“So I awoke and ate my meat and drank of the goats’ milk with a heavy heart, and then went into the house; and when I came into the chamber the woman looked at me, and contrary to her wont spoke to me, and I shook with terror at her voice; though she said naught but this:  ‘Go fetch thy white goat and come back to me therewith.’  I did so, and followed after her, sick with fear; and she led me through the wood into a lawn which I knew well, round which was a wall, as it were, of great yew trees, and amidst, a table of stone, made of four uprights and a great stone plank on the top of them; and this was the only thing in all the wood wherein I was used to wander which was of man’s handiwork, save and except our house, and the sheds and fences about it.

“The woman stayed and leaned against this stonework and said to me:  ‘Go about now and gather dry sticks for a fire.’  I durst do naught else, and said to myself that I should be whipped if I were tardy, though, forsooth, I thought she was going to kill me; and I brought her a bundle, and she said, ‘Fetch more.’  And when I had brought her seven bundles, she said:  ’It is enough:  stand over against me and hearken.’  So I stood there quaking; for my fear, which had somewhat abated while I went to and fro after the wood, now came back upon me tenfold.

“She said:  ’It were thy due that I should slay thee here and now, as thou slayest the partridges which thou takest in thy springes:  but for certain causes I will not slay thee.  Again, it were no more than thy earnings were I to torment thee till thou shouldst cry out for death to deliver thee from the anguish; and if thou wert a woman grown, even so would I deal with thee.  But thou art yet but a child, therefore I will keep thee to see what shall befall betwixt us.  Yet must I do somewhat to grieve thee, and moreover something must be slain and offered up here on this altar, lest all come to naught, both thou and I, and that which we have to do.  Hold thy white goat now, which thou lovest more than aught else, that I may redden thee and me and this altar with the blood thereof.’

“I durst do naught but obey her, and I held the poor beast, that licked my hands and bleated for love of me:  and now since my terror and the fear of death was lessened at her words, I wept sore for my dear friend.

“But the woman drew a strong sharp knife from her girdle and cut the beast’s throat, and dipped her fingers in the blood and reddened both herself and me on the breast, and the hands, and the feet; and then she turned to the altar and smote blood upon the uprights, and the face of the stone plank.  Then she bade me help her, and we laid the seven faggots on the alter, and laid the carcase of the goat upon them:  and she made fire, but I saw not how, and set it to the wood, and when it began to blaze she stood before it with her arms outspread, and sang loud and hoarse to a strange tune; and though I knew not the words of her song, it filled me with dread, so that I cast myself down on the ground and hid my face in the grass.