She spake, and again I seemed to have heard her voice before: 'Hail, Queen,' she said, 'it does my heart good to see thee thus in thy glorious estate.' So I took her greeting; but those tales of my being but a sending of the Devil for the ruin of that land came into my mind, and I sent away the folk who were thereby before I said more to her.

Then she spake again: 'Even so I guessed it would be that thou wouldst grow great amongst women.' "But I said, 'What is this?
and when have I known thee before-time ?' She smiled and said naught; and my mind went back to those old days, and I trembled, and the flesh crept upon my bones, lest this should be the coming back in a new shape of my mistress whom I had slain.

But the woman laughed, and said, as if she knew my thoughts: 'Nay, it is not so: the dead are dead; fear not: but hast thou forgotten the Dale of Lore ?' "'Nay,' said I, 'never; and art thou then the carline that learned me lore?
But if the dead come not back, how do the old grow young again?
for 'tis a score of years since we two sat in the Dale, and I longed for many things.' "Said the woman: 'The dead may not drink of the Well at the World's End; yet the living may, even if they be old; and that blessed water giveth them new might and changeth their blood, and they are as young folk for a long while again after they have drunken.' 'And hast thou drunken ?' said I.
"'Yea,' she said; 'but I am minded for another draught.' I said: 'And wherefore hast thou come to me, and what shall I give to thee ?' She said, 'I will take no gift of thee as now, for I need it not, though hereafter I may ask a gift of thee.

But I am to ask this of thee, if thou wilt be my fellow-farer on the road thither ?' 'Yea ?' said I, 'and leave my love and my lord, and my kingship which he hath given me?
for this I will tell thee, that all that here is done, is done by me.' "'Great is thy Kingship, Lady,' said the woman, and smiled withal.
Then she sat silent a little, and said: 'When six months are worn, it will be springtide; I will come to thee in the spring days, and know what thy mind is then.

But now I must depart.' Quoth I: 'Glad shall I be to talk with thee again; for though thou hast learned me much of wisdom, yet much more I need; yea, as much as the folk here deem I have already.' 'Thou shalt have no less,' said the woman.