from the spells that have been laid on them; while
the stick will carry you wherever you want to go. I will give you the
knife to guard you against the enchantments of wizards, and the bell to
tell me of your perils. The stick I shall keep for myself, so that I can
fly to you if ever you have need of me.'

Then they cried for a little on each other's necks, and Houarn started
for the mountains.

But in those days, as in these, beggars abounded, and through every
village he passed they followed Houarn in crowds, mistaking him for a
gentleman, because there were no holes in his clothes.

'There is no fortune to be made _here_,' he thought to himself; 'it is a
place for spending, and not earning. I see I must go further,' and he
walked on to Pont-aven, a pretty little town built on the bank of a
river.

He was sitting on a bench outside an inn, when he heard two men who were
loading their mules talking about the Groac'h of the island of Lok.

'What is a Groac'h?' asked he. 'I have never come across one.' And the
men answered that it was the name given to the fairy that dwelt in the
lake, and that she was rich--oh! richer than all the kings in the world
put together. Many had gone to the island to try and get possession of
her treasures, but no one had ever come back.

As he listened Houarn's mind was made up.

'I will go, and return too,' he said to the muleteers. They stared at
him in astonishment, and besought him not to be so mad and to throw away
his life in such a foolish manner; but he only laughed, and answered
that if they could tell him of any other way in which to procure a cow
and a pig to fatten, he would think no more about it. But the men did
not know how this was to be done, and, shaking their heads over his
obstinacy, left him to his fate.

So Houarn went down to the sea, and found a boatman who engaged to take
him to the isle of Lok.

The island was large, and lying almost across it was a lake, with a
narrow opening to the sea. Houarn paid the boatman and sent him away,
and then proceeded to walk round the lake. At one end he perceived a
small skiff, painted blue and shaped like a swan, lying under a clump of
yellow broom. As far as he could see, the swan's head was tucked under
its wing, and Houarn, who had never beheld a boat of the sort, went
quickly towards it and stepped in, so as to examine it the better. But
no sooner was he on board than the swan woke suddenly up; his head
emerged from u