their heads off, Then he laid the heads in a heap before the knight,
and said: 'O great knight, I have been bid come and ask you for the
crowns you promised for the heads: five crowns a head. They bid me
tell you that they have prayed to God and His Mother to give you a
long life, but that they are poor peasants, and that they would have
the money before you die. They told me this over and over for fear I
might forget it, and promised to beat me if I did.'

The knight raised himself upon his elbow, and opening a bag that hung
to his belt, counted out the five crowns for each head. There were
thirty heads in all.

'O great knight,' said the lad, 'they have also bid me take all care
of you, and light a fire, and put this ointment upon your wounds.'
And he gathered sticks and leaves together, and, flashing his flint
and steel under a mass of dry leaves, had made a very good blaze.
Then, drawing of the coat of mail, he began to anoint the wounds: but
he did it clumsily, like one who does by rote what he had been told.
The knight motioned him to stop, and said: 'You seem a good lad.'

'I would ask something of you for myself.'

'There are still a few crowns,' said the knight; 'shall I give them
to you?'

'O no,' said the lad. 'They would be no good to me. There is only one
thing that I care about doing, and I have no need of money to do it.
I go from village to village and from hill to hill, and whenever I
come across a good cock I steal him and take him into the woods, and
I keep him there under a basket until I get another good cock, and