“We know a secret which even the Great Folk who live on the mountain top can never learn; don’t we, sisters?” said one.

“Ha! ha!  That we do, that we do!” chattered the others.

“Give me the tooth, sister, that I may feel young and handsome again,” said the one nearest to Perseus.

“And give me the eye that I may look out and see what is going on in the busy world,” said the sister who sat next to her.

“Ah, yes, yes, yes, yes!” mumbled the third, as she took the tooth and the eye and reached them blindly towards the others.

Then, quick as thought, Perseus leaped forward and snatched both of the precious things from her hand.

“Where is the tooth?  Where is the eye?” screamed the two, reaching out their long arms and groping here and there.  “Have you dropped them, sister?  Have you lost them?”

Perseus laughed as he stood in the door of their cavern and saw their distress and terror.

“I have your tooth and your eye,” he said, “and you shall never touch them again until you tell me your secret.  Where are the Maidens who keep the golden apples of the Western Land?  Which way shall I go to find them?”

“You are young, and we are old,” said the Gray Sisters; “pray, do not deal so cruelly with us.  Pity us, and give us our eye.”

Then they wept and pleaded and coaxed and threatened.  But Perseus stood a little way off and taunted them; and they moaned and mumbled and shrieked, as they found that their words did not move him.

“Sisters, we must tell him,” at last said one.

“Ah, yes, we must tell him,” said the others.  “We must part with the secret to save our eye.”

And then they told him how he should go to reach the Western Land, and what road he should follow to find the Maidens who kept the golden apples.  When they had made everything plain to him Perseus gave them back their eye and their tooth.

“Ha! ha!” they laughed; “now the golden days of youth have come again!” And, from that day to this, no man has ever seen the three Gray Sisters, nor does any one know what became of them.  But the winds still whistle through their cheerless cave, and the cold waves murmur on the shore of the wintry sea, and the ice mountains topple and crash, and no sound of living creature is heard in all that desolate land.

IV.  THE WESTERN MAIDENS.

As for Perseus, he leaped again into the air, and the Magic Slippers bore him southward with the speed of the wind.  Very soon he left the frozen sea behind him and came to a sunny land, where there were green forests and flowery meadows and hills and valleys, and at last a pleasant garden where were all kinds of blossoms and fruits.  He knew that this was the famous Western Land, for the Gray Sisters had told him what he should see there.  So he alighted and walked among the trees until he came to the center of the garden.  There he saw the three Maidens of the West dancing around a tree which was full of golden apples, and singing as they danced.  For the wonderful tree with its precious fruit belonged to Juno, the queen of earth and sky; it had been given to her as a wedding gift, and it was the duty of the Maidens to care for it and see that no one touched the golden apples.