within the holy grove of the God.
Maron was grateful, and gave Ulysses twelve talents, or little wedges,
of gold, and a great bowl of silver, and twelve large clay jars, as big
as barrels, full of the best and strongest wine. It was so strong that
men put into the mixing bowl but one measure of wine to twenty measures
of water. These presents Ulysses stored up in his ship, and lucky for
him it was that he was kind to Maron.

Meanwhile his men, instead of leaving the town with their plunder, sat
eating and drinking till dawn. By that time the people of the town had
warned their neighbours in the country farms, who all came down in full
armour, and attacked the men of Ulysses. In this fight he lost
seventy-two men, six from each of his twelve ships, and it was only by
hard fighting that the others were able to get on board their ships and
sail away.

A great storm arose and beat upon the ships, and it seems that Ulysses
and his men were driven into Fairyland, where they remained for ten
years. We have heard that King Arthur and Thomas the Rhymer were carried
into Fairyland, but what adventures they met with there we do not know.
About Ulysses we have the stories which are now to be told. For ten days
his ships ran due south, and, on the tenth, they reached the land of the
Lotus Eaters, who eat food of flowers. They went on shore and drew
water, and three men were sent to try to find the people of that
country, who were a quiet, friendly people, and gave the fruit of the
lotus to the strange sailors. Now whoever tastes of that fruit has no
mind ever to go home, but to sit between the setting sun and the rising
moon, dreaming happy dreams, and forgetting the world. The three men ate
the lotus, and sat down to dream, but Ulysses went after them, and drove
them to the ships, and bound their hands and feet, and threw them on
board, and sailed away. Then he with his ships reached the coast of the
land of the Cyclopes, which means the round-eyed men, men with only one
eye apiece, set in the middle of their foreheads. They lived not in
houses, but in caves among the hills, and they had no king and no laws,
and did not plough or sow, but wheat and vines grew wild, and they kept
great flocks of sheep.

There was a beautiful wild desert island lying across the opening of a
bay; the isle was full of wild goats, and made a bar against the waves,
so that ships could lie behind it safely, run up on the beach, for there
was no tide in