only a sorceress, but even one foredoomed from of old and sent by the lords of hell to wreck that fair Land of the Tower and make it unhappy and desolate.  And the tale grew and gathered form, till now, when the bloom of my beauty was gone, I heard hard and fierce words cried after me in the streets when I fared abroad, and that still chiefly by the women:  for yet most men looked on me with pleasure.  Also my counsellors and lords warned me often that I must be wary and of great forbearance if trouble were to be kept back.

“Now amidst these things as I was walking pensively in my garden one summer day, it was told me that a woman desired to see me, so I bade them bring her.  And when she came I looked on her, and deemed that I had seen her aforetime:  she was not old, but of middle age, of dark red hair, and brown eyes somewhat small:  not a big woman, but well fashioned of body, and looking as if she had once been exceeding dainty and trim.  She spake, and again I seemed to have heard her voice before:  ‘Hail, Queen,’ she said, ‘it does my heart good to see thee thus in thy glorious estate.’  So I took her greeting; but those tales of my being but a sending of the Devil for the ruin of that land came into my mind, and I sent away the folk who were thereby before I said more to her.  Then she spake again:  ’Even so I guessed it would be that thou wouldst grow great amongst women.’

“But I said, ‘What is this? and when have I known thee before-time?’ She smiled and said naught; and my mind went back to those old days, and I trembled, and the flesh crept upon my bones, lest this should be the coming back in a new shape of my mistress whom I had slain.  But the woman laughed, and said, as if she knew my thoughts:  ’Nay, it is not so:  the dead are dead; fear not:  but hast thou forgotten the Dale of Lore?’

“‘Nay,’ said I, ’never; and art thou then the carline that learned me lore?  But if the dead come not back, how do the old grow young again? for ’tis a score of years since we two sat in the Dale, and I longed for many things.’

“Said the woman:  ’The dead may not drink of the Well at the World’s End; yet the living may, even if they be old; and that blessed water giveth them new might and changeth their blood, and they are as young folk for a long while again after they have drunken.’  ‘And hast thou drunken?’ said I.

“‘Yea,’ she said; ‘but I am minded for another draught.’  I said:  ‘And wherefore hast thou come to me, and what shall I give to thee?’ She said, ’I will take no gift of thee as now, for I need it not, though hereafter I may ask a gift of thee.  But I am to ask this of thee, if thou wilt be my fellow-farer on the road thither?’ ‘Yea?’ said I, ’and leave my love and my lord, and my kingship which he hath given me? for this I will tell thee, that all that here is done, is done by me.’