The Red Champion said, "Good is the Champion that the King of this Land has sent against me."
"I shall have the honors and something else beside," said Mell. Then he struck at the red plume that was on his enemy's cap. He cut it off as the Red Champion sprang into the boat that moved of itself. As the sun was sinking the Champion in the boat went over the sea.
Now the Cook's son had been watching the whole fight from the cave. When he saw the Red Champion going off in his boat he came running down to the shore. The Hen wife's son was lying with his hands and his face in the water trying to cool himself after the combat and the red plume that he had struck off the Champion's cap was lying near him. The Cook's son took up the plume.
"Let me keep this as a remembrance of your fight, brave warrior," said he to the Hen-wife's son.
"You may keep it," said Mell. Then with the red plume in his hands the Cook's son ran back towards the Castle.
IV
Mell the Hen-wife's son put on his best garments and he went to the Castle that evening and he was received by the King as a champion from foreign parts. And the King invited him to supper for three nights.
Princess Bright Brow was at the supper and Mell watched and watched her. He saw that she was pale and that she kept sighing. And of the damsel who came to sit beside him at the table Mell asked "Why is the King's daughter so sad and troubled-looking?"
"She has reason for being sad and troubled," said the damsel who was called Sea Swan, "for she thinks she may have to marry one whom she thinks little of."