here, and where there is a Princess so lovely and so stately that the greatest Queen of all your world is not fit to be her tiring maid.”  Then they said, “Where is that country of which you speak, and who is this wonderful Princess?” “It is the land beyond the sunset,” he answered, “but the name of the Princess no man knows until she herself tells it him.  And she will tell it only to the man whom she loves.”

At that they laughed and made mirth among themselves.  “Your land is the land of dreams,” they said; “we have heard all about it.  Nothing there is real, and as for your Princess she is a mere shadow, a vision of your own creation, and no substantial being at all.  The only real and true beauty is the beauty we see and touch and hear; the beauty which sense reveals to us, and which is present with us today.”  Then he answered, “I do not blame you at all, for you have never seen my Princess.  But I have seen her, and heard her speak, and some day I hope to return to her.  And when I came away she warned me that in this country I should be beset by all manner of strange and monstrous spectres, harpies, and sirens, eaters of men, whom I must bravely meet and overcome.  I pray you tell me in what part of your land these dangers lie, that I may be on my guard against them.”

Thereat they laughed the more, and answered him, “Oh, foolish traveler, your head is certainly full of dreams!  There are no such things as sirens; all that is an old Greek fable, a fairy tale with no meaning except for old Greeks and modern babies!  You will never meet with any sirens or harpies, nor will you ever see again the Princess of whom you talk, unless, indeed, in your dreams.  It is this country that is the only real one, there is nothing at all beyond the sunset.”

Now, all this time the little bird which the Princess had given to him was singing quite loudly under the folds of the traveler’s cloak.  And he took it out and showed it to the youths who spoke with him, and said, “This bird was given me by the Princess whom you declare to be a myth.  How could a myth give me this living bird?” They answered, “You are surely a madman as well as a dreamer.  Doubtless the bird flew into your chamber while you slept, and your dreaming fancy took advantage of the incident to frame this tale about the Princess and her gift.  It is often so in dreams.  The consciousness perceives things as it were through a cloud, and weaves fictions out of realities.”

Then he began to doubt, but still he held his ground, and said, “Yet hear how sweetly it sings!  No wild, untaught bird of earth could sing like that.”  Whereat they were vastly merry, and one cried, Why, it is quite a common ‘tweet-tweet!’ It is no more than the chirp of a vulgar, everyday thrush or linnet!” And another, “Were I you, I would wring the bird’s neck; it must be a terrible nuisance if it always makes such a