But as he went on through the fair and sweet land so bright and sun-
litten, and he now rested and fed, the horror and fear ran off from
him, and he wandered on merrily, neither did aught befall him save
the coming of night, when he laid him down under a great spreading
oak with his drawn sword ready to hand, and fell asleep at once, and
woke not till the sun was high.

Then he arose and went on his way again; and the land was no worser
than yesterday; but even better, it might be; the greensward more
flowery, the oaks and chestnuts greater. Deer of diverse kinds he
saw, and might easily have got his meat thereof; but he meddled not
with them since he had his bread, and was timorous of lighting a
fire. Withal he doubted little of having some entertainment; and
that, might be, nought evil; since even that fearful dwarf had been
courteous to him after his kind, and had done him good and not harm.
But of the happening on the Wretch and the Thing, whereof the dwarf
spake, he was yet somewhat afeard.

After he had gone a while and whenas the summer morn was at its
brightest, he saw a little way ahead a grey rock rising up from
amidst of a ring of oak-trees; so he turned thither straightway; for
in this plain-land he had seen no rocks heretofore; and as he went
he saw that there was a fountain gushing out from under the rock,
which ran thence in a fair little stream. And when he had the rock
and the fountain and the stream clear before him, lo! a child of
Adam sitting beside the fountain under the shadow of the rock. He
drew a little nigher, and then he saw that it was a woman, clad in