I will go and find the holy Mael and I will say to him: 'I am the virgin destined by Heaven to overthrow the dragon.'" At these words Kraken exclaimed: "How can you be that pure virgin?
And why do you want to overthrow me, Orberosia?
Have you lost your reason?
Be sure that I will not allow myself to be conquered by you!" "Can you not try and understand me before you get angry ?" sighed the fair Orberosia with deep though gentle contempt.
And she explained the cunning designs that she had formed.
As he listened, the hero remained pensive.

And when she ceased speaking: "Orberosia, your cunning, is deep," said he, "And if your plans are carried out according to your intentions I shall derive great advantages from them.

But how can you be the virgin destined by heaven ?" "Don't bother about that," she replied, "and come to bed." The next day in the grease-laden atmosphere of the cavern, Kraken plaited a deformed skeleton out of osier rods and covered it with bristling, scaly, and filthy skins.

To one extremity of the skeleton Orberosia sewed the fierce crest and the hideous mask that Kraken used to wear in his plundering expeditions, and to the other end she fastened the tail with twisted folds which the hero was wont to trail behind him.
And when the work was finished they showed little Elo and the other five children who waited on them how to get inside this machine, how to make it walk, how to blow horns and burn tow in it so as to send forth smoke and flames through the dragon's mouth.
XII.

THE DRAGON OF ALCA (Continuation) Orberosia, having clothed herself in a robe made of coarse stuff and girt herself with a thick cord, went to the monastery and asked to speak to the blessed Mael.