owl and the deer for his
livelihood; and folk from that house and otherwhence came to see him, and
brought him bread and wine and spicery and other matters which he needed.
And the days wore, and men got used to him, and loved him as if he had
been a rare image which had been brought to that land for its adornment;
and now they no longer called him the Spearman, but the Wood-lover. And
as for him, he took all in patience, abiding what the lapse of days
should bring forth.

CHAPTER XIX: HALLBLITHE BUILDS HIM A SKIFF

After Hallblithe had been housed a little while, and the time was again
drawing nigh to the twelfth moon since he had come to the Glittering
Plain, he went in the wood one day; and, pondering many things without
fixing on any one, he stood before a very great oak-tree and looked at
the tall straight bole thereof, and there came into his head the words of
an old song which was written round a scroll of the carving over the shut-
bed, wherein he was wont to lie when he was at home in the House of the
Raven: and thus it said:

I am the oak-tree, and forsooth
Men deal by me with little ruth;
My boughs they shred, my life they slay,
And speed me o'er the watery way.

He looked up into that leafy world for a little and then turned back
toward his house; but all day long, whether he were at work or at rest,
that posy ran in his head, and he kept on saying it over, aloud or not
aloud, till the day was done and he went to sleep.

Then in his sleep he dreamed that an exceeding fair woman stood by his
bedside, and at first she seemed to him to be an image of the Hostage.
But presently her face changed, and her body and her raiment; and, lo! it
was the lovely woman, the King's daughter whom he had seen wasting her
heart for the love of him. Then even in his dream shame thereof overtook
him, and because of that shame he awoke, and lay awake a little,
hearkening the wind going through the woodland boughs, and the singing of
the owl who had her dwelling in the hollow oak nigh to his house. Slumber
overcame him in a little while, and again the image of the King's
daughter came to him in his dream, and again when he looked upon her,
shame and pity rose so hotly in his heart that he awoke weeping, and lay
a while hearkening to the noises of the night. The third time he slept
and dreamed; and once more that image came to him. And now he looked,
and saw that she had in her hand a book covered outs