king, shivering with affright!

Welcome, all, and have no fear,--
There is flax upon the sill,
No foul sprite can enter here,--
Feast and frolic as you will;
Feast and frisk till break of day,--
Welcome, little folk of Fay!

Thus having said and thus having sung, Harold went upon his way, and
came to his boat and entered into it and journeyed to the haven where
some time he had seen and discoursed with Eleanor, his mother. His
course to this same haven lay, as before, over the waters that stole in
between the two islands from the great sea beyond. Fair shone the
moon, and the night was passing fair; the shadows rolled from the
hilltops in their sleep and lay like little weary children in the
valleys and upon the shore, and they were rocked in the cradles of
those valleys, and the waters along the shore sung softly to them.
Upon this hand lay the island where the goats and the kine found sweet
pasturage, and upon the other hand stretched the island where people
abode, and where the bloody Stennis stones rebuked the smiling sky, and
where ghosts walked and wailed and waved their white arms in the
shadows of those haunted ruins where once upon a time the Picts had
dwelt. And Harold's heart was full of joy, the more in especial when,
as he bore nigh unto the haven, he heard sweet music and beheld a
goodly company of people that danced in the moonlight upon the fair
green holm. Then, when presently his boat touched the inner shore of
the haven, and he departed therefrom and drew the boat upon the shore,
he saw wherefrom issued the beautiful music to which the people danced;
he saw that the waters reached out their white fingers and touched the
kale and the fair pebbles and the brittle shells and the moss upon the
beach, and these things gave forth sweet sounds, which were as if a
thousand attuned harps vied with the singing of the summer-night winds.
Then, as before, Harold saw sealskins lying upon the shore, and
presently came Eleanor, his mother, and pointing to a certain fair
velvet skin, she said: "Take that fair velvet skin into thy boat and
speed with all haste to thy home. To-morrow at sunrise thy bride shall
come knocking at thy door. And so, farewell, my son,--oh, Harold, my
only son!" Which saying, Eleanor, the wife of Egbert, drew a skin
about her and leapt into the sea; nor was she ever thereafter beholden
of human eyes.

Then Harold took up the fair velvet skin to which his mother h