Now it fell out that one day King Sylvius went a-hunting in the merry greenwood with horn and hounds, and the little "Brute," hearing the winding of the horn and the music of the hounds, picked up the bow he himself had made, and with the arrows he himself also had winged, forth he went to the chase. Alas! it so fell out that the first arrow he shot pierced his father's heart.
On this account Brute had to fly the country.
"And away he fared to the Grecian land,
With a hey! with a ho! and a nonny O!
And there he gathered a stalwart band,
And the ships they sail on the blue sea O!"
Now the mother of Brute had been a Trojan, so all the refugees, after the destruction of Troy, gathered about the young prince, and formed a large body of men. Brute took to wife Ignogne, daughter of Pandrasos, King of the Greeks, and resolved to sail away in quest of a new country. So the king, his father-in-law, gave him ships and lading, and he started. A fair wind swelled his sails, and he sailed over the deep blue sea till he reached a certain island called Loegria, which was all solitary, for it had been wasted by pirates. But Brute went on shore, and found an old deserted and ruinous temple, and there he lit three fires, and he sacrificed a white hart, and poured the blood mingled with wine on the broken altar, and he sang:—
"Sweet goddess above, in the light of love,
That high through the blue doth sail,
O tell me who rove in the woodland grove,
O tell me, and do not fail,
Where I shall rest—and thine altar dressed,
Shall finish this wandering tale."
