hard by it, where an old woman told us that no party had
been by since daylight.

So we turned eastward and rode to meet the king, and did so before
long. He had left men at his village to wait for us in case we came
back there; but he laughed at us for losing ourselves, though he
said he had no fear for sailors adrift in the wilds when Ethelnoth
came in without us.

But when, as we rode on, I told him what had befallen us, he
listened gravely, and at last said:

"I have heard the like of this before. Men say that the pixies
dwell in the moorland, and will dance to death those who disturb
them. What think you of those you have seen?"

I said that, having slain them, one could not doubt that they were
men, if strange ones.

"That is what I think," he answered. "They are men who would be
thought pixies. Maybe they are the pixies. I believe they are the
last of the old Welsh folk who have dwelt in these wilds since the
coming of the Romans or before. There were the like in the great
fens of East Anglia and Mercia when Guthlac the Holy went there,
and he thought them devils. None can reach these men or know where
they dwell. Maybe they are heathen, and their dance in that stone
ring was some unholy rite that you have seen. But you have been
very far into the wastes, and I have never seen those stones."

And when he handled the gold rings, he showed me that they were
very old; but when he handled the drumhead and looked at the marks
thereon, he laughed.

"Here is the magic of an honest franklin's cattle brand. I have
seen it on beasts about the hills before now. The pixies have made
a raid on the farmer's herds at some time."

Now I think that King Alfred was right, and that we had fallen into
the hands of wild Welsh or Cornish moor folk. But one should hear
Kolgrim's tale of the matter as he shows his sword sheath that he
made of the drumhead; for nothing would persuade him that it was
not of more than mortal work.

"Had the good king been in that place with us, he would have told a
different tale altogether," he says.

So we went on our journey quietly, and ever as we went and spoke
with Alfred, I began to be sure that this pale and troubled king
was the most wondrous man that I had ever seen. And now, as I look
back and remember, I know that in many ways he was showing me that
the faith he held shaped his life to that which seemed best in him
to my eyes.

I know this, that had he scoffed at the Asir, I had