arry it out."

"And what should you advise me to do, King's daughter?"

"Let me help you. In this tower," said she, "there are the wisest books
in the world. We'll surely find in one of them a way for you to get from
this country. And then I'll go back with you to your own land."

"Why would you do that?" asked the King of Ire-land's Son.

"Because I wish to be your wife," Gilveen said.

"But," said he, "if I live at all Fedelma is the one I'll marry."

When he said that Gilveen drew her lips together and her chin became
like a horn. Then she whistled through her teeth, and instantly
everything in the room began to attack the King's Son. The looking glass
on the wall flung itself at him and hit him on the back of the head. The
leg of the table gave him a terrible blow at the back of the knees. He
saw the two candles hopping across the floor to burn his legs. He ran
out of the room, and when he got to the door it swung around and gave
him a blow that flung him away from the tower. The crane that was
waiting on the tower flew down, its neck and beak outstretched, and gave
him a blow on the back.

So the King of Ireland's Son went back over the marshes and across the
little streams, and he was glad when he saw the gable-end of the house
again. Je went into the tank. He knew that he had not long to wait
before the sun would rise and the Enchanter of the Black Back-Lands
would come to him and give him the third and the most difficult of the
three tasks. And he thought that Fedelma was surely shut away from him
and that she would not be able to help him that day.

VII

At the rising of the sun the Enchanter of the Black Back-Lands came to
where the King of Ireland's Son was huddled and said, "I am now going to
set you the third and last task. Rise up now and come with me."

The King's Son came out of the water-tank and fol-lowed the Enchanter.
They went to where there was a well. The King's Son looked down and he
could not see the bottom, so deep the well was. "At the bottom," said
the Enchanter "is the Ring of Youth. You must get it and bring it to me,
or else you must lose your head at the setting of that sun." That was
all he said. He turned then and went away.

The King's Son looked into the well and he saw no way of getting down
its deep smooth sides. He walked back towards the Castle. On his way he
met Fedelma, and she looked at him with deep dread in her eyes. "What
task did my father set you to-day?"