“And so she will remain unless the spell is broken. He must unloose the
girdle from her waist that is fastened with an enchanted pin, and burn
the girdle with fire, and throw the ashes before the door, and bury
the enchanted pin in the earth; then will her spirit come back from
Fairy-land, and she will once more speak and have true life.”
Hearing this the young lord at once set spurs to his horse, and on
reaching the castle hastened to the room where Ethna lay on her couch
silent and beautiful like a waxen figure. Then, being determined to
test the truth of the spirit voices, he untied the girdle, and after
much difficulty extracted the enchanted pin from the folds. But still
Ethna spoke no word; then he took the girdle and burned it with fire,
and strewed the ashes before the door, and he buried the enchanted
pin in a deep hole in the earth, under a fairy thorn, that no hand
might disturb the spot. After which he returned to his young wife, who
smiled as she looked at him, and held forth her hand. Great was his
joy to see the soul coming back to the beautiful form, and he raised
her up and kissed her; and speech and memory came back to her at that
moment, and all her former life, just as if it had never been broken
or interrupted; but the year that her spirit had passed in Fairy-land
seemed to her but as a dream of the night, from which she had just
awoke.
After this Finvarra made no further efforts to carry her off; but the
deep cut in the hill remains to this day, and is called “The Fairy’s
Glen.” So no one can doubt the truth of the story as here narrated.