But, every year, the heath came nearer. He had now covered all the hills and lay just outside the fence of the wood.

 

"Be off!" said the wood. "You annoy me. Take care you don't touch my fence!"

 

"I'm coming over your fence," said the heath. "I'm coming into you, to eat you up and destroy you."

 

Then the wood laughed till all her leaves quivered:

 

"So that's what you mean to do, is it?" she said. "If only you can manage it! I'm afraid that you will find me too big a mouthful. I daresay you think I'm a bit of a field or meadow, which one can walk over in a couple of strides. But I'm the most powerful and important person in the neighbourhood, you may as well know. I shall soon sing my song to you; then perhaps you will change your ways of thinking."

 

Then the wood began to sing. All the birds sang; and the flowers raised their heads and sang too. The smallest leaf hummed with the rest, the fox stopped in the middle of eating a fat chicken and beat time with his brush, the wind blew through the branches and played an organ accompaniment to the song of the wood:

 

"Merrier meeting was never yet

Than the festal wood discloses,

When wood-ruff nestles by violet

In a cluster of sweet wild roses.

 

"Small birds in the brake fly up and down

Nor ever a bird flies single

And the woodman twines¹ for his lass a crown

Where berries and beech² commingle³.

 

"Roe⁴, fox and hare hold revel⁵ all,

Thro' flowerage the wee worm glances;

There great and small a-dancing fall

And the sun up in Heaven dances."

"What do you say to that?" asked the wood.

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