e, a long way off, there dwelt three
dreadful sisters, monstrous ogrish women, with golden wings and claws
of brass, and with serpents growing on their heads instead of hair. Now
these women were so awful to look on that whoever saw them was turned
at once into stone. And two of them could not be put to death, but the
youngest, whose face was very beautiful, could be killed, and it was
_her_ head that the boy had promised to bring. You may imagine it was no
easy adventure.

When he heard all this he was perhaps sorry that he had sworn to bring
the Terrible Head, but he was determined to keep his oath. So he went
out from the feast, where they all sat drinking and making merry, and
he walked alone beside the sea in the dusk of the evening, at the place
where the great chest, with himself and his mother in it, had been cast
ashore.

There he went and sat down on a rock, looking toward the sea, and
wondering how he should begin to fulfill his vow. Then he felt some one
touch him on the shoulder; and he turned, and saw a young man like a
king's son, having with him a tall and beautiful lady, whose blue eyes
shone like stars. They were taller than mortal men, and the young man
had a staff in his hand with golden wings on it, and two golden serpents
twisted round it, and he had wings on his cap and on his shoes. He spoke
to the boy, and asked him why he was so unhappy; and the boy told him
how he had sworn to bring the Terrible Head, and knew not how to begin
to set about the adventure.

Then the beautiful lady also spoke, and said that "it was a foolish oath
and a hasty, but it might be kept if a brave man had sworn it." Then the
boy answered that he was not afraid, if only he knew the way.

Then the lady said that to kill the dreadful woman with the golden wings
and the brass claws, and to cut off her head, he needed three things:
first, a Cap of Darkness, which would make him invisible when he wore
it; next, a Sword of Sharpness, which would cleave iron at one blow; and
last, the Shoes of Swiftness, with which he might fly in the air.

The boy answered that he knew not where such things were to be procured,
and that, wanting them, he could only try and fail. Then the young man,
taking off his own shoes, said: "First, you shall use these shoes till
you have taken the Terrible Head, and then you must give them back to
me. And with these shoes you will fly as fleet as a bird, or a thought,
over the land or over the waves