s, and caused a table to be brought,
with meat, and bread, and wine, and when Theseus had put away his
hunger, began to ask him who he was and whence he came. Theseus told him
that he had walked from Troezene, and was on his way to the court of
King Peleus (the father of Achilles), in the north, for he did not want
the news of his coming to go before him to Athens.

'You walked from Troezene?' said Cercyon. 'Did you meet or hear of the
man who killed the Maceman and slew the Pine-Bender, and kicked Sciron
into the sea?'

'I walk fast, but news flies faster,' said Theseus.

'The news came through my second-sighted man,' said Cercyon, 'there he
is, in the corner,' and Cercyon threw the leg bone of an ox at his
prophet, who just managed to leap out of the way. 'He seems to have
foreseen that the bone was coming at him,' said Cercyon, and all his
friends laughed loud. 'He told us this morning that a stranger was
coming, he who had killed the three watchers of the way. From your legs
and shoulders, and the iron club that you carry, methinks you are that
stranger?'

Theseus smiled, and nodded upwards, which the Greeks did when they meant
'Yes!'

'Praise be to all the gods!' said Cercyon. 'It is long since a good man
came my way. Do they practise wrestling at Troezene?'

'Now and then,' said Theseus.

'Then you will try a fall with me? There is a smooth space strewn with
sand in the courtyard.'

Theseus answered that he had come hoping that the king would graciously
honour him by trying a fall. Then all the wild guests shouted, and out
they all went and made a circle round the wrestling-place, while Theseus
and Cercyon threw down their clothes and were anointed with oil over
their bodies. To it they went, each straining forward and feeling for a
grip, till they were locked, and then they swayed this way and that,
their feet stamping the ground; and now one would yield a little, now
the other, while the rough guests shouted, encouraging each of them. At
last they rested and breathed, and now the men began to bet; seven oxen
to three was laid on Cercyon, and taken in several places. Back to the
wrestle they went, and Theseus found this by far the hardest of his
adventures, for Cercyon was heavier than he, and as strong, but not so
active. So Theseus for long did little but resist the awful strain of
the arms of Cercyon, till, at last, for a moment Cercyon weakened. Then
Theseus slipped his hip under the hip of Cercyon,