worlds that had disappointed the gods. And all of a sudden, crash! and
the staunch spear of Arrath went home behind the shoulder, and the
tears and the joyful ways of the Gladsome Beast were ended and over
for ever.

And carefully they carried the bowl of tears away leaving the body of
the Gladsome Beast as a change of diet for the ominous crow; and going
by the windy house of thatch they said farewell to the Old Man Who
Looks After Fairyland, who when he heard of the deed rubbed his hands
together and mumbled again and again, "And a very good thing, too. My
cabbages! My cabbages!"

And not long after Ackronnion sang again in the sylvan palace of the
Queen of the Woods, having first drunk all the tears in his agate
bowl. And it was a gala night, and all the court were there and
ambassadors from the lands of legend and myth, and even some from
Terra Cognita.

And Ackronnion sang as he never sang before, and will not sing again.
O, but dolorous, dolorous, are all the ways of man, few and fierce are
his days, and the end trouble, and vain, vain his endeavor: and
woman--who shall tell of it?--her doom is written with man's by
listless, careless gods with their faces to other spheres.

Somewhat thus he began, and then inspiration seized him, and all the
trouble in the beauty of his song may not be set down by me: there was
much of gladness in it, and all mingled with grief: it was like the
way of man: it was like our destiny.

Sobs arose at his song, sighs came back along echoes: seneschals,