and wine and ale, and every drink that ever a man saw. The musicians were at the two ends of the hall, and they playing the sweetest music that ever a man’s ear heard, and there were young women and fine youths in the middle of the hall, dancing and turning, and going round so quickly and lightly that it made Guleesh giddy to be looking at them. There were more there playing tricks, and more making fun and laughing, for such a feast as there was that day had not been in France for twenty years, because the old king had no children alive but only the one daughter, and she was to be married to the son of another king that night. Three days the feast was going on, and the third night she was to be married, and that was the night that Guleesh and the fairies came, hoping, if they could, to carry off with them the king’s young daughter.
Guleesh and his companions were standing together at the head of the hall, where there was a fine altar dressed up, and two bishops behind it waiting to marry the girl as soon as the right time should come. Nobody could see the fairies, for they said a word as they came in that made them all invisible, as if they had not been there at all.
“Tell me which of them is the king’s daughter,” said Guleesh, when he was becoming a little used to the noise and the light.
“Don’t you see her there from you?” said the little man that he was talking to. Guleesh looked where the little man was pointing with his finger, and there he saw the loveliest woman that was, he thought, upon the ridge of the world. The rose and the lily were fighting together in her face, and one could not tell which of them got the victory. Her arms and hands were like lime-blossom, her mouth as red as a strawberry when it is ripe, her foot was as small and as light as another one’s hand, her form was smooth and slender, and her hair
