7. RESULTADOS
7.5 PARTE IN SILICO A POSTERIORI
7.5.1 Acoplamiento molecular sobre la enzima aldosa reductasa
young men; take them to her castle in Fairyland;
and enslave them. She preferred those who were handsome and skilled at reciting poetry. Such a one was Thomas of Ercildoune—or Thomas the Rhymer, as he was known.
Thomas was a Scottish laird of the thirteenth century.
He dwelt in a tower at Ercildoune, in the Eildon Hills.
Little is known of his life or family. But Thomas was known in his day as both a poet and a prophet. He wrote a rhymed narrative titled Sir Tristrem—the earliest such work in English. As for his prophecies, they invariably came true.
And a tale began to circulate—of how Thomas the Rhymer acquired the power of prophecy.*
•
Thomas was lounging, the tale began, on a river bank.
Young and handsome, he was admiring his reflection in the water. Suddenly, he heard hoofbeats. And a woman on a white horse emerged from the woods, rode up to him, and halted.
9.
Thomas the Rhymer
* The tale was preserved in a popular ballad, and in Thomas of Ercildoune, a fourteenth-century romance. Included in the romance were his prophecies. Then, beginning in the sixteenth century, these prophecies were published as chapbooks. Every Scottish farmhouse had a copy—a collection of the sayings of True Thomas (as he was dubbed). A sample of his sayings:
When Finhaven Castle runs to sand, The world’s end is near at hand.
Nostradamus, move over!
She wore a velvet cape and a green silk gown. There was an unearthly quality to her beauty; and Thomas wondered if he was having a vision. “Are you Mary, the Queen of Heaven?” he asked. The woman laughed. “I am a queen,”
she replied, “but not of Heaven.” And she asked Thomas to kiss her.
Taken with her beauty, he did so—and his fate was sealed. For the kiss cast a spell upon Thomas. He was now in the thrall of the queen of the fairies. She told him to get up behind her on the horse. Thomas complied. And together they rode off into the forest.
At dusk they arrived at a fairy hill. The queen clapped her hands; and a portal opened. They entered the hill and followed a passageway down into the earth. The horse trot-ted along, its bells jingling. Its hoofbeats echoed from the walls, which were luminous.
The sound of rushing water became audible. The sound grew louder; and they came to a subterranean river. Dark waters flowed into the depths of the earth. The horse waded through them and trotted on.
Finally a light became visible; and they emerged from the passageway. Before them lay a vast plain, strewn with boul-ders. A gray sky hung oppressively low, like the roof of a cavern. Bats were gliding about.
“We are in the Underworld,” said the queen.
She spread her cape on the ground; brought out food and wine; and sat down with Thomas to dine. Then she drew his attention to a roadway, which branched into four separate roads. And she said:
“Yonder right-hand path conveys the spirits of the blessed to Paradise; yon downward and well-worn way leads sinful souls to the place of everlasting punishment; the third road, by yonder dark breake, conducts to the milder place of pain [Purgatory] from which prayer and mass may release offenders. But see you yet a fourth road, sweeping along the plain to yonder splendid castle? Yonder is the road to Elfland to which we are now bound. The lord of the castle
is the king of the country, and I am his queen.”*
The castle shimmered in the distance like a mirage. That road to Elfland led directly to its gate. They got back on the horse and set out for the castle.
What was Thomas’s state of mind during all this? He was spellbound—bewitched by a kiss. And like someone in a trance, he was oblivious to the singular nature of what was happening. A single thought gripped him: he must accom-pany the queen and serve her.
They arrived at the castle and rode inside. In the hall a banquet was in progress. Seated at long tables were scores of fairies. They were feasting, singing, laughing. Servants circulated with platters of food. A clown cavorted from table to table. The scene was one of boisterous merriment.
The queen took her seat at the head table, and directed Thomas into the seat beside her. They were served goblets of nectar. Whispering in his ear, she told him to relax and enjoy himself. And she pointed to a corpulent fairy who was holding forth at the far end of the table. That was her husband, the king of the fairies. Ignore him, she said.
And ignore him they did. For that night Thomas and the queen became lovers. And for seven days he recited his poems for her, and enjoyed her company. But on the eighth day, she informed Thomas that it was over. It was time for him to leave Fairyland and return home. He protested, but to no avail. His captivity had ended.
