but soon lands herself in
difficulties amongst the various facts that require preliminary
explanation before the story can be properly launched. At the right
moment the people referred to themselves appear and the story passes
from narration to action. We learn from two brothers that they are
seeking their sister, Delia, who has been carried off by a wicked
magician, Sacrapant--not to be confused with Greene's Sacripant. This
same sorcerer has also separated a loving couple; by his art the lady,
Venelia, has gone mad, and the youth, Erestus, is converted into an old
man by day and a bear by night. The aged-looking Erestus is regarded
throughout the countryside as a soothsayer. His neighbour, Lampriscus,
cursed by two daughters, one of whom is frightfully ugly while the other
is a virago, consults him about their marriages. By his advice they take
their pitchers to a magic well, where, by a coincidence, each finds a
husband. She of the hideous face easily satisfies Huanebango, while the
vile-tempered maiden as readily contents the heart of Corebus, for
Sacrapant has previously hurled blindness upon the former, and upon the
latter deafness, because they dared to enter his realms in search of
Delia. Meanwhile the brothers continue their quest and eventually come
upon Sacrapant and their sister making merry together at a feast. At
once the lady is sent indoors, thunder and lightning herald disaster,
and Sacrapant's magic takes them captive. Subsequently they are set to a
task, with Delia standing over to speed their labours with a sharpened
goad. It now becomes known that Sacrapant's power depends on the
continued existence of a light enclosed within a glass vessel and buried
in the earth. Delia has a lover, Eumenides. Acting on a generous
impulse, this youth pays for the burial of one, Jack, whose friends are
too poor to find the sexton's fees. Jack's ghost, in no more horrible
form than that of an honest boy, forthwith repays the kindness by
appointing himself Eumenides' guide, leading him to Sacrapant's castle,
and obligingly slaying the magician at the critical moment by a touch of
his ghostly hand. The buried light is dug up, Venelia, qualified by her
madness to fulfil the conditions imposed by an old prophecy, breaks the
glass and blows out the flame, and instantly all Sacrapant's wickedness
is nullified. Venelia and Erestus are re-united, Delia is restored to
her brothers and lover; we are not told of the shocks that m