‘My lord,’ Nicorant replied, ‘I'll do all you command except fetch timber from the forest! No workman would dare go there to cut or fell: he'd be lost in an instant, spirited away by the enchanters who dwell there!’

‘Go and buy the stone, Nicorant,’ said King Betis, ‘and I'll see to the forest!’

A little later, Betis fell asleep after dinner in the warmth of the afternoon; and he dreamed that the dwarf who'd directed him to the place of his coronation appeared before him and said:

‘Cowardly king! How shameful it is that you don't go and see the wonders in the forest!’

The king was so angry at being called a coward that he shook with rage and awoke. But then he reconsidered: perhaps he was a cowardly king indeed! He summoned a squire to harness his horse – and quietly, so that the queen wouldn't know – and then donned an unmarked surcoat and hid his shield in a cloth cover, and set off into the forest without anyone knowing he'd gone.