Stories from the Faerie Queen, Told to the Children

by Edmund Spenser; Jean Lang

There was no need to make the palfrey gallop when it saw the hideous beast with long, soft strides coming swiftly after it. The white palfrey went as fast as a race-horse, but the beast went as fast as the wind. As they came out of the forest, the beast’s hot breath was close behind Florimell. And by that time her horse was so tired that its pace slackened. They had come to where there were no more trees, and in front of them lay yellow sand, and a long, long stretch of blue-green sea. When Florimell saw the sea, she leaped from her tired horse and ran and ran.

‘I had rather be drowned,’ she thought, ‘than be killed by that loathsome monster.’

Now, an old fisherman had been drying his nets on the sand, and while they dried he slept in the bottom of his little boat, that lay heaving gently up and down in the shallows.

When Florimell saw this boat, she ran towards it and jumped in, and, with an oar, pushed it off into deeper water. The beast got to the water’s edge just too late, for it was afraid of the sea and dared not follow her. In a rage it fell upon the white palfrey and tore it in pieces, and was eating it when a good knight who knew Florimell passed that way. He knew that the white horse was Florimell’s, so he attacked the beast, and cut it and struck it so furiously with his sword that all its strength was beaten out of it and he could easily have killed it. But the knight thought that he would rather catch the strange beast and lead it home with him.

Lying on the sand near the dead white palfrey, he saw a golden girdle that sparkled with jewels, and that he had seen worn by Florimell. With this girdle he bound the beast, and led it after him like a dog. As he led it, he met a wicked giantess, and while he fought with her the beast escaped and ran away back to the witch’s hut.

When the witch saw Florimell’s jewelled girdle she was glad, for she thought that the beast must have killed Florimell. She ran with it to her son, but the sight of it, without Florimell, made him so angry that he tried to kill both the beast and his mother. The witch was so frightened that she set all her magic to work, to try to comfort her son. With snow and mercury and wax she made an image as like Florimell as she could. Its cheeks were rosy, like Florimell’s, and she took two little burning lamps and put them in silver sockets, so that they looked just like Florimell’s bright eyes. Her hair she made of the very finest golden wire. She dressed the image in some clothes that Florimell, in her flight, had left behind her, and round its waist she fastened Florimell’s jewelled girdle. Then she put a wicked fairy inside the image, and told him to do his very best to act and to talk and to walk like Florimell. This image she then led to her son, and he thought it was the real Florimell come back, and was delighted. The false Florimell was not afraid of him as the real Florimell had been, and would walk in the woods with him, and listen, quite pleased, to all that he had to say.

But as they were in the forest one day, a bad knight saw them, and thought the false Florimell so beautiful that he seized her and rode away with her, and left the witch’s son more sad and angry than ever.

When the real Florimell had escaped from the beast, the little boat that she pushed off from the shore went gaily sailing onward and onward with the tide. They were far out at sea when the old fisherman awoke. He got a great fright when he found himself far from the shore, and with a lovely lady beside him. But he was a very bad old man, and when he saw Florimell’s fine jewels and beautiful clothes he thought he would rob her. He knocked her down into the bottom of his boat amongst the fishes’ scales, and might have killed her, had not Florimell screamed and screamed for help. There was no ship near, and the waves and the sea-birds could not help her.

But it chanced that the shepherd of all the flocks in the sea was driving his chariot that way. He was an old man with long white hair and beard. Sometimes on a stormy day one may see him far out at sea, as he drives his flocks that look from far away like snowy froth and foam.

When the shepherd saw the wicked fisherman struggling with Florimell, he beat the old robber so hard with his staff that there soon was very little life left in him. Then he lifted Florimell, all tearful and trembling, into his chariot. When she could only cry, he gently kissed her. But his lips were frosty cold, and icicles from his long white beard dropped on to her breast and made her shiver.