Hood

At this the lady smiled, and, oh, her smile was even more radiant than the sunlight on the shining cliffs. 'The day you deliver Albion, I will give you my name-and more than that, if you only ask.'

'Then rest assured,' replied Bran, 'that on that very day, I will return to ask for your hand and more-I will ask for your heart also.' The lady bent her shapely neck in assent and then told him what he had to do to release Albion from the evil spell and break the geas that bound her.

Bran the Blessed listened well to all she said; then, bidding her farewell, he started off. He came to a river that the lady had told him to expect, then followed it to the centre of the isle. For three days and nights he walked, stopping only now and then to drink from the pure waters of the river, for his heart burned within him at the thought of marrying the most beautiful woman in the world.

As the sun rose on the fourth day, he came to a great dark wood-the forest from which all other forests in the world had their beginning. He entered the forest, and just as the lady had told him, after walking three more days, he came to a glade where two roads crossed. He strode to the centre of the crossroads and sat down to wait. After a time, he heard the sound of someone approaching and looked up to see an old man with a white beard hobbling toward him. The man was bent low to the ground beneath heavy bundles of sticks he was carrying, so low that his beard swept the ground before him.

Seeing this man whom the lady had told him to expect, Bran jumped up and hailed him. 'You there! You see before you a man of purpose who would speak to you.'

'And you see before you a man who was once a king in his own country,' the man replied. 'A little respect would become you.'

'My lord, forgive me,' replied Bran. 'May I come near and speak to you?'

'You may approach-not that I could prevent you,' answered the old man. Nevertheless, he motioned Bran to come near. 'What is your name?' asked the old man.

'I am Bran Bendigedig,' he answered. 'I have come to seek the release of Albion from the plague that assails it.'

'Too bad for you,' said the bent-backed man, straining beneath his load of sticks. 'Many good men have tried to break the spell; as many as have tried, that many have failed.'

'It may be as you say,' offered Bran, 'but I doubt there are two men like me in all the world. If there is another, I have never heard of him.' He explained how he had met the noble lady on the strand and had pledged himself to win her hand.

'I ween that you are a bold man, perhaps even a lucky one,' said the aged noble. 'But though you were an army of likeminded, hardy men, you would still fail. The enchantment that besets Albion cannot be broken except by one thing, and one thing alone.'

'What is that thing?' asked Bran. 'Tell me, and then stand back and watch what I will do.'

'It is not for me to say,' replied the former lord.

Pointing to the road that led deeper into the forest, the old man said, 'Go down that road until you come to a great forest, and continue on until you come to a glade in the centre of the wood. You will know it by a mound that is in the centre of the glade. In the centre of the mound is a standing stone, and at the foot of the standing stone, you will find a fountain. Beside the fountain is a slab of white marble, and on the slab you will find a silver bowl attached by a chain so that it may not be stolen away. Dip a bowl of water from the fountain and dash it upon the marble slab. Then stand aside and wait. Be patient, and it will be revealed to you what to do.'

Bran thanked the man and journeyed on along the forest road. In a little while, he began seeing signs of devastation of which the noble lady had warned him: houses burned; fields trampled flat; hills gouged out; streams diverted from their natural courses; whole trees uprooted, overturned, and thrust back into the hole with roots above and branches below. The mutilated bodies of dead animals lay everywhere on the ground, their limbs rent, their bodies torn asunder. Away to the east, a great fire burned a swathe through the high wooded hills, blotting out the sun and turning the sky black with smoke.

Bran looked upon this appalling destruction. Who could do such a thing? he wondered, and his heart moved within him with anger and sorrow for the ruined land.

He moved on, walking through desolation so bleak it made tears well up in his eyes to think what had been so cruelly destroyed. After two days, he came to the glade in the centre of the forest. There, as the old man had said, he saw an enormous mound, and from the centre of this mound rose a tall, slender standing stone. Bran ascended the mound and stood before the narrow stone; there at his feet he saw a clear-running fountain and, beside it, the marble slab with the silver bowl attached by a thick chain. Kneeling down, he dipped the silver bowl into the fountain, filled it, and then dashed the water over the pale stone.

Instantly, there came a peal of thunder loud enough to shake the ground, the wind blew with uncommon fury, and hail fell from the sky. So fiercely did it fall that Bran feared it would beat through his skin and flesh to crack his very bones. Clinging to the standing stone, he pressed himself hard against it for shelter, covered his head with his arms, and bore the assault as best he could.

In a short while the hail and wind abated, and the thunder echoed away. He heard then a grinding noise-like that of a millstone as it crushes the hard seeds of grain. He looked and saw a crevice open in the ground and a yellow vapour issuing from the gap like a foul breath. In the midst of the yellow fumes there appeared a woman- so old and withered that she looked as if she might be made of sticks wrapped in a dried leather sack.

Her hair-what little remained-was a tangled, ratty mass of leaves and twigs, moss and feathers, and bird droppings; her mouth was a slack gash in the lower part of her face, through which Bran could see but a single rotten tooth; her clothing was a filthy rag so threadbare it resembled cobwebs, and so small her withered dugs showed above one end and her spindly thighs below the other. Her face was more skull than visage, her eyes sunken deep in their sockets, where they gleamed like two shiny stones.

Bran took but a single brief look before turning away, swallowing his disgust as she advanced toward him.

'You there!' she called, her voice cracking like a dry husk. 'Do you know what you have done? Do you have any idea?'

Half-shielding his eyes with his hand, Bran offered a sickly smile and answered, 'I have done that which was required of me, nothing more.'

'Oh, have you now?' queried the hag. 'By heaven's lights, you will soon wish you had not done that.'

'Woman,' said Bran, 'I am wishing that already!'

'Tell me your name and what it is that you want,' said the woman, 'and I will see if there is any help for you.'

'I am Bran Bendigedig, and I have come to break the vile enchantment that ravages Albion.'

'I did not ask why you have come,' the old crone laughed. 'I asked what it is that you want.'

'I was born with an unquiet heart that has never been satisfied-not that it is any of your affair,' Bran told her.

'Silence!' screeched the woman in a voice so loud that Bran clapped his hands over his ears lest he lose his hearing. 'Respect is a valuable treasure that costs nothing. If you would keep your tongue, see that it learns some courtesy.'

'Forgive me,' Bran spluttered. 'It was not my wish to offend you. If I spoke harshly just then, it was merely from impatience. You see, I have met a noble lady who is all my heart's desire, and I have set myself to win her if I can. To do that, I have vowed to rid Albion of the plague that even now wreaks such havoc on this fairest of islands.'

The wretched hag put her face close to Bran's-so close that Bran could smell the stink she gave off and had to pinch his nostrils shut. She squinted her eyes with the intensity of her scrutiny. 'Is that what you are about?' she asked at last.

'I am,' replied Bran. 'If you can help me, I will be in your debt. If not, only tell me someone who can, and I will trouble you no more.'

'You ask my help,' said the ancient woman, 'and though you may not know it, you could not have asked a better creature under heaven, for help you shall receive-though it comes at a cost.'

'It is ever the way of things,' sighed Bran. 'What is the price?'

'I will tell you how to break the wicked enchantment that binds Albion-and I hope you succeed, for unless you do, Albion is lost and will soon be a wasteland.'

'And the price?' asked Bran, feeling the restlessness beginning to mount like a sneeze inside him.