Summary
The poet writes of the blacksmith’s boy and his black dog venturing out into the wilderness. The boy encounters cobwebs and rivers and branches, but he boasts that he can best all these impediments.
He passes through mountains and endures rocks falling in his path, and an old crow caws that he will soon be dead. The boy boasts again of surmounting these obstacles.
Night is falling, as black as his dog and hat and barrel of his gun. Birds wail and the grass prepares for him to lay down in it. His rifle breaks, his dog leaves, his hat blows away, and the sun sets.
The rain comes and then the rainbow, “just as his heart foretold.” Optimistic now, the boy runs like a rabbit and climbs like a fox and catches the rainbow in his hands. The birds fly up and stare at him.
Instead of his rifle, the boy hangs the rainbow on his shoulder. Lizards and snakes watch him.
The whole world proclaims that no one is braver or bolder or has done anything equal to what this boy has done.
The boy returns home “with the swinging rainbow on his shoulder.”
Analysis
“Legend” may not be as well-known as “South of My Days” or “Bullocky,” but it is not an obscure work in Judith Wright’s oeuvre either. The charming tale of an adventurous, bold boy and his trek through the wilderness is often anthologized, popular for its depiction of the Australian landscape and a child who is absolutely at home in it.
The boy is the son of a blacksmith and carries a rifle with him, both facts which reinforce his status as man and juxtapose him with nature. Throughout his journey natural obstacles such as cobwebs, rivers, mountains, rocks, and rain try to get in his way, and an old crow warns him, “You’ll soon be dead.” The boy is the picture of courage, however; he “didn’t mind” what tried to hinder him, and he spoke to his dog and his rifle about being able to surmount any obstacle. Critic Christopher Kelen notes that the “boy here is cocky, facing the amorphousness of threats with a bravery itself free of intention.” The boy claims he will “shoot an old crow any day,” which shows his lack of respect for the creature and, by extension, nature.
As he continues through the wilderness, the cockiness fades as the obstacles become more intense: “His rifle broke, his hat blew away and his dog was gone and the sun was falling.” The grass “lay down to pillow him,” anticipating his fall, and “the pigeon, the magpie and the dove began wailing” as if to announce that fall. This is the nadir of the boy’s journey; he is completely alone, left to his own devices, privy to whatever nature has to throw at him. The imagery and diction are correspondingly gloomy, with “blacksmith”, “black dog,” and “black hat” signifying this darkness, and blindness imagery—“thorn branches caught at his eyes to make him blind / and the sky turned into an unlucky opal”; “Up came the night ready to swallow him”—adding to the sense of ominousness.
Yet it is not the end for the boy; rather, a rainbow, ever a symbol of hope and renewal, “stood on the mountain,” and now the boy becomes like the animals instead of scoffing at them, for he “ran like a hare, / he climbed like a fox.” He does not boast anymore, deciding to be more respectful. He sees the rainbow that came after the rain, and “caught it in his hands.” The aforementioned birds “flew up to stare” and the “grass stood up again,” recognizing the change within him. He no longer needs the trappings of civilization, hanging “the rainbow on his shoulder / instead of his broken gun.” The world praises him for his bravery and boldness, and when he returns home it is “as easy as could be.” He has “the swinging rainbow on his shoulder,” a marvelous example of his pluckiness, tenacity, and, now, oneness with nature.
Kelen deems the work a “rite-of-passage poem” and Judith Rodriguez writes, “In ‘Legend’… a repurposing of old folk-tale tropes – gun, sword, evil-omened blackbird – hints at Wright’s burgeoning interest in myth and legend. The poem follows a blacksmith’s boy, with his black dog and a black hat on his head, as he confronts all threats and comes home with the rainbow over his shoulder instead of a gun. A promise of hope (as in the Biblical story of the rainbow after Noah’s flood), rather than the intention to kill… The confidence with which Wright creates this bush derring-do exemplifies the greater thrust of The Gateway [a collection of Wright’s poems], in which she links the fruits of nature with human joy, love and understanding.”
