anywhere, till at length a blue falcon flew past him, and raising his
bow he took aim at her. His eye was straight and his hand steady, but
the falcon's flight was swift, and he only shot a feather from her
wing. As the sun was now low over the sea he put the feather in his
game bag, and set out homewards.

'Have you brought me much game to-day?' asked his stepmother as he
entered the hall.

'Nought save this,' he answered, handing her the feather of the blue
falcon, which she held by the tip and gazed at silently. Then she
turned to Ian and said:

'I am setting it on you as crosses and as spells, and as the fall of
the year! That you may always be cold, and wet and dirty, and that
your shoes may ever have pools in them, till you bring me hither the
blue falcon on which that feather grew.'

'If it is spells you are laying I can lay them too,' answered Ian
Direach; 'and you shall stand with one foot on the great house and
another on the castle, till I come back again, and your face shall be
to the wind, from wheresoever it shall blow.' Then he went away to
seek the bird, as his stepmother bade him; and, looking homewards from
the hill, he saw the queen standing with one foot on the great house,
and the other on the castle, and her face turned towards whatever
tempest should blow.

On he journeyed, over hills, and through rivers till he reached a wide
plain, and never a glimpse did he catch of the falcon. Darker and
darker it grew, and the small birds were seeking their nests, and at