“He proceeded through a long passage, where the air was soft and agreeably warm, like a May evening, as is all the air in elfland.  The light was a sort of twilight or gloaming; but there were neither windows nor candles, and he knew not whence it came if it was not from the walls and roof, which were rough and arched like a grotto, and composed of a clear transparent rock incrusted with sheep’s silver, and spar and various bright stones.”  At last he came to two lofty folding doors which stood ajar.  Passing through these doors, he entered a large and spacious hall, the richness and brilliance of which was beyond description.  It seemed to extend throughout the whole length and breadth of the hill.  The superb Gothic pillars by which the roof was supported were so large and lofty, that the pillars of the “Chaury Kirk or of the Pluscardin Abbey are no more to be compared to them than the Knock of Alves is to be compared to Balrimes or Ben-a-chi.”  They were of gold and silver, and were fretted like the west window of the Chaury Kirk (Elgin Cathedral), with wreaths of flowers, composed of diamonds and precious stones of all manner of beautiful colours.  The key stones of the arches, instead of being escutcheoned, were ornamented also with clusters of diamonds in brilliant devices.  From the middle of the roof, where the arches met, was hung, suspended by a gold chain, an immense lamp of one hollowed pearl, and perfectly transparent, in the centre of which was a large carbuncle, which, by the power of magic, turned round continually, and shed throughout all the hall a clear mild light like that of the setting sun.  But the hall was so large, and these dazzling objects so far removed, that their blended radiance cast no more than a pleasing mellow lustre around, and excited no other than agreeable sensations in the eyes of Child Rowland.  The furniture of the hall was suitable to its architecture; and at the further end, under a splendid canopy, sitting on a gorgeous sofa of velvet, silk and gold, and “kembing her yellow hair wi’ a silver kemb,”

      “Was his sister Burd Ellen. 
    She stood up him before,
    God rue or thee poor luckless fode (man),
    What hast thou to do here? 
    And hear ye this my youngest brother,
    Why badena ye at hame? 
    Had ye a hunder and thousand lives
    Ye canna brook are o’ them. 
    And sit thou down; and wae, oh wae! 
    That ever thou was born,
    For came the King o’ Elfland in,
    Thy leccam (body) is forlorn.”

After a long conversation with his sister, the two folding doors were burst open with tremendous violence, and in came the King of Elfland, shouting—­

   “With fi, fe, fa, and fum,
    I smell the blood of a Christian man,
    Be he dead, be he living, with my brand
    I’ll clash his harns frae his harn pan.”