*

“Indeed there is,” shouted Fat-Head, the son of Short-Neck, and he sprang into the middle of the mead house, “bend down you grizzly gawp, that I might cut off your head tonight and you to cut off mine tomorrow.”

“But if that were my covenant I could have got it anywhere.”

“Yet to you alone, it would seem, is given the power to be killed every night, and to avenge your death upon the following day.”

“That’s true,” said the monstrous man, “I will agree to what you suggest.” He bent down and put his neck across the block.

With that Fat-Head took the axe from the giant’s hand; its two angles were a full seven feet apart on the stock, yet he struck at the hairy one’s neck until his severed head lay at the base of the fork beam of the fire.

Straightaway the unnatural hulk rose, recovered himself, clasped his head, block and axe to his breast, and made his exit from the mead hall with the blood still gurgling from his neck.

*

The next day, as the men of Albion watched Fat-Head to see whether he would shirk his covenant they saw a great dejection seize him, and some asked if they should start their keen.

Said Fat-Head, “it is true, my death is coming to me but I’d sooner my neck be broken than my word.”

As night approached the carle came into the hall as before, “where is Fat-Head,” he said, “for the squat one has a covenant to keep.”

“Here I am,” said Fat-Head, rising from his seat.

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