[hider=The Knight of the Alder and the Elf][i]Spring is in the mild air
and sweetly breathes the breeze:
Kaheris rides her dappled mare
between the elm and alder trees.

The shadows dance between the boughs
and laughter fills the comely wood;
music lilts, no beast to rouse,
lest any one not call it good.

The maiden knight she rests a while
by the crossroad of Saint James,
and watches clouds pass single file
above the waters of the Thames.

Still she sits, as still as stone,
till not a hare would show its heels,
and out there comes, adrift, alone,
Jack'a'green playing his reels.

His beard is fine and pointed well
and gentle are his gleaming eyes;
his songs are ignorant of hell,
for fair he is, but not so wise.

His cloak is made of shaking leaves
and those quick boots are peeling bark;
he dances from the veiling trees
and makes merry as a meadow-lark.

Enrapt, the knight she watches him,
rude master of the wild glen,
and in his wrists and ankles slim
sees fit place to call her den.

Without a word she loosens mail,
lets armor fall from war-kissed skin;
her cloak it billows like a sail,
and now at last she's captured him.

She's caught him with a look, a glance,
a net she weaves with nimble feet;
she leaves without a thought her lance,
for only with force does it entreat.

They spend a year upon the hill,
tarrying as well they may,
and happy they'd be if there they still
sat and spoke and merry lay.

But the knight she has her duty true
and house to keep, and arms to bear,
so Jack'a'green she cunning woos
to make her home his summer lair.

For when the winds of winter howl
the Jack he must away to sleep,
and draw the heather as a cowl
about his head in troubled sleep.

And for a time they live and love
until ill fortune claims their bed,
and fire scores the roof above
and brings it down about their head.

But naught of this do either know,
while they laugh in summer's rain,
and feel the ancient earth below
and weave lily-leaf to be a train.

And of their daughter, half an elf,
bound seven years in skin of fawn,
the tale still unfolds itself
for time it marches ever on.

Of how she gained her fairy arms
we have no more the space to tell,
for the cock it cries varied alarms
and light in Eastern sky does swell.

Remember two, by love made one,
within the close embrace of trees;
upon the gentle slopes they run
and lose their fears by love's decrees.[/i][/hider]

[hider=The Panoply of Constance Half-Elven][list][*]The mail is delicate, shaped like fish’s scales, and ripples queerly as she moves. It is something like silver, but firm as stone under a blow.
[*]Her tabard and gloves are a rich, deep black, and her riding-cloak is the delicate hue of the lavender on the hills. The coat of arms emblazoned on her tabard consists of silver branches beneath a white stag’s head, on a royal blue field. These are not her mothers’ arms, and neither are they registered in the lists. Fine thread links pale stones worked into the tabard as constellations: the bear, the wheel, the dragon.
[*]Her sword is white as starlight and cold as ice, and in the dark it gleams as if the noonday sun shone on it alone. RIMENAIL reads the rotten, flaking scabbard.
[*]Her bow is scorched, blackened wood, warm to the touch as if it had laid long in sunlight. Gold rings clasp it round tightly. It creaks alarmingly when bent, and every arrow loosed from its string catches fire at once. (This miracle has thus far been used primarily to start campfires.)
[*]She has a purse of queer dried and smoked fruit. The contents change from day to day. Sometimes there are little black squares, marvelously bittersweet.
[*]Finally, she is haunted by the monster that guarded her arms. It is something like a wolf and something like a rose-bush. She has named it Briar. It allows her to throw her arms around its neck, gentle as a dove, but growls and shakes its thornéd mane at any else who dare approach it.[/list][/hider]