"Oh, hear you this, my youngest brother, Why didn't you bide at home? Had you a hundred thousand lives, Ye couldn't spare ne'er a one! "But sit you down, my dearest dear, Oh! woe that ye were born, For, come the King of Elfland in, Your fortune is forlorn." So with tears and smiles she seated him beside her on the wondrous couch, and they told each other what they each had suffered and done. He told her how he had come to Elfland. She told him how she had been carried off, shadow and all, because she ran round a church widershins, and how her brothers had been enchanted, and lay intombed as if dead, as she had been. Because they had not had the courage to obey the Great Magician's lesson to the letter, and cut off her head. Now after a time Childe Rowland, who had travelled far and travelled fast, became very hungry, and forgetting all about the second lesson of the Magician Merlin, asked his sister for some food; and she, being still under the spell of Elfland, could not warn him of his danger. She could only look at him sadly as she rose up and brought him a golden basin full of bread and milk. Now in those days it was manners before taking food from anyone to say thank you with your eyes, and so just as Childe Rowland was about to put the golden bowl to his lips, he raised his eyes to his sister's. And in an instant he remembered what the Great Magician had said: "Bite no bit, sup no drop, for if in Elfland you sup one drop or bite one bit, never again will you see Middle Earth." So he dashed the bowl to the ground, and standing square and fair, lithe and young and strong, he cried like a challenge: "Not a sup will I swallow, not a bit will I bite, till fair Burd Helen is set free." Then immediately there was a loud noise like thunder, and a voice was heard saying: "Fee, fi, fo, fum, I smell the blood of a Christian Man. Be he alive or dead, my brand Shall dash his brains from his brain-pan." Then the folding-doors of the vast hall burst open and the King of Elfland entered like a storm of wind. What he was really like Childe Rowland had not time to see, for with a bold cry: "Strike, Bogle! thy hardest if thou darest!" he rushed to meet the foe, his good sword, that never yet did fail, in his hand. And Childe Rowland and the King of Elfland fought, and fought, and fought, while Burd Helen, with her hands clasped, watched them in fear and hope. So they fought, and fought, and fought, until at last Childe Rowland beat the King of Elfland to his knees. Whereupon he cried, "I yield me. Thou hast beaten me in fair fight." Then Childe Rowland said, "I grant thee mercy if thou wilt release my sister and my brothers from all spells and enchantments, and let us go back to Middle Earth."