ing in the middle of a bog. "It may be
the Enchanter is in this house," said the King's Son. He jumped off the
Slight Red Steed, pushed the door of the house open, and there, seated
on a chair in the middle of the floor with a woman sitting beside him,
was the Enchanter of the Black Back-Lands. "So," said the Enchanter, "my
Slight Red Steed has brought you to me."

"So," said the King's Son, "I have found you, my crafty old Enchanter."

"And now that you have found me, what do you want of me?" said the
Enchanter.

"Your head," said the King's Son, drawing the tarnished Sword of Light.

"Will nothing less than my head content you?" said the Enchanter.

"Nothing less--unless it be what went before, and what comes after the
Unique Tale."

"The Unique Tale," said the Enchanter. "I will tell you what I know of
it." Thereupon he began

I was a Druid and the Son of a Druid, and I had learned the language of
the birds. And one morning, as I walked abroad, I heard a blackbird and
a robin talking, and when I heard what they said I smiled to myself.

"Now the woman I had just married noticed that I kept smiling, and she
questioned me. 'Why do you keep smiling to yourself?' I would not tell
her. 'Is that not the truth? '" said the Enchanter to a woman who sat
beside him. "It is the truth," said she.

"On the third day I was still smiling to myself, and my wife questioned
me, and when I did not answer threw dish-water into my face. 'May
blindness come upon you if you do not tell me why you are smiling,' said
she. Then I told her why I smiled to myself. I had heard what the birds
said. The blackbird said to the robin, 'Do you know that just under
where we are sitting are three rods of enchantment, and if one were to
take one of them and strike a man with it, he would be changed to any
creature one named?' That is what I had heard the birds say and I smiled
because I was the only creature who knew about the rods of enchantment.

"My wife made me show her where the rods were. She cut one of them when
I went away. That evening she came behind me and struck me with a rod.
'Go out now and roam as a wolf,' she said, and there and then I was
changed into a wolf. 'Is that not true?'" said he to the woman. "It is
true," she said.

"And being changed into a wolf, I went through the woods seeking wolf's
meat. And now you must ask my wife to tell you more of the story." The
King of Ireland's Son turned to the woman who sat on the s