Chapter 7
CHAPTER VII OF ENGLISH FAIRY-TALES For more information, or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. English Fairy Tales by Ernest Riz THE FAIRY HORN Once upon a time a night was riding in the country beyond Gloucester,
and came to a forest abounding in boars, stags, and every kind of wild beast. Now in a grovy lawn of this forest there was a little mount, rising at a point to the height of a man, on which knights and other hunters were used to ascend when fatigued with heat and thirst, to seek some relief. The nature of the place, for it is a fairy place, is such that whoever ascends the mount
must leave his companions, and go quite alone. As a knight rode in the wood, and came nigh this fairy knoll, he met with a woodcutter, and questioned him about it. He must go tither alone, the woodcutter told him, and say, as if speaking to some other person, I thirst. Immediately there would appear a cup-bearer in a rich crimson dress, with a
shining face, bearing in his stretched-out hand a large horn, adorned with golden gems, such as was the custom among the most ancient English. The cup was full of nectar, of an unknown but most delicious flavor, and when it was drunk, all heat and weariness fled from those who drank of it, so that they became ready to toil anew, instead of being tired from having toiled. Moreover, when the nectar was drunk, the cupbearer offered a towel to the drinker to wipe his mouth
with, and then having done this, he waited neither for a silver penny for his services, nor for any question to be asked. The knight laughed to himself when he heard this. Who, thought he, would be fool enough having within his grasp such a drinking horn ever to let it go again from him. Later, that very same day, as he rode back hot and tired and thirsty from his hunting, he bethought him of the fairy knoll and the fairy horn. Sending away his
followers, he repaired thither and alone, and did as the woodcutter had told him. He ascended the little hill, and said in a bold voice, I thirst. Instantly there appeared, as the woodcutter had foretold, a cupbearer in a crimson dress, bearing in his hand a drinking horn. The horn was richly beset with precious gems, and the knight was filled with envy at the sight of it. No sooner had he seized upon it and tasted of its delicious nectar than he determined to make off
with the horn. So having gotten the horn, and drunk of it every drop, instead of returning it to the cupbearer, as in good manners he should have done, he stepped down from the knoll and rudely made off with it in his hand. But learn what fate overtook this knight. The good earl of Gloucester, standing on the fairy knoll, when he heard of the wicked knight had destroyed the kind custom of the horn, attacked the robber in his stronghold,
and forthright slew him, and carried off the horn. But alas, the earl did not return it to the fairy cupbearer, but gave it to his master and lord,
King Henry the Elder. Since then you may stand all day at the fairy knoll, and many times cry, I thirst,
but you may not taste of the fairy horn. End of chapter 7
