"Tell me," said El-ahrairah, "and I will undertake whatever you instruct."
"There is only one way you can attempt," replied the old hare. "The secret you are looking for lies with the Three Cows and with no one else. Have you heard of the Three Cows?"
"No, I haven't," said El
-ahrairah. "What have rabbits to do with cows? I have seen cows but never had dealings with them."
"Nor can I tell you where to find them," answered the old hare. "But the Three Cows' secret--or rather, