passed in turmoil, in making one another unhappy; in bitterest
misunderstanding of our brothers' hearts, making those sad whom God
has not made sad, alas, alas! What chance for any of us to find the
Hollow Land? What time even to look for it?

Yet who has not dreamed of it? Who, half miserable yet the while, for
that he knows it is but a dream, has not felt the cool waves round his
feet, the roses crowning him, and through the leaves of beech and lime
the many whispering winds of the Hollow Land?

Now, my name was Florian, and my house was the house of the Lilies;
and of that house was my father lord, and after him my eldest brother
Amald; and me they called Florian de Liliis.

Moreover, when my father was dead, there arose a feud between the
Lilies' house and Red Harald; and this that follows is the history of
it.

Lady Swanhilda, Red Harald's mother, was a widow, with one son. Red
Harald; and when she had been in widowhood two years, being of
princely blood, and besides comely and fierce. King Urrayne sent to
demand her in marriage. And I remember seeing the procession leaving
the town, when I was quite a child; and many young knights and squires
attended the Lady Swanhilda as pages, and amongst them, Amald, my
eldest brother.

And as I gazed out of the window, I saw him walking by the side of her
horse, dressed in white and gold very delicately; but as he went it
chanced that he stumbled. Now he was one of those that held a golden
canopy over the lady's head, so that it now sunk into wrinkles, and