"This is the farm of Woodward, from which we take our names, my mother and I, and we are some ten miles from the Narrow Seas."
"But what is the land called, and who rules it?" the Queen said.
The ploughman laughed. "Why, it is called the land of the Happy Folk; and as for who rules it, why, just nobody, because it gets along very well as it is."
The Queen leant back in the great chair they had given her. She rubbed her chin reflectively and looked at the fire.
"The Regent told me that a country couldn't possibly exist without a King or Queen," she said.
"Who is the Regent?" the ploughman said. He too kept his face to the fire that he could not see.
"Oh, well, he's just the Regent of my kingdom. But I forgot you didn't know. I am Eldrida, Queen of the Narrowlands and all the Isles."
The little old woman looked at her interestedly.
And the ploughman said, "After all, you're not so very far from your home; because one can see the coast of it quite plainly on a clear day from our shore, so they say."
"Why, then you must have quite a number of people from there?" the Queen said.