{"collection":"Northern European Mythology","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/browse/neu/dun/fotd/fotd49.htm","path":"neu/dun/fotd/fotd49.htm","source_url":"https://sacred-texts.com/neu/dun/fotd/fotd49.htm","text":"Fifty-one Tales, by Lord Dunsany, [1915]\nTHE THREE TALL SONS\nAnd at last Man raised on high the final glory of his civilization, the towering edifice of the ultimate city.\nSoftly beneath him in the deeps of the earth purred his machinery fulfilling all his needs, there was no more toil for man. There he sat at ease discussing the Sex Problem.\nAnd sometimes painfully out of forgotten fields, there came to his outer door, came to the furthest rampart of the final glory of Man, a poor old woman begging. And always they turned her away. This glory of Man's achievement, this city was not for her.\nIt was Nature that came thus begging in from the fields, whom they always turned away.\nAnd away she went again alone to her fields.\nAnd one day she came again, and again they sent her hence. But her three tall sons came too.\n\"These shall go in,\" she said. \"Even these my sons to your city.\"\nAnd the three tall sons went in.\nAnd these are Nature's sons, the forlorn one's terrible children, War, Famine and Plague.\nYea and they went in there and found Man unawares in his city still poring over his Problems, obsessed with his civilization, and never hearing their tread as those three came up behind.","title":"Fifty-one Tales: The Three Tall Sons","type":"page"}