on fire, and their daggers all red,
Seven damsels surround the Northumbrian's bed.

'Six kingly bridegrooms to death we have done,
Six gallant kingdoms King Adolf hath won;
Six lovely brides all his pleasure to do,
Or the bed of the seventh shall be husbandless too.'

Well chanced it that Adolf the night when he wed
Had confessed and had sain'd him ere boune to his bed;
He sprung from the couch, and his broadsword he drew,
And there the seven daughters of Urien he slew.

The gate of the castle he bolted and seal'd,
And hung o'er each arch-stone a crown and a shield;
To the cells of St. Dunstan then wended his way,
And died in his cloister an anchorite grey.

Seven monarchs' wealth in that castle lies stow'd,
The foul fiends brood o'er them like raven and toad.
Whoever shall questen these chambers within,
From curfew to matins, that treasure shall win.

But manhood grows faint as the world waxes old!
There lives not in Britain a champion so bold,
So dauntless of heart, and so prudent of brain,
As to dare the adventure that treasure to gain.

The waste ridge of Cheviot shall wave with the rye,
Before the rude Scots shall Northumberland fly,
And the flint cliffs of Bambro' shall melt in the sun
Before that adventure be perill'd and won."

Long afterwards, when Harold the Dauntless entered the castle, the seven
shields still hung where Adolf had placed them, each blazoned with its
coat of arms:

"A wolf North Wales had on his armour coat,
And Rhys of Powis-land a couchant stag;
Strath Clwyd's strange emblem was a stranded boat;
Donald of Galloway's a trotting nag;
A corn-sheaf gilt was fertile Lodon's brag;
A dudgeon-dagger was by Dunmail worn;
Northumbrian Adolf gave a sea-beat crag;
Surmounted by a cross,--such signs were borne
Upon these antique shields, all wasted now and worn."

And within the castle, in that chamber where Adolf repelled the
embarrassing advances of that most unmaidenly band of sisters, and did
"a slaughter grim and great":

"There of the witch brides lay each skeleton,
Still in the posture as to death when dight;
For this lay prone, by one blow slain outright;
And that, as one who struggles long in dying;
One bony hand held knife, as if to smite;
One bent on fleshless knees, as