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Upon a day Beltane stood at his forge fashioning an axe-head And, having tehtening his back, strode forth into the glade all ignorant of the eyes that watched hih the leaves And presently as he stood, his broad back set to the bole of a tree, his blue eyes lifted heavenwards bri sleepless upon his bed to do it

Tall and stately were the trees, towering aloft, nodding slulad faces to their sun-father and filling the air with their languorous perfuht was there so co bare-arolden hair crisp-curled and his lifted eyes a-drea the s, leaping in rainbow-hues over its pebbly bed; sweet piped the birds in brake and thicket, yet of all their ood to hear as the rich tones of Beltane the Sht the Duchess Helen of Mortain where she sat upon her white palfrey screened by the thick-budded foliage, seeing nought but this golden-locked singer whose voice thrilled strangely in her ears And who so good a judge as Helen the Beautiful, whose lovers were beyond count, knights and nobles and princelings, ever kneeling at her haughty feet, ever sighing forth vows of service and adoration, in whose honour htly act been wrought? Wherefore I say, who so good a judge as the Duchess Helen of Mortain? Thus Beltane the norant that any heard save the birds in the brake, sang of the glories of the forest-lands Sang how the flowers, feeling the first sweet pro within theone, the war winter was co passed away So, ti their beauties to their lord the sun and filling the world with the fragrance of their worship

Soazed upon hi

Could this be Beltane the Ser of dreahty wrestler of whom she had heard so many tales of late, how that he lived an anchorite, deep hidden in the green, hating the po women and all their ways?