but always names of power. Thus upon that great march of theirs from
Gascony into Navarre, one, on the crest of the mountains, cut himself a
huge staff and cried loudly:_

_"My name is URSUS, and this is my staff DREADNOUGHT: let the people in
the Valley be afraid!"_

_Whereat the other cut himself a yet huger staff, and cried out in a yet
louder voice:_

_"My name is TAURUS, and this is my staff CRACK-SKULL: let them tremble
who live in the Dales!"_

_And when they had said this they strode shouting down the
mountain-side and conquered the town of Elizondo, where they are
worshipped as gods to this day. Their names? They gave themselves a
hundred names!_

_"Well, well," you say to me then, "no matter about the names: what are
names? The men themselves concern me!... Tell me," you go on, "tell me
where I am to find them in the flesh, and converse with them. I am in
haste to see them with my own eyes."_

_It is useless to ask. They are dead. They will never again be heard
upon the heaths at morning singing their happy songs: they will never
more drink with their peers in the deep ingle-nooks of home. They are
perished. They have disappeared. Alas! The valiant fellows!_

_But lest some list of their proud deeds and notable excursions should
be lost on earth, and turn perhaps into legend, or what is worse, fade