and in my opinion you have not been treated at all well; but if you desire it, I may perhaps be of some assistance to you. What I propose is that you should mount upon my back, and I will then carry you through the air to the kingdom of the gods, where you can represent your case to the King of the Fairies in person, and where you will, at any rate, have the opportunity of persuading your wife to accompany you back to earth."
The young Man gladly assented to this proposition, and mounted on the Gryphon's back; and the great bird, spreading his wings, soared upwards straight into the blue sky, carrying the youth with him. Up and up they flew, whilst the earth seemed to recede into the distance and to grow smaller and smaller, until at length it disappeared from view altogether. Still they flew on until, towards nightfall, they arrived at the country of the gods. The Gryphon, with the young Man upon his back, flew straight in through the great golden gates, and deposited the youth in the centre of a vast courtyard round which were sitting numbers of gods, fairies and other denizens of the sky.
When the gods saw that a human being had been deposited in their midst they rose in great wrath, and began bitterly to reproach the Gryphon for what he had done.
"How is it," said they, "that you have dared, unordered, to bring into our presence an inhabitant of the human world? Do you not know that human beings are of a coarser essence than ourselves and are
