“Foul beast! henceforth thy power is stayed, Thy former vassals shall be free; Thine art no more shall be displayed, But Windsor Forest boarless be! Yet must thou not this forest leave, Or quit the place, alive or dead, Whence thou hast caused the land to grieve, And tears in oceans to be shed. In altered form remaining here, Receive, vile tyrant, this thy ban: Be filled henceforth with timid fear, And tremble at the sight of man. Henceforth on roots and insects feed; And yet, when nobler creatures die, Be thou suspected of the deed, A hated sight to keeper’s eye!” She spoke; and as the words fell from her inspired lips, a wondrous and melancholy change came over the unhappy animal to whom they were addressed. His tusks fell off, his head diminished, his body grew smaller even while she was speaking, and, as she ceased, the once great Boar stood there in the presence of his enemies, neither more nor less than an unusually large hedgehog. Shouts of mingled joy and astonishment broke from the surrounding peasants as they perceived this highly satisfactory transformation taking place upon their dreaded foe. There he stood, trembling and shivering before them, furtively casting his eyes right and left as if in search of some hiding-place to which he {044}might betake himself at once. Then, after a moment or two, he curled himself up after the general manner of hedgehogs into a round, impenetrable ball, a proceeding which evoked shouts of laughter from those who had lately trembled at his very glance, but who now felt the most supreme contempt for their vanquished enemy. As they stood and gazed upon him, the transformed animal presently unrolled himself again, and scuttled away as fast as he could among the dry leaves, making, with a new but natural instinct, for a place of concealment beneath the roots of the enormous trees which grew around the spot. And in fact, so far as this history concerns the Great Boar of Windsor, Brother Rhine, I might as well bring it to a close at once, for little more was ever heard of him. The blow struck at Boardom throughout the kingdom by the destruction of his power was very great, and the race gradually died away and became extinct. Not so by any means the hedgehogs, who from that time forth mightily increased all over England, and who down to the present day love to make it their boast that they are lineally descended from the Great Boar of Windsor. So proud of ancient ancestry are even the brute beasts of creation, aping that arrant fool, man, in this as well as sundry other follies.