"Fee, fi, fo, fum,
I smell the blood of a Christian man,
Be he dead, be he living, with my brand,
I'll dash his brains from his brain-pan."
And then the folding-doors of the hall were burst open, and the King of Elfland rushed in.
"Strike, then, Bogle, if thou darest," shouted out Childe Rowland, and rushed to meet him with his good brand that never yet did fail. They fought, and they fought, and they fought, till Childe Rowland beat the King of Elfland down on to his knees, and caused him to yield and beg for mercy. "I grant thee mercy," said Childe Rowland; "release my sister from thy spells and raise my brothers to life, and let us all go free, and thou shalt be spared." "I agree," said the Elfin King, and rising up he went to a chest from which he took a phial filled with a blood-red liquor. With this he anointed the ears, eyelids, nostrils, lips, and finger-tips of the two brothers, and they sprang at once into life, and declared that their souls had been away, but had now returned. The Elfin King then said some words to Burd Ellen, and she was disenchanted, and they all four passed out of the hall, through the long passage, and turned their back on the Dark Tower, never to return again. So they reached home, and the good queen their mother and Burd Ellen never went round a church "widershins"[30] again.
TAM O' SHANTER
TAM O' SHANTER[31]
IT was market-day in the town of Ayr in Scotland. The farmers had come into town from all the country round about, to sell or exchange their farm produce, and buy what they needed to take home.
Amongst these farmers was a man by the name of Tam o' Shanter; a good natured, happy-go-lucky sort of person, but, I am sorry to say, somewhat of a drunkard.