uld never take such things." Then they began to sing a song in the
Old Tongue--_The Song of Tyr_. I sang with them, but my Mother's brother
said, "This is _your_ song, oh, Buyer of the Knife. Let _us_ sing it,
Tyr."

'Even then I did not understand, till I saw that--that no man stepped on
my shadow; and I knew that they thought me to be a God, like the God
Tyr, who gave his right hand to conquer a Great Beast.'

'By the Fire in the Belly of the Flint, was that so?' Puck rapped out.

'By my Knife and the Naked Chalk, so it was! They made way for my shadow
as though it had been a Priestess walking to the Barrows of the Dead. I
was afraid. I said to myself, "My Mother and my Maiden will know I am
not Tyr." But _still_ I was afraid with the fear of a man who falls into
a steep flint-pit while he runs, and feels that it will be hard to climb
out.

'When we came to the Dew-ponds all our people were there. The men showed
their knives and told their tale. The sheepguards also had seen The
Beast flying from us. The Beast went west across the river in
packs--howling! He knew the Knife had come to the Naked Chalk at
last--at last! _He_ knew! So my work was done. I looked for my Maiden
among the Priestesses. She looked at me, but she did not smile. She made
the sign to me that our Priestesses must make when they sacrifice to the
Old Dead in the Barrows. I would have spoken, but my Mother's brother
made himself my Mouth, as though I had been one of the Old Dead in the
Barrows for whom our Priests speak to the people on Midsummer mornings.'

'I remember. Well I remember those Midsummer mornings!' said Puck.

'Then I went away angrily to my Mother's house. She would have knelt
before me. Then I was more angry, but she said, "Only a God would have
spoken to me thus, a Priestess. A man would have feared the punishment
of the Gods." I looked at her and I laughed. I could not stop my unhappy
laughing. They called me from the door by the name of Tyr himself. A
young man with whom I had watched my first flocks, and chipped my first
arrow, and fought my first Beast, called me by that name in the Old
Tongue. He asked my leave to take my Maiden. His eyes were lowered, his
hands were on his forehead. He was full of the fear of a God, but of
_me_, a man, he had no fear when he asked. I did not kill him. I said,
"Call the maiden." She came also without fear--this very one that had
waited for me, that had talked with me by our Dew-ponds. Bein