arold as did that
dancing night when he waited for the seal-folk to come where the
some-time Pagan princess lay wrapped in the fair velvet skin. But
while he watched and waited, Membril, the fairy queen, came and brought
others of her kind with her, and they made a circle about Harold, and
threw around him such a charm that no evil could befall him from the
ghosts and ghouls that in their shrouds walked among those bloody
stones and wailed wofully and waved their white arms. For Membril,
coming to Harold in the similitude of a glow-worm, made herself known
to him, and she said and she sung:

Loving heart, be calm a space
In this gloomy vigil place;
Though these confines haunted be
Naught of harm can come to thee--
Nothing canst thou see or hear
Of the ghosts that stalk anear,
For around thee Membril flings
Charms of Fay and fairy rings.

Nothing daunted was Harold by thoughts of evil monsters, and naught
recked he of the uncanny dangers of that haunted place; but he
addressed these words to Membril and her host, and he said and he sung:

Tell me if thy piercing eyes
See the inner haven shore.
There my Own Beloved lies,
With the cowslips bending o'er:
Speed, O gentle folk of Fay!
And in guise of cowslips say
I shall love my love for aye!

Even so did Membril and the rest; and presently they returned, and they
brought these words unto Harold, saying and singing them:--

We as cowslips in that place
Clustered round thy dear one's face,
And we whispered to her there
Those same words we went to bear;
And she smiled and bade us then
Bear these words to thee again:
"Die we shall, and part we may,--
Love is love and lives for aye!"

Then of a sudden there was a tumult upon the waters, as if the waters
were troubled, and there came up out of the waters a host of seals that
made their way to the shore and cast aside their skins and came forth
in the forms of men and of women, for they were the drowned folk that
were come, as was their wont, to dance in the moonlight upon the fair
green holm. At that moment the waters stretched out their white
fingers and struck the kale and the pebbles and the soft moss upon the
beach, for they sought to make music for the seal-folk to dance
thereby; but the music that was made was not merry nor gleeful, but was
passing gruesome and mournful. And presently the seal-folk came where
lay the wife of Harold wrapped in the fa