her love, for he was only subtle in his dreams. Overwhelmed with his
greatness, she half consented, and yet half refused, for she longed
to marry some warrior who could carry her over a mountain in his
arms. Day by day the king gave her gifts; cups with ears of gold and
findrinny wrought by the craftsmen of distant lands; cloth from over
sea, which, though woven with curious figures, seemed to her less
beautiful than the bright cloth of her own country; and still she was
ever between a smile and a frown; between yielding and withholding.
He laid down his wisdom at her feet, and told how the heroes when
they die return to the world and begin their labour anew; how the
kind and mirthful Men of Dea drove out the huge and gloomy and
misshapen People from Under the Sea; and a multitude of things that
even the Sidhe have forgotten, either because they happened so long
ago or because they have not time to think of them; and still she
half refused, and still he hoped, because he could not believe that a
beauty so much like wisdom could hide a common heart.

There was a tall young man in the dun who had yellow hair, and was
skilled in wrestling and in the training of horses; and one day when
the king walked in the orchard, which was between the foss and the
forest, he heard his voice among the salley bushes which hid the
waters of the foss. 'My blossom,' it said, 'I hate them for making
you weave these dingy feathers into your beautiful hair, and all that
the bird of prey upon the throne may sleep easy o' nights'; and then
the low, musical voice he loved answered: 'My hair is not beautiful
like yours; and now that I have plucked the feathers out of your hair
I will put my hands through it, thus, and thus, and thus; for it
casts no shadow of terror and darkness upon my heart.' Then the king
remembered many things that he had forgotten without understanding
them, doubtful words of his poets and his men of law, doubts that he