eauty. And
when, after saying in a voice like a mavis--

"Oh welcome, welcome, father,
Unto your halls and towers!
And welcome too, my stepmother,
For all that's here is yours!"

she turned upon the step and tripped into the yard, the Scots lords said
aloud:

"Forsooth! May Margret's grace
Surpasses all that we have met, she has so fair a face!"

Now the new Queen overheard this, and she stamped her foot and her face
flushed with anger as she turned her about and called:

"You might have excepted me,
But I will bring May Margret to a Laidly Worm's degree;
I'll bring her low as a Laidly Worm
That warps about a stone,
And not till the Childe of Wynde come back
Will the witching be undone."

Well! hearing this May Margret laughed, not knowing that her new
stepmother, for all her beauty, was a witch; and the laugh made the
wicked woman still more angry. So that same night she left her royal
bed, and, returning to the lonely cave where she had ever done her
magic, she cast Princess May Margret under a spell with charms three
times three, and passes nine times nine. And this was her spell:

"I weird ye to a Laidly Worm,
And such sail ye ever be
Until Childe Wynde the King's dear son
Comes home across the sea.
Until the world comes to an end
Unspelled ye'll never be,
Unless Childe Wynde of his own free will
Sail give you kisses three!"

So it came to pass that Princess May Margret went to her bed a beauteous
maiden, full of grace, and rose next morning a Laidly Worm; for when her
tire-women came to dress her they found coiled up in her bed an awesome
dragon, which uncoiled itself and came towards them. And when they ran
away terrified, the Laidly Worm crawled and crept, and crept and crawled
down to the sea till it reached the rock of the Spindlestone which is
called the Heugh. And there it curled itself round the stone, and lay
basking in the sun.

Then for seven miles east and seven miles west and seven miles north and
south the whole country-side knew the hunger of the Laidly Worm of
Spindlestone Heugh, for it drove the awesome beast to leave its
resting-place at night and devour everything it came across.

At last a wise warlock told the people that if they wished to be quit of
these horrors, they must take every drop of the milk of seven white
milch kine every morn and every eve to the trough of stone at the foot
of the Heugh, for the Laidly Worm