The queen took him back to the river bank. She thanked him for his poetry and handed him an apple. “Take this for your wages. It will bestow on you the gift of prophecy.”
Finally, she made him pledge that—if summoned—he would return to her. And with that, she rode off into the forest.
Pocketing the apple, Thomas walked into town. And the
* This speech is from Sir Walter Scott’s version of the tale, which he based on interviews with local peasants. Sir Walter was quite taken with the tale. So much so that he purchased the spot where Thomas was said to have kissed the queen; incorporated it into his estate; and would lead visitors to “the Rhymer’s Glen.”
townsfolk crowded about their missing laird. They were amazed at his return. For seven years had elapsed.*
Thomas explained his absence: the queen of the fairies had been holding him captive. But the explanation drew a mixed reaction. Some of the townsfolk believed him. But others were skeptical. Surely, they insisted, he had simply been roaming the countryside as a vagabond.
“Here’s proof,” he said, and showed them the apple. “A gift from the queen of the fairies. And it will grant me the power of prophecy.”
Thomas returned to his tower. There he resumed his life
* See note in chapter 5 regarding the passage of time in Fairyland.
as a laird and a poet. In addition, he began to prophesy.
The years passed. And Thomas the Rhymer became famous for his prophecies. He foretold deaths, political events, crop failures—all with uncanny accuracy, thanks to the apple. Thomas could foresee the future. Yet in pri-vate, he looked back to the past. For he had spent a week with the queen of the fairies. And the memory haunted him.
Then one night Thomas was dining with guests, when a neighbor burst into the tower. He had a marvelous sight to report. Two white deer had emerged from the forest. They were approaching the tower at a stately pace, their coats gleaming in the moonlight.
“She has summoned me,” said Thomas, rising slowly from his chair.
He excused himself and went outside. When the deer saw him, they turned and headed back to the forest. Thomas followed after them.
He was never seen again.*
* Or perhaps he was—by an eighteenth-century horse-dealer known as Canobie Dick.
While traveling one night in the Eildon Hills, Canobie Dick encountered “a man of venerable appearance, and singularly antique dress.” (The description is Sir Walter Scott’s.) It was Thomas the Rhymer. The horse-dealer bargained with Thomas, sold him a horse, and accompanied him to a cave.
Deep in the cave was a stable, lit by torches. And in each stall was a horse and a knight, both of them asleep. For since his dis-appearance, Thomas had become a caretaker—of King Arthur and his knights!
Thomas paid Canobie Dick for the horse, and gave him a tour of the stable. On a table, gleaming in the torchlight, was a horn.
Thomas explained that it was for awakening the knights. For they were to be roused in an hour of national crisis. Canobie Dick picked up the horn and examined it.
And unable to resist the impulse, he blew on it.
Immediately, there was a stirring throughout the stable. Horses snorted and shook themselves. Knights stirred, murmured, and
began to awaken. King Arthur himself—on a velvet couch—
bolted upright.
“False alarm, false alarm!” shouted Thomas. “Go back to sleep!”
And he ushered the horse-dealer out of the cave.
T
Fate magazine an article titled “Tribal Memories of the Flying Saucers.” Its author was identified as Oge-Make, a Navaho Indian.
Oge-Make tells of going to the foothills of the Panamint Mountains; seeking out an old man of the Paiute tribe; and asking him about the “mystery ships” that were being seen in the skies. Were flying saucers something new? asked Oge-Make. Or had Indians known about them in earlier times, and preserved that knowledge in legend?
At dusk the two sat beside a fire and smoked together.
And the old man told Oge-Make a tale.
•
Long ago, said the elderly Paiute, a tribe called the Hav-musuv migrated to the Panamint Mountains. And in a sub-terranean cavern, they built a city. For they wished to dwell in seclusion, hidden from the warring tribes of the region.
The nearby Paiutes, however, were aware of their pres-ence. For the Hav-musuvs were both technologically and culturally advanced; and when they traveled, they did so in silver airships—flying disks that would emerge from the cavern and disappear into the clouds.*
The Paiutes feared their subterranean neighbors and