t put down at
all. I must not write down the real names of the days and months which I
found out a year ago, nor the way to make the Aklo letters, or the Chian
language, or the great beautiful Circles, nor the Mao Games, nor the
chief songs. I may write something about all these things but not the
way to do them, for peculiar reasons. And I must not say who the Nymphs
are, or the Dols, or Jeelo, or what voolas mean. All these are most
secret secrets, and I am glad when I remember what they are, and how
many wonderful languages I know, but there are some things that I call
the secrets of the secrets of the secrets that I dare not think of
unless I am quite alone, and then I shut my eyes, and put my hands over
them and whisper the word, and the Alala comes. I only do this at night
in my room or in certain woods that I know, but I must not describe
them, as they are secret woods. Then there are the Ceremonies, which are
all of them important, but some are more delightful than others--there
are the White Ceremonies, and the Green Ceremonies, and the Scarlet
Ceremonies. The Scarlet Ceremonies are the best, but there is only one
place where they can be performed properly, though there is a very nice
imitation which I have done in other places. Besides these, I have the
dances, and the Comedy, and I have done the Comedy sometimes when the
others were looking, and they didn't understand anything about it. I
was very little when I first knew about these things.

When I was very small, and mother was alive, I can remember remembering
things before that, only it has all got confused. But I remember when I
was five or six I heard them talking about me when they thought I was
not noticing. They were saying how queer I was a year or two before, and
how nurse had called my mother to come and listen to me talking all to
myself, and I was saying words that nobody could understand. I was
speaking the Xu language, but I only remember a very few of the words,
as it was about the little white faces that used to look at me when I
was lying in my cradle. They used to talk to me, and I learnt their
language and talked to them in it about some great white place where
they lived, where the trees and the grass were all white, and there were
white hills as high up as the moon, and a cold wind. I have often
dreamed of it afterwards, but the faces went away when I was very
little. But a wonderful thing happened when I was about five. My nurse
was ca