sea will hardly bear a felon ship, and gives no aid to
rapine. The sea rose and cast a dark storm round the ship and drove it
eight days and eight nights at random, till the mariners caught
through the mist a coast of awful cliffs and sea-ward rocks whereon
the sea would have ground their hull to pieces: then they did penance,
knowing that the anger of the sea came of the lad, whom they had
stolen in an evil hour, and they vowed his deliverance and got ready a
boat to put him, if it might be, ashore: then the wind, and sea fell
and the sky shone, and as the Norway ship grew small in the offing, a
quiet tide cast Tristan and the boat upon a beach of sand.

Painfully he climbed the cliff and saw, beyond, a lonely rolling heath
and a forest stretching out and endless. And he wept, remembering
Gorvenal, his father, and the land of Lyonesse. Then the distant cry
of a hunt, with horse and hound, came suddenly and lifted his heart,
and a tall stag broke cover at the forest edge. The pack and the hunt
streamed after it with a tumult of cries and winding horns, but just
as the hounds were racing clustered at the haunch, the quarry turned
to bay at a stones throw from Tristan; a huntsman gave him the thrust,
while all around the hunt had gathered and was winding the kill. But
Tristan, seeing by the gesture of the huntsman that he made to cut the
neck of the stag, cried out:

"My lord, what would you do? Is it fitting to cut up so noble a beast
like any farm-yard hog? Is that the custom of this country?"

And the huntsman answered:

"Fair friend, what startles you? Why yes, first I take off the head of
a stag, and then I cut it into four quarters and we carry it on our
saddle bows to King Mark, our lord: So do we, and so since the days of
the first huntsmen have done the Cornish men. If, however, you know of
some nobler custom, teach it us: take this knife and we will learn it
willingly."

Then Tristan kneeled and skinned the stag before he cut it up, and
quartered it all in order leaving the crow-bone all whole, as is meet,
and putting aside at the end the head, the haunch, the tongue and the
great heart's vein; and the huntsmen and the kennel hinds stood over
him with delight, and the Master Huntsman said:

"Friend, these are good ways. In what land learnt you them? Tell us
your country and your name."

"Good lord, my name is Tristan, and I learnt these ways in my country
of Lyonesse."

"Tristan," said the Master Hunts