaning against his side - or, indeed, any other's! - and rubbing along his legs as she purred. Her first name had been Strife, but as she grew Anan called her Dawn for her temperament.

She grew and grew and grew, and though she first took more from the home then she gave, she became an eager huntress. Then that winter, and the next spring and summer, Anan's family loved her, and even many in the village called her by name. Dawn knew no strangers. By her third year even small children were considered to be safe with her. She had become the guardian and the spirit of the small farming community. Only she rarely flew; and by then Anan had grown far too much to ride her anyways.

A passing King's-mage heard of a tame gryphon. Going to the village, he was surprised when she greeted him quite happily. Thinking of the unrest at Court, he sedated her immediately and took her back to his lord. There she became the King's guardian, and over much time the news made its way back to the peasant boy who had raised her, and loved her, and lost her.

Not so much, you say. The gryphon loved Anan, but was wary of others. How else might we have the songs?

I will give you this song.

Anan climbed the mountain daily, and once saw that all of the mothers save one were gone, and that one could not see all the nests. Then he stole an egg, and put it in a basket of sand on his back, and carried it down to his home. His sister showed him how to turn an egg and keep it warm, and he did so religiously. He had seen that, while the gryphons nested before winter even turned to spring, it was near Midsummer before one could hear shrieks and whinings from the cubs, and it was a moon past that when the cubs first flew; and so he turned the egg over and over again while his father raged and his sisters became convinced that it was empty. Two se'days short of Midsummer, it hatched. He presented himself before it so that it would first see him, but its eyes were closed tightly.

Anan discovered that it was a she-cub, a small furred whining creature with a fluffy down-covered head and an oversized beak, and promptly named her Beauty, much to the dismay of his sisters, who thought she was nothing of the sort. He fed her hare and dove and fish carefully pounded with corn and water, and she grew very quickly. When the moon turned she was as larger than all of the cats but one, even though she was a gawky thing with pin-feathers sticking out of her head. She wrestled with his hand, and if her sharp beak sometimes drew blood – well, she was small, and couldn't know how to control herself. At six se'days she caught a mouse with her taloned fore-feet and tore it to shreds. By the second moon, the cats would no longer play with her; and by the third moon all the cats had left. Anan didn't care. She caught enough mice for all six cats anyway, and if he could no longer wrestle with her for fear of losing his hand, she was still his Beauty.

But they weren't enough to feed her, and when his father caught him stealing meat from the winter-store Anan admitted that he could not feed her by his own efforts. The next day he took her away from the village on her baby-legs and she began to hunt larger things – hares, and then gazelle. At the end of six moons she was large and beautiful, not quite full-grown, the feathers of her head still a dark grey-brown, but sleek and lovely nonetheless, and he gloried in her.

Then one day he was walking in the village square with her and a little girl, almost too young to have a name, tripped and fell and began to squall. Beauty's head came around and her eyes widened, and then quite suddenly she was no longer at his side, but above the kicking child, talons and beak red – and then, silence...

They killed his Beauty and set the blame on his head. Anan left, and avoided gryphons for the rest of his life.

Do not weep. It is what you asked for. Here, I will give you another to soothe you. I tell you truly, this is what happened:

Heeding his father's words of fear, Anan ceased his quest before ever climbing the mountains.

No, you care not for it, do you? Should Anan not have been cautious, then? To tame a gryphon: this is a thing that has not been done since, nor did it happen before – but you insist. I will tell you a story.

Anan begged of his parents early in the winter, before the gryphon pride returned in the spring for the breeding cycle. When his mother said yes, he went to the magician and spent three months in servitude to him; in return, he gave Anan advice on hatching and raising a gryphon. Anan listened carefully, remembering his father's fear and resolving to be cautious.

When he went home, he went over the cliffs to the nesting reaches, each of them, until he could reach them in his sleep. He was near when the gryphons first settled into the nests, and when the first shriek of triumph heralded the first egg of the season. As the spring waxed and changed and became summer he came closer and closer, moving in the manner that the magician had taught him, until the resting gryphons would allow him – though they watched, oh, how they watched! - to touch their backs or sides or even heads. Sometimes he would bring little things he had caught, fish or doves or squirrels, to the nest-guardian, and so it continued until the eggs hatched.

Anan was there to watch – but he did not try to imprint the young on himself. He knew better. The magician had told him that they were born as blind as kittens, not open-eyed like chicks or goslings. And the mothers were too protective for him to touch them, anyway. But he watched as the young gryphons grew - watched, and never tried to take one for his own.

They flew away in the fall. Anan did not go with them. As he grew old, the people of his village likened taming a gryphon to walking with the stars: a child's dream, a dangerous one: nothing more.

You are troubled. Why, whatever is the matter? Was it not a good end, after all, and better than had Anan never seen the gryphons? Or ought he to have been more daring, and tried that which the magician would not…?

Anan came and went quite regularly about the cliffs; but he never dared to steal one of the carefully-guarded eggs. Nor, when the chicks hatched, could he find a way to take one. But six se'days after Midsummer, he saw an opportunity and went to take a chick.

The chick screamed as he made to take it, and bit into his hand; so did the other four in the nest. Then a shadow fell across the nest, and the angry mother held him down as the chicks fed. That winter a hunting party found his bones with the other castings from the nest, but of the rest of him there was no sign.

Over the next four or five years, the villagers drifted away from the land there, calling it accursed; and it was a hundred years before any came back to it.

You do not like it – but it is no less true for that. A boy has no defenses against an angry gryphon, and young gryphons are always hungry. What else should have happened? Begin your story: I will end it.

