These
things were written in the Speckled Book of Salemina, but in
druidical ink, undecipherable to all eyes but those of the Scribe
herself.
So, wishing that none should possess the secret but themselves, the
Fair Strangers set the Gilla Dacker+ to watch the fruit (putting him
first under gesa to eat none of the berries himself, since he was
already too cheerful and too young to be of much service); and thus,
in their absence, the magical tree was never left alone.
+Could be freely translated as the Slothful Button Boy.
Nevertheless, when Finola the Festive went forth to the chase one
day, she found a quicken berry glowing like a ruby in the highroad,
and Sheela plucked a second from under a gnarled thorn on the Slope
of the Chariots, and Pearla discovered a third in the curiously-
compounded, swiftly-satisfying loaf of Toma. Then the Fair
Strangers became very angry, and sent out their trusty fleet-footed
couriers to scour the land for the invaders; for they knew that none
of the Dedannans would take the berries, being under gesa not to do
so. But the couriers returned, and though they were men able to
trace the trail of a fox through nine glens and nine rivers, they
could discover no proof of the presence of a foreign foe in the
mayden cantred of Devorgilla.
Then the hearts of the Fair Strangers were filled with grief and
gall, for they distrusted the couriers, and having consulted the
Ard-ri, they set forth themselves to find and conquer the invader;
for the king told them that there was one other quicken-tree, more
beautiful and more magical than that growing by the Fairy Palace,
and that it was set in another part of the bright-blooming, sweet-
scented old garden,--namely, in the heart of the labyrinthine maze
of the Wise Woman of Wales; but as no one of them, neither the Gilla
Dacker nor those who pursued him, had ever, even with the aid of the
Magic Thread-Clue, reached the heart of the maze, there was no
knowledge among them of the second quicken-tree.
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