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Updated: June 27, 2025
A lovely child she was, rosy and strong, and as merry as the birds on the bough; and had she trouble, for whiles she came across some ugly mood of the witch-wife, she bore it all as lightly as they. Wore the years thus, till now she was grown tall and thin, and had seen twelve winters, and was far stronger and handier than at first sight she looked to be.
Then he bethought him that perhaps the art could not be learned without a master; and then came the other thought that no one could tell so well how to win a witch-wife as one who had himself been successful in that risky experiment.
And before the army of the landfolk was riding a huge witch-wife upon a wolf; the wolf had a man's carcase in his mouth, and the blood was dripping and dropping from his jaws; and when the wolf had eaten up that carcase, the witch-wife threw another into his jaws; and so, one after another; and the wolf cranched and swallowed them all.
There, on the hill-side far above them, a black shape climbed and leapt swiftly. They gave tongue like dogs set upon a wolf and sped up the hill. They gained the crest of the hill, and now they were at Goldfoss brink. Lo! the witch-wife had crossed the bed of the torrent, for little rain had fallen and the river was low. She stood on Sheep-saddle, the water running from her robes.
Ah, it had been better for thee had I slain thee! And therewith she whirled the sax over her head and cast it at Birdalone. But now had the boat turned its head toward the ness of Green Eyot and was swiftly departing, so that Birdalone but half heard the last words of the witch-wife, and the sax fell flashing into the water far astern.
Before it the steep bank of the lake broke down into a slowly-shelving beach, whose honey-coloured sand thrust up a tongue in amongst the grass of the mead. Went the witch-wife straight to the door of the said house as if she were at home, as was sooth indeed.
And so by her wiles she brought it about that they changed semblances, and now the witch-wife sits in Signy's place according to her rede, and goes to bed by the king that night, and he knows not that he has other than Signy beside him.
At its head were the captain-general and the Swiss, brandishing in his hand the magic rattan; close behind walked the meiga, the Gallegan witch-wife, by whom the treasure-seeker had been originally guided in the search; numerous masons brought up the rear, bearing implements to break up the ground.
The witch-wife sat a while, and then arose and went about the chamber, and came to a certain aumbry and opened it, and drew forth a little flasket of lead and a golden cup scored over with strange signs, and laid them on the board beside her chair, wherein she now sat down again, and spake once more, still in the same soft and wheedling voice: Yet, my servant, thy guilt would be required of me, if I let this pass as if to-day were the same as yesterday; yea, and of thee also would it be required; therefore it is a part of the pardon that thou be corrected: and the correction must be terrible to thee, that thou mayst remember never again to thrust thyself into the jaws of death.
She went straight to the strand aforesaid, seeing nought of the witch-wife by the way; and when she came there, was about to turn straightway to her left hand down to the creek, when it came into her mind that she would first swim over to Green Eyot for this last of times. For the eyot indeed she loved, and deemed it her own, since never had her evil dream, the witch, set foot thereon.
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