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But she wished and she wished that the Hunter-King might come past while there was a light in the house and step within and talk to the Spae-Woman, so that she herself, while spinning the thread, could hear his voice and listen to the things he talked about. She often stood at the door and watched across the bog to see if anything was coming to her.
There were flickering torches and many people and loud cries around the church, as there had been four hundred years before, when the last sacrament had been said in the valley for the hunter-king doomed to perish above. His mother, being sleepless and anxious, had risen long before it was dawn, and had gone to the children's chamber, and had found the bed of Findelkind empty once more.
"Come with me to my kingdom," said he, "and you shall be my wife and the love of my heart." The next evening Sheen went with him. She took the six shirts she had spun and woven and stitched. The Hunter-King lifted her before him on a black horse and they rode into his Kingdom. And now Sheen was the wife of the Hunter-King. She would have been happy if her husband's sisters had been kind.
The forest ended on a cliff. Below was the sea. The figure before her dived down and Sheen dived too. The cold chilled her to the marrow. She thought the chill would drive the life out of her. But she saw the head of one swimming before her and she swam on. And then they were on land again. "Fair Maid," said the corpse of the Hunter-King, "put your hands on my shoulders again."
At first she was afraid to look at the bed. Then she went over and saw the Hunter-King with his face still, his eyes closed down, and the plate of salt on his breast. His gray gaunt hound was stretched across his feet. The woman and her daughters lighted candles and placed them in the window recesses and at the head of the corpse.
The next night she stitched the cloth and made the sixth shirt. The day after she went into the bog to gather the bog-down for the seventh shirt. She had gathered her basketful and was going through the wood about the hour of sunset. At the edge of the thin wood she saw the Hunter-King standing. He took her hands and his were warm hands.
"Her name was changed to Caintigern when her husband who was called the Hunter-King made himself King over Ireland and began to rule as King Connal." "Then who is my comrade who is called the King of Ireland's Son?" "He too is King Connal's son, born of a queen who died at his birth and who was wife to King Connal before he went on his wanderings and met Sheen your mother."
There were flickering torches and many people, and loud cries around the church, as there had been four hundred years before, when the last sacrament had been said in the valley for the hunter-king in peril above. His mother, being sleepless and anxious, had risen long before it was dawn, and had gone to the children's chamber, and had found the bed of Findelkind empty once more.
"I think the one who owns it is the stranger who is seen in the wild places hereabouts the man whom the neighbors call the Hunter-King," she said to Sheen. On another day Sheen went to gather bog-down. This time she crossed the river by the stepping-stones and went into a country where there were many cattle.
The Hunter-King was being waked in the neighbor-woman's house, and her eldest daughter had been the corpse-watcher the first night. In the morning they found that the girl's hand had been withered. The woman's second daughter was the corpse-watcher the second night and her right hand had been left trembling.
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