said he, "yours is the half of my poor kingdom and yours the
inheritance, if you will abide with us and sing us more of these
songs."

"For that service," answered the Stranger, "I am come; but not for the
reward. Give me only a hide of land somewhere upon your cliffs, and
there will I build a house and sing to all who have need of me."

So he did; and the fable goes on to say that never were known in the
remnant of Lyonesse such seasons as followed, nor ever will be. The
fish crowded to the nets, the cliffs waved with harvest. Heavy were
the nets to haul and laborious was the reaping, but the people forgot
their aches when the hour came to sit at the Stranger's feet and
listen, and drink the wine which he taught them to plant. For his part
he toiled not at all, but descended at daybreak and nightfall to bathe
in the sea, and returned with the brine on his curls and his youth
renewed upon him. He never slept; and they, too, felt little need of
sleep, but drank and sang the night away, refreshed by the sacred
dews, watching for the moon to rise over the rounded cornfields, or
for her feet to touch the sea and shed silver about the boats in the
offing. Out yonder Gwennolar sang and took her toll of life as before;
but the people heeded less, and soon forgot even when their dearest
perished. Other things than sorrow they began to unlearn. They had
been a shamefaced race; the men shy and the women chaste. But the
Stranger knew nothing of shame; nor was it possible to think harm
where he, their leader, so plainly saw none. Naked he led them from
the drinking-bout down the west stairway to the bathing-pool, and
naked they plunged in and splashed around him and laughed as the cool
shock scattered the night's languor and the wine-fumes. What mattered
anything?--what they did, or what they suffered, or what news the
home-coming boats might bring? They were blithe for the moment and
lusty for the day's work, and with night again would come drink and
song of the amorous gods; or if by chance the Singer should choose
another note and tell of Procris or of Philomela, they could weep
softly for others' woes and, so weeping, quite forget their own.

And the fable goes on to say that for three years by these means the
Stranger healed the griefs of the people of Lyonnesse, until one
night when they sat around he told them the story of Ion; and if
the Stranger were indeed Phoebus Apollo himself, shameless was the
telling. But while t