"Had a stain been found on the earthly fair," whose blandishments so bewildered the little Ouphe, his punishment would have been severe indeed. In such case he would have been (as we learn from the Fairy judge's exposition of the criminal code,)

Tied to the hornet's shardy wings;

Tossed on the pricks of nettles' stings;

Or seven long ages doomed to dwell

With the lazy worm in the walnut shell;

Or every night to writhe and bleed

Beneath the tread of the centipede,

Or bound in a cobweb dungeon dim

His jailer a spider huge and grim,

Amid the carrion bodies to lie

Of the worm and the bug and the murdered fly Fortunately, however, for the Culprit, his mistress is proved to be of "sinless mind" and under such redeeming circumstances the sentence is, mildly, as follows Thou shalt seek the beach of sand

Where the water bounds the elfin land,

Thou shalt watch the oozy brine

Till the sturgeon leaps in the bright moonshine,

Then dart the glistening arch below,

And catch a drop from his silver bow.

If the spray-bead be won

The stain of thy wing is washed away,

But another errand must be done

Ere thy crime be lost for aye;

Thy flame-wood lamp is quenched and dark,

Thou must re-illume its spark.

Mount thy steed and spur him high

To the heaven's blue canopy,

And when thou seest a shooting star

Follow it fast and follow it far

The last faint spark of its burning train

Shall light the elfin lamp again.

Upon this sin, and upon this sentence, depends the web of the narrative, which is now occupied with the elfin difficulties overcome by the Ouphe in washing away the stain of his wing, and re-illuming his flame-wood lamp.