THE WATER OF THE WONDROUS ISLES




THE FIRST PART: OF THE HOUSE OF CAPTIVITY




CHAPTER I. CATCH AT UTTERHAY



Whilom, as tells the tale, was a walled cheaping-town hight Utterhay,
which was builded in a bight of the land a little off the great
highway which went from over the mountains to the sea.

The said town was hard on the borders of a wood, which men held to be
mighty great, or maybe measureless; though few indeed had entered it,
and they that had, brought back tales wild and confused thereof.

Therein was neither highway nor byway, nor wood-reeve nor way-warden;
never came chapman thence into Utterhay; no man of Utterhay was so
poor or so bold that he durst raise the hunt therein; no outlaw durst
flee thereto; no man of God had such trust in the saints that he
durst build him a cell in that wood.

For all men deemed it more than perilous; and some said that there
walked the worst of the dead; othersome that the Goddesses of the