ich the Great
Magician Merlin had taught him, and drawing his father's brand which had
never yet been drawn in vain, and turning his eyes from the horrid
sight, he struck with all his force at the enchanted form of fair Burd
Helen.

And lo, when he turned to look in fear and trembling, there she was her
own self, her joy fighting with her fears. And she clasped him in her
arms and cried:

"Oh, hear you this, my youngest brother,
Why didn't you bide at home?
Had you a hundred thousand lives,
Ye couldn't spare ne'er a one!

"But sit you down, my dearest dear,
Oh! woe that ye were born,
For, come the King of Elfland in,
Your fortune is forlorn."

So with tears and smiles she seated him beside her on the wondrous
couch, and they told each other what they each had suffered and done. He
told her how he had come to Elfland. She told him how she had been
carried off, shadow and all, because she ran round a church widershins,
and how her brothers had been enchanted, and lay intombed as if dead, as
she had been. Because they had not had the courage to obey the Great
Magician's lesson to the letter, and cut off her head.

Now after a time Childe Rowland, who had travelled far and travelled
fast, became very hungry, and forgetting all about the second lesson of
the Magician Merlin, asked his sister for some food; and she, being
still under the spell of Elfland, could not warn him of his danger. She
could only look at him sadly as she rose up and brought him a golden
basin full of bread and milk.

Now in those days it was manners before taking food from anyone to say
thank you with your eyes, and so just as Childe Rowland was about to put
the golden bowl to his lips, he raised his eyes to his sister's.

And in an instant he remembered what the Great Magician had said: "Bite
no bit, sup no drop, for if in Elfland you sup one drop or bite one bit,
never again will you see Middle Earth."

So he dashed the bowl to the ground, and standing square and fair, lithe
and young and strong, he cried like a challenge:

"Not a sup will I swallow, not a bit will I bite, till fair Burd Helen
is set free."

Then immediately there was a loud noise like thunder, and a voice was
heard saying:

"Fee, fi, fo, fum,
I smell the blood of a Christian Man.
Be he alive or dead, my brand
Shall dash his brains from his brain-pan."

Then the folding-doors of the vast hall burst open and the King of
Elfland ent