ll cool him! He shall then have until break
of day to clear out of my town. Let him away back to the swine on the
hills." The girl pleaded that the boy might be spared the frightful
indignity of a public dipping in the well of the Seven Sisters, but her
father was implacable. "Have I not spoken?" he said sternly, and the
damsel was led away by her governess in tears.

The people flocked to the well as they might to a Feis to see the
dipping of the shepherd boy. Cries of merriment arose among them when
the boy, bound in strips of hide, was lowered by the servants of the
Keeper of the Key into the mouth of the great well. It was a cold, dark,
creepy place down in the shaft of the well, the walls reeking, covered
with slimy green lichen, the waters roaring. The shepherd boy closed his
eyes and gave himself up for lost. But the Seven Sisters of the well
kept moving down as fast as the servants told out the rope, until at
last they could not lower him any farther. The servants danced the rope
up and down seven times, and the people screamed and clapped their
hands, crying out, "All those who write love verses come to a bad end!"
But the poet was never yet born who had not a friend greater than all
his enemies. At that moment the spirits of the Seven Sisters rose out of
the water and spoke to the shepherd boy.

"O shepherd boy," they said, "the Keeper of the Key is also our enemy.
We were created for something better than this narrow shaft. We cry out
in bitter pain the long hours of the night."

"Why do you cry out in bitter pain?" asked the shepherd boy.

"Because," said the spirits of the Seven Sisters, "we want to leap out
of this cold place to meet our lover, the moon. Every night he comes
calling to us and we dare not respond. We are locked away under the
heavy lid. We can never gather our full strength to burst our way to
liberty. We dream of the pleasant valley. We want to get out into it,
to make merry about the trees, to sport in the warm places, to lip the
edge of the green meadows, to water pleasant gardens. We want to see the
flowers, to flash in the sun, to dance under the spread of great
branches, to make snug, secret places for the pike and the otter, to
pile up the coloured pebbles, and hear the water-hen splashing in the
rushes. And above all, we want to meet our lover, the moon, to roll
about in his beams, to reach for his kiss in the harvest nights. O
shepherd boy, take us from our prison well!"

"O S