Ere he the truth was learning, the time to him seemed long.
Whether the maidens as goblins or mermaids must be treated
He knew not; such beings never, in all his life before, his eyes had greeted.
[113]
He first began to ask them, before he reached the strand:
“Boy, have you been baptized? What do you in this land?”
Dight with fresh green mosses he saw those lovely daughters,
Who earnestly begged the sailors that they would deign to take them o’er the waters.
