t come to
weeping even with men--that so he might get safe away with the tears,
and drink them before the Queen of the Woods and move her to tears of
joy. He sought out therefore a humble knightly man who cared not for
the beauty of Sylvia, Queen of the Woods, but had found a woodland
maiden of his own once long ago in summer. And the man's name was
Arrath, a subject of Ackronnion, a knight-at-arms of the spear-guard:
and together they set out through the fields of fable until they came
to Fairyland, a kingdom sunning itself (as all men know) for leagues
along the edges of the world. And by a strange old pathway they came
to the land they sought, through a wind blowing up the pathway sheer
from space with a kind of metallic taste from the roving stars. Even
so they came to the windy house of thatch where dwells the Old Man Who
Looks After Fairyland sitting by parlour windows that look away from
the world. He made them welcome in his star-ward parlour, telling them
tales of Space, and when they named to him their perilous quest he
said it would be a charity to kill the Gladsome Beast; for he was
clearly one of those that liked not its happy ways. And then he took
them out through his back door, for the front door had no pathway nor
even a step--from it the old man used to empty his slops sheer on to
the Southern Cross--and so they came to the garden wherein his
cabbages were, and those flowers that only blow in Fairyland, turning
their faces always towards the comet, and he pointed them out the way
to the place he called Underneath, where the Gladsome Beast had his
lair. Then they manoeuvred. Ackronnion was to go by the way of the
steps with his harp and an agate bowl, while Arrath went round by a
crag on the other side. Then the Old Man Who Looks After Fairyland
went back to his windy house, muttering angrily as he passed his
cabbages, for he did not love the ways of the Gladsome Beast; and the
two friends parted on their separate ways.

Nothing perceived them but that ominous crow glutted overlong already
upon the flesh of man.

The wind blew bleak from the stars.

At first there was dangerous climbing, and then Ackronnion gained the
smooth, broad steps that led from the edge to the lair, and at that
moment heard at the top of the steps the continuous chuckles of the
Gladsome Beast.

He feared then that its mirth might be insuperable, not to be saddened
by the most grievous song; nevertheless he did not turn back