and at
night she was placed in a small apartment next to that occupied by the
lord of the castle. From what she had seen she was sure that her
husband was the lord himself, so when she heard the master of the
house enter the room next door she knocked upon the boards which
separated it from her own. Her husband, for he it was, replied from
the other side; then, entering her room, he recognized his wife, and
they were happily united after the years of painful separation. To the
wife's great joy her husband was now completely restored to his proper
form, and nothing occurred to mar their happiness for the rest of
their lives.

_The Bride of Satan_

Weird and terrible as are many of the darksome legends of Brittany, it
may be doubted if any are more awe-inspiring than that which we are
now about to relate. "Those who are affianced three times without
marrying shall burn in hell," says an old Breton proverb, and it is
probably this aphorism which has given the Bretons such a strong
belief in the sacred nature of a betrothal. The fantastic ballad from
which this story is taken is written in the dialect of Leon, and the
words are put into the mouth of a maiden of that country. Twice had
she been betrothed. On the last occasion she had worn a robe of the
finest stuff, embroidered with twelve brilliant stars and having the
figures of the sun and moon painted upon it, like the lady in Madame
d'Aulnoy's story of _Finette Cendron_ (_Cinderella_). On the occasion
when she went to meet her third _fiance_ in church she almost fainted
as she turned with her maidens into the little road leading up to the
building, for there before her was a great lord clad in steel
_cap-a-pie_, wearing on his head a casque of gold, his shoulders
covered by a blood-coloured mantle. Strange lights flashed from his
eyes, which glittered under his casque like meteors. By his side stood
a huge black steed, which ever and again struck the ground impatiently
with his hoofs, throwing up sparks of fire.

The priest was waiting in the church, the bridegroom arrived, but the
bride did not come. Where had she gone? She had stepped on board a
barque with the dark steel-clad lord, and the ship passed silently
over the waters until it vanished among the shadows of night. Then the
lady turned to her husband.

"What gloomy waters are these through which we sail, my lord?" she
asked.

"This is the Lake of Anguish," he replied in hollow tones. "We sail to
the P