He dug hard, and a faint light of dawn had touched his hair and
he had almost done his work when a cock crowed in the valley below.
'Ah,' he said, 'I must have that bird'; and he ran down the narrow
path to the valley.
THE WISDOM OF THE KING.
The High-Queen of the Island of Woods had died in childbirth, and her
child was put to nurse with a woman who lived in a hut of mud and
wicker, within the border of the wood. One night the woman sat
rocking the cradle, and pondering over the beauty of the child, and
praying that the gods might grant him wisdom equal to his beauty.
There came a knock at the door, and she got up, not a little
wondering, for the nearest neighbours were in the dun of the High-
King a mile away; and the night was now late. 'Who is knocking?' she
cried, and a thin voice answered, 'Open! for I am a crone of the grey
hawk, and I come from the darkness of the great wood.' In terror she
drew back the bolt, and a grey-clad woman, of a great age, and of a
height more than human, came in and stood by the head of the cradle.
The nurse shrank back against the wall, unable to take her eyes from
the woman, for she saw by the gleaming of the firelight that the
feathers of the grey hawk were upon her head instead of hair. But the
child slept, and the fire danced, for the one was too ignorant and
the other too full of gaiety to know what a dreadful being stood
there.
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