castle there lived a fair maiden named Janet.

One day her father sent for his daughter and said, 'Janet, ye may
leave the castle grounds, an ye please, but never may ye cross
the plain of Carterhaugh. For there ye may be found by young
Tamlane, and he it is who ofttimes casts a spell o'er bonny
maidens.'

Now Janet was a wilful daughter. She answered her father never a
word, but when she had left his presence she laughed aloud, she
tossed her head.

To her ladies she said, 'Go to Carterhaugh will I an I list, and
come from Carterhaugh will I an I please, and never will I ask
leave of any one.'

Then when the moonbeams peeped in at her lattice window, the lady
Janet tucked up her green skirt, so that she might run, and she
coiled her beautiful yellow hair as a crown above her brow. And
she was off and away to the lone plain of Carterhaugh.

The moonlight stole across the moor, and Janet laughed aloud in
her glee. She ran across to the well, and there, standing alone,
riderless, stood the steed of the little elfin knight.

Janet put out her hand to the rose-tree that grew by the well and
plucked a dark red rose. Sweet was its scent and Janet put out
her hand and plucked another rose, but ere she had pulled a
third, close beside her stood a little wee man. He reached no
higher than the knee of the lady Janet.

'Ye have come to Carterhaugh, Janet,' he cried, 'and yet ye have
not asked my leave. Ye have plucked my red roses and broken a
branch of my bonny rose-tree. Have ye no fear of me, Janet?'

The lady Janet tossed her head, though over her she felt creeping
slow the spell of the little elfin knight. She tossed her head
and she cried, 'Nay, I have no fear of you, ye little wee man.
Nor will I ever ask leave of you as I come to and fro across the
plain of Carterhaugh. Ye shall know that the moor belongs to me,
me!' and Janet stamped her foot. 'My father made it all my own.'

But the young Tamlane took the white hand of the lady Janet in
his own, and so gentle were his words, so kind his ways, that
soon the maiden had no wish to leave the little wee man. Hand in
hand they wandered through the red rose-bushes that grew by the
side of the well. And in the light of the moon the elf knight
wove his spell and made the lady Janet his own.

Back to the castle sped Janet when the moonlight failed, but all
her smiles were gone. Lone and sad was she, all with longing for
her little elfin knight.

Little food would J