(Takes sword.)

Prince of Marshes:  (Catching his hand.) Go easy now, go easy.

Manus:  Take off your hand!  I say I will die with her!

Prince of Marshes:  That will not raise her up again.  But I, now, if I have no skill in killing beasts or men, have maybe the means of bringing her back to life.

Nurse:  Oh, my blessing on you!  What is it you have at all?

Prince of Marshes:  (Taking bag from his Aunt.) These three leaves from the Tree of Power that grows by the Well of Healing.  Here they are now for you, tied with a thread of the wool of the sheep of the Land of Promise.  There is power in them to bring one person only back to life.

First Aunt:  Give them back to me!  You have your own life to think of as well as any other one!

Second Aunt:  Do not spend and squander that cure on any person but yourself!

Prince of Marshes:  (Giving the leaves.) And if I have given her my love that it is likely I will give to no other woman for ever, indeed and indeed, I would not ask her or wish her to wed with a very frightened man, and that is what I was a while ago.  But you yourself have earned her, being brave.

Manus:  (Taking leaves.) I never will forget it to you.  You will be a brave man yet.

Prince of Marshes:  Give me in place of it your sword; for I am going my lone through the world for a twelvemonth and a day, till I will learn to fight with my own hand.

(Manus gives him sword.  He throws off cloak and outer coat and fastens it on.)

Nurse:  Stand back, now.  Let the whole of ye stand back. (She lays a leaf on the Princess’s mouth and one on each of her hands.) I call on you by the power of the Seven Belts of the Heavens, of the Twelve Winds of the World, of the Three Waters of the Sea!

(Princess stirs slightly.)

King:  That is a wonder of wonders!  She is stirring!

Manus:  Oh, my share of the world!  Are you come back to me?

Princess:  It was a hard fight he wrestled with. ...I thought I heard his voice....  Is he come from danger?

Nurse:  He did.  Here he is.  He that saved you and that killed the Dragon, and that let on to be a serving boy, and he no less than one of the world’s kings!

Manus:  Here I am, my dear, beside you, to be your comrade and your company for ever.

Princess:  You!...Yes, it is yourself.  Forgive me.  I am sorry that I spoke unkindly to you a while ago; I am ashamed that it failed me to know you to be a king.

(She stands up, helped by Nurse.)

Manus:  It was my own fault and my folly.  What way could you know it?  There is nothing to forgive.

Princess:  But ...if I did not recognise you as a king ...anyway ...the time you dropped the eggs ...I was nearly certain that you were no cook!