still more abrupt, and they knew by the ending of the cloven foot-prints that the thieves were carrying the pigs.  Now and then a long mark in the clay showed that a pig had slipped down, and been dragged along for a little way.  They had journeyed thus for about twenty minutes, when a confused sound of voices told them that they were coming up with the thieves.  And then the voices ceased, and they understood that they had been overheard in their turn.  They pressed on rapidly and cautiously, and in about five minutes one of them caught sight of a leather jerkin half hidden by a hazel-bush.  An arrow struck the knight’s chain-armour, but glanced off harmlessly, and then a flight of arrows swept by them with the buzzing sound of great bees.  They ran and climbed, and climbed and ran towards the thieves, who were now all visible standing up among the bushes with their still quivering bows in their hands:  for they had only their spears and they must at once come hand to hand.  The knight was in the front and smote down first one and then another of the wood-thieves.  The peasants shouted, and, pressing on, drove the wood-thieves before them until they came out on the flat top of the mountain, and there they saw the two pigs quietly grubbing in the short grass, so they ran about them in a circle, and began to move back again towards the narrow path:  the old knight coming now the last of all, and striking down thief after thief.  The peasants had got no very serious hurts among them, for he had drawn the brunt of the battle upon himself, as could well be seen from the bloody rents in his armour; and when they came to the entrance of the narrow path he bade them drive the pigs down into the valley, while he stood there to guard the way behind them.  So in a moment he was alone, and, being weak with loss of blood, might have been ended there and then by the wood-thieves he had beaten off, had fear not made them begone out of sight in a great hurry.

An hour passed, and they did not return; and now the knight could stand on guard no longer, but had to lie down upon the grass.  A half-hour more went by, and then a young lad with what appeared to be a number of cock’s feathers stuck round his hat, came out of the path behind him, and began to move about among the dead thieves, cutting their heads off, Then he laid the heads in a heap before the knight, and said:  ’O great knight, I have been bid come and ask you for the crowns you promised for the heads:  five crowns a head.  They bid me tell you that they have prayed to God and His Mother to give you a long life, but that they are poor peasants, and that they would have the money before you die.  They told me this over and over for fear I might forget it, and promised to beat me if I did.’

The knight raised himself upon his elbow, and opening a bag that hung to his belt, counted out the five crowns for each head.  There were thirty heads in all.