Page:Stories from Old English Poetry-1899.djvu/57

Rh from any two, did he receive a like answer. Some told him that women best loved fine clothes; some that they loved rich living; some loved their children best; others desired most to be loved; and some loved best to be considered free from curiosity, which, since Eve, had been said to be a woman’s chief vice. But among all, no answers were alike, and at each the knight’s heart sank in despair, and he seemed as if he followed an ignis fatwus which each day led him farther and farther from the truth.

One day, as he rode through a pleasant wood, the knight alighted and sat himself down under a tree to rest, and bewail his unhappy lot. Sitting here, in a loud voice he accused his unfriendly stars that they had brought him into so sad a state. While he spoke thus, he looked up and beheld an old woman, wrapped in a heavy mantle, standing beside him.

Sir Ulric thought he had never seen so hideous a hag as she who now stood gazing at him, She was wrinkled and toothless, and bent with age. One eye was shut, and in the other was a leer so horrible that he feared her some uncanny creature of the wood, and crossed himself as he looked on her.

“Good knight,” said the old crone, before he could arise to leave her sight, “tell me, I pray thee, what hard thing ye seek. I am old,