temples near Andover to see how he prospered. There was his altar, and
there was his image, and there were his priests, and there were the
congregation, and everybody seemed quite happy, except Weland and the
priests. In the old days the congregation were unhappy until the priests
had chosen their sacrifices; and so would you have been. When the
service began a priest rushed out, dragged a man up to the altar,
pretended to hit him on the head with a little gilt axe, and the man
fell down and pretended to die. Then everybody shouted: "A sacrifice to
Weland! A sacrifice to Weland!"'

'And the man wasn't really dead?' said Una.

'Not a bit. All as much pretence as a dolls' tea-party. Then they
brought out a splendid white horse, and the priest cut some hair from
its mane and tail and burned it on the altar, shouting, "A sacrifice!"
That counted the same as if a man and a horse had been killed. I saw
poor Weland's face through the smoke, and I couldn't help laughing. He
looked so disgusted and so hungry, and all he had to satisfy himself was
a horrid smell of burning hair. Just a dolls' tea-party!

'I judged it better not to say anything then ('twouldn't have been
fair), and the next time I came to Andover, a few hundred years later,
Weland and his temple were gone, and there was a Christian bishop in a
church there. None of the People of the Hills could tell me anything
about him, and I supposed that he had left England.' Puck turned; lay on
the other elbow, and thought for a long time.

'Let's see,' he said at last. 'It must have been some few years later--a
year or two before the Conquest, I think--that I came back to Pook's
Hill here, and one evening I heard old Hobden talking about Weland's