butterflies on a March day."

"Yea, auntie," saith he, "but a stone or two might avail without the
bow, were one deft enough. Yet with no such weapon did I slay them;
ask me what weapons I bore against them." Therewith he stirs and
shakes himself, and off tumbles the sack from his shoulders, and
therewith his grandam lights up the candles, and they all see the
scarlet and gold of his holiday raiment; and Bridget says: "This also
will I ask thee, fosterling, do men go out to take snipes in their
holiday raiment?"

"I will tell thee," says the little lad: "the weapons I bore against
the catch were the shield to ward, and the spear to thrust, and the
knife for the shearing of the heads: and I tell thee that when men go
to battle they use to wend in their fair-dyed raiment."

Then he stood up in the hall, the little one, but trim and goodly,
with gleaming eyes and bright hair, and a word came into his mouth:

On the wind-weary bent
The grey ones they went,
Growled the greedy and glared
On the sheep-kin afeared;
Low looked the bright sun
On the battle begun,
For they saw how the swain
Stood betwixt them and gain.
'Twas the spear in the belly, the spear in the mouth,
And a warp of the shield from the north to the south,
The spear in the throat, and the eyes of the sun
Scarce shut as the last of the battle was done.

"Well sung, kinsman!" said the goodman: "now shalt thou show us the
snipes." But ere the lad might stoop to his bag the two women were
upon him, clipping and kissing him as if they would never have enough
thereof. He made a shift to thrust them off at last, and stooping to
his bag he drew out something and cast it on the board, and lo the
sheared-off head of a great grey wolf with gaping jaws and glistening
white fangs, and the women shrank before it. But Osberne said: "Lo the
first of the catch, and here is the second." And again he drew out a
head from the bag and cast it on the board; and so with the third in
due course.

"Now," said he, "the bag is empty, and deemest thou, grandsire, that I
have bought off my beating? And thou, grandam, I pray thee, give me my
meat, for I am anhungered." So now they had nought but praises and
caresses for him and they made as it were a new feast of the November
day, and were as merry as if they were feasting the best days of Yule.

Chapter VI. They Fare to the Cloven Mote

And now the days wore away to winter, and ev