Up Urgan starts, that hideous dwarf, Before Lord Richard stands, And as he cross’d and bless’d himself, ‘I fear not sign,’ quoth the grisly elf, ‘That is made with bloody hands.’
But out then spoke she, Alice Brand, That woman void of fear,— ‘And if there’s blood upon his hand, ’Tis but the blood of deer.’
—‘Now loud thou liest, thou bold of mood! It cleaves unto his hand, The stain of thine own kindly blood, The blood of Ethert Brand.’
Then forward stepp’d she, Alice Brand, And made the holy sign,— ‘And if there’s blood on Richard’s hand, A spotless hand is mine.
‘And I conjure thee, Demon elf, By Him whom Demons fear, To show us whence thou art thyself, And what thine errand here?’
IV —‘’Tis merry, ’tis merry, in Fairy-land, When fairy birds are singing, When the court doth ride by their monarch’s side, With bit and bridle ringing:
’And gaily shines the Fairy-land— But all is glistening show, Like the idle gleam that December’s beam Can dart on ice and snow.
’And fading, like that varied gleam, Is our inconstant shape, Who now like knight and lady seem, And now like dwarf and ape.
’It was between the night and day, When the Fairy King has power, That I sunk down in a sinful fray, And ’twixt life and death, was snatch’d away To the joyless Elfin bower.