och without leave or
asking. The king's daughter was now mournful, tearful, blind-sorrowful
for her married man; she was always with her eye on the loch. An old
soothsayer met her, and she told how it had befallen her married mate.
Then he told her the thing to do to save her mate, and that she did.

She took her harp to the sea-shore, and sat and played; and the
sea-maiden came up to listen, for sea-maidens are fonder of music than
all other creatures. But when the wife saw the sea-maiden she stopped.
The sea-maiden said, "Play on!" but the princess said, "No, not till I
see my man again." So the sea-maiden put up his head out of the loch.
Then the princess played again, and stopped till the sea-maiden put
him up to the waist. Then the princess played and stopped again, and
this time the sea-maiden put him all out of the loch, and he called on
the falcon and became one, and flew on shore. But the sea-maiden took
the princess, his wife.

Sorrowful was each one that was in the town on this night. Her man was
mournful, tearful, wandering down and up about the banks of the loch,
by day and night. The old soothsayer met him. The soothsayer told him
that there was no way of killing the sea-maiden but the one way, and
this is it: "In the island that is in the midst of the loch is the
white-footed hind of the slenderest legs and the swiftest step, and
though she be caught, there will spring a hoodie out of her, and
though the hoodie should be caught, there will spring a trout out of
her, but there is an egg in the mouth of the trout, and the soul of
the sea-maiden is in the egg and if the egg breaks she is dead."

Now, there was no way of getting to this island, for the sea-maiden
would sink each boat and raft that would go on the loch. He thought he
would try to leap the strait with the black horse, and even so he did.
The black horse leaped the strait. He saw the hind; and he let the
black dog after her, but when he was on one side of the island, the
hind would be on the other side. "Oh! would the black dog of the
carcass of flesh were here!" No sooner spoke he the word than the
grateful dog was at his side; and after the hind he went, and they
were not long in bringing her to earth. But he no sooner caught her
than a hoodie sprang out of her. "Would that the falcon grey, of
sharpest eye and swiftest wing, were here!" No sooner said he this
than the falcon was after the hoodie, and she was not long putting her
to earth; a