By luck and caution and careful tending, Anan hatched a gryphon. Cautious of legend and common sense, he did not name the male cub until the winter passed. Then he called him Fire, for the red in his crest and the thick fur of his back. In that time Fire was mellow, though he was also of a very great size; and by chance or fate he and Anan became a well-matched pair of hunters, repaying the debt of food that Anan had stolen for the cub in the lean times of early growth. It was then that Fire first learned to fly, and Anan delighted in watching him.

Spring turned and became summer, and Anan roamed farther with Fire in order to find meat enough to sate a gryphon. His family accepted that he would not tend the fields, for the game he returned was ample, and they remembered the winter-time. But as summer turned and became fall, Fire grew restless. Often he would stare past Anan, and no words might recall him; and when he was startled he struck out, so that even Anan became wary of him.

At Fall's-end, when the pride left, Fire flew with them. He did not return the next year, and Anan never learned what became of the male gryphon with red in his crest and hair.

Gryphons are wild. Do not forget it. This was not your kitten that you cradle so tenderly, nor your finch singing in a cage. But come: listen, for I think you do not yet understand.

Anan took a young chick before its eyes were opened, and called it Valor for the bard's tale. He fed him on rats and snakes, toads, wild hens, squirrels and hares and fish, and anything else he could catch. As Valor grew he became more wild. He demanded more food, and hissed and bit when Anan had no more to give; but nonetheless he grew swiftly. When Anan had had him for four moons, the young gryphon was nearly as large as he was.

One day Anan brought his catch to Valor, and Valor turned upon him after devouring the small game. Anan shouted, and his mother came with a heavy rod and struck the gryphon on the head. Valor screamed and fled. Though he would have followed, Anan's legs had been torn by Valor's talons, and his chest was scored deeply: his mother confined him to his bed.

Two se'days later a hunting party came across the bones of a small gryphon at the base of the mountain. They brought the skull to Anan. Once he finished weeping he resolved not to set himself upon hopeless dreams, and later in life cautioned his children against listening too closely to bards' tales.

Do you understand yet? Yes? Then good: here is a tale with a happier ending.

When Anan set out to steal an egg, he watched the pride-parents and saw that the nests were always guarded: there were none left unprotected, not one. Giving up his dream of gryphons, he went with the trader to the city, and then took ship to a larger one, and a larger, and a larger. At last he ended in the capitol, at the King's City, cleaning the cages in the Zoo, and found that pegasi were not quite so dangerous as gryphons. In time the Beastmaster made him a trainer of them, and Anan was happy.

Again you snarl at me. Very well, then, I shall change your tale:

The first summer Anan did not take an egg, or a chick, but watched as they grew and flew away. The next year, having sought a falconer over the winter, he prepared a space for himself near the nests. By virtue of small game and other delicacies he befriended the guardians, speaking to the eggs, holding and caressing the chicks when they hatched. Before their eyes opened he took the largest male, and brought him down to his home, and called him Skyborn.

Skyborn outpaced all of the other gryphons born that year, and by his third moon was larger than Anan. When winter came he was as large as a man full-grown, and by the end of that spring no man could lift him alone, for he was tall as the deer he hunted and of much greater stature. Despite that he was not intractable, acceding readily – as much as any cat ever did – to Anan’s wishes. Taking the advice of his mother, Anan taught Skyborn to carry a weight upon his back, to go in the direction that Anan told him, to fly and return, to seek out a person or a beast.

On the word of his mother, too, Anan cut himself so that he would never grow too large for Skyborn to bear.

In the spring of Skyborn’s second year, Anan learned what it was to fly. In his wild and exuberant explorations they came upon a garrison who, upon learning what it was they saw, required Anan and Skyborn to go to the King’s City. There Skyborn was taken for the military’s use, and Anan was made a trainer of strange creatures, gryphons among them.

Sometimes he saw Skyborn, when the gryphon was home for a short while, and he was happy. But Anan never forgot what it was to fly, and when he died, old and pale and weak, he cursed the chance that took them near the garrison.

Ah, silence. Did you not think, then, why none of the tales name Anan’s children? An eagle cannot lift a lamb back into the sky; a gryphon cannot carry a man full grown, but only a boy, and Anan required flight. So he died, forever, and has no seed with which to be reborn… But it might have ended differently.

Anan found that it was easy enough to steal the first egg, and in the time between turning it he watched the cliff-nests to see when it should hatch. When the time came, he called the cub inside Prince, and fed him hare and squirrel and everything else he could catch. But, like the male cubs upon the cliffs, Prince grew swifter than Anan had imagined, and the food he caught never seemed to be enough; the cub cried piteously for more, and more, and more... Anan tried to mix corn with the meat, and goat's milk, but before a moon turned Prince died a scrawny shrunken thing, a parody of the healthy young on the cliff.

Why should this be less true than the others? I tell you that gryphons require much food, and the young still more; and Anan’s father feared the beast with a very great fear. Do not forget that Anan was poor, a peasant boy, and all the meat his family had was required for the winter.

Nor is that all that happened. Ought I to tell you of the gryphon’s death and sale to an alchemist, or of the boy that slipped from a cliff in grasping for an egg, the cub that was bitten by a sand-viper? Do you need them? Or shall I now give you the ending that was, that we still cannot understand?

Listen: a boy named Anan saw gryphons, and loved them. And though his father was against it, his mother had no fear.

“If he wants to hatch a gryphon,” she said, “then let him hatch a gryphon.”

So Anan hatched a gryphon, and called him Glory; and through many hardships and pains and travails Anan and Glory became famed throughout the land. Much honor was given them, aye, and much glory clung to the boy who dared what none other might: the fearless boy, forever young, and the great gryphon gold and red. It is said that they never died, and soar still through strange and unknown lands. The tales do not agree; the songs say only that he was great, and then sing of deeds that, did they chance or not, will never die.

But this much is known: that Anan, being yet a boy, dared to hatch a gryphon -

Fin