cleverly out of her hand.

"Where is the eye, sister?" said the second gray woman.

"You have taken it yourself, sister," said the first gray woman.

"Have you lost the eye, sister? have you lost the eye?" said the third
gray woman; "shall we _never_ find it again, and see old times coming
back?"

Then the boy slipped from behind them out of the cold cave into the air,
and he laughed aloud.

When the gray women heard that laugh they began to weep, for now they
knew that a stranger had robbed them, and that they could not help
themselves, and their tears froze as they fell from the hollows where no
eyes were, and rattled on the icy ground of the cave. Then they began to
implore the boy to give them their eye back again, and he could not help
being sorry for them, they were so pitiful. But he said he would never
give them the eye till they told him the way to the Fairies of the
Garden.

Then they wrung their hands miserably, for they guessed why he had come,
and how he was going to try to win the Terrible Head. Now the Dreadful
Women were akin to the Three Gray Sisters, and it was hard for them to
tell the boy the way. But at last they told him to keep always south,
and with the land on his left and the sea on his right, till he reached
the Island of the Fairies of the Garden. Then he gave them back the
eye, and they began to look out once more for the old times coming back
again. But the boy flew south between sea and land, keeping the land
always on his left hand, till he saw a beautiful island crowned with
flowering trees. There he alighted, and there he found the Three Fairies
of the Garden. They were like three very beautiful young women, dressed
one in green, one in white, and one in red, and they were dancing and
singing round an apple tree with apples of gold, and this was their
song:

THE SONG OF THE WESTERN FAIRIES

Round and round the apples of gold,
Round and round dance we;
Thus do we dance from the days of old
About the enchanted tree;
Round, and round, and round we go,
While the spring is green, or the stream shall flow,
Or the wind shall stir the sea!

There is none may taste of the golden fruit
Till the golden new time come
Many a tree shall spring from shoot,
Many a blossom be withered at root,
Many a song be dumb;
Broken and still shall be many a lute
Or ever the new times come!

Round and rou