ent to see, and marvelled that he could catch such fleet
creatures as the wild red deer.

Once he overheard his mother say that she yearned for fresh venison,
but that the hunter who was attached to her house was lying wounded by
a wild boar. Always Perceval had wondered what the little dark man did
whom they called the hunter, who was always so secret, so that Perceval
could never see where he went or when he returned from the forest.

So he went to the hut where Tod the hunter lay sick, and charged him by
the love and worship he bore to the countess, that he should tell him
how he could obtain fresh venison. And the dwarf told him.

Then Perceval took a few sticks of stout wood, with points hardened by
fire, and went into the forest as Tod had told him, and seeing a deer
he hurled a stick at it and slew it. And then he brought it home.

The countess was greatly wroth that Tod had taught him how to slay, and
she said that never more should the dwarf serve her. And Tod wept, but
when he was well again the countess would not suffer him to stay, but
said he should leave the hall and never come there again.

She commanded Perceval never to slay any more living things, and the
lad promised. But hard was it to keep his word, when he was in the
forest and saw the wild things passing through the brakes.

Once, as he strayed deep in the wood, he came upon a wide glade or
laund, with two green hillocks in the middle thereof. And feeding upon
the grass was a great buck, and it had a silver ring round its neck.
Perceval wondered at this beast being thus adorned, and went up to it
to stroke it.

But the buck was fierce, and would have gored him with its horns, but
Perceval seized them, and after a great struggle he threw the animal,
and held it down, and in his wrath he would have slain it with a sharp
stick. With that a swarm of little angry trolls poured from the hollow
hillocks with great cries, and seizing Perceval would have hurt him.

But suddenly Tod ran among them, and commanded them to release him. And
in the end Tod, who came himself of the troll folk, made the little
people pass the words of peace and friendship with Perceval, and ever
after that the boy went with the trolls, and sported with them in
wrestling, running and other games; and he learned many things of great
wisdom from them concerning the secrets of the earth and air and the
wind, and the spirits that haunt waste places and standing stones, and
how