“Beest thou man or devil?” cried Dirk, somewhat frightened.
The thing looked up. The face at least was human.
“Art thou a Christian man?” asked it in bad Frisian, intermixed with snorts and neighs.
“What’s that to thee?” growled Dirk; and began to wish a little that he was one, having heard that the sign of the cross was of great virtue in driving away fiends.
“Thou art not Christian. Thou believest in Thor and Odin? Then there is hope.”
“Hope of what?” Dirk was growing more and more frightened.
“Of her, my sister! Ah, my sister, can it be that I shall find thee at last, after ten thousand miles, and thirty years of woeful wandering?”
“I have no man’s sister here. At least, my wife’s brother was killed—”
“I speak not of a sister in a woman’s shape. Mine, alas!—O woeful prince, O more woeful princess!—eats the herb of the field somewhere in the shape of a mare, as ugly as she was once beautiful, but swifter than the swallow on the wing.”
“I’ve none such here,” quoth Dirk, thoroughly frightened, and glancing uneasily at mare Swallow.