THE SEA-MAIDEN WHO BECAME A SWAN
nearly gone altogether from my hair I thought of a desperate thing I might do.
I sent a message to my sisters, and I sent it by many birds, so that if they did not get it by one they might get it by another. And I asked in my message that they send me a draft from the Well under the Sea, and that they send it in the cup that the Seven Spinning Women guarded. It would be terrible for any of my sisters to come to Branduv's island with the draft and the cup, but I begged that they would do it for me.
The days went by and the green color was now only a shade in my hair, and brownness was on my cheeks, and the women said "Before this old moon is gone our King will come here to wed you."
Then one day I found on the shore the cup that my sisters had brought and the draft from the Secret Well was in it. I took the cup in my hands and I brought it where I lived. "Come to us," said the women, "so that we may undo your hair and tell the King when he may come to wed you." They loosened my hair and then they said "there
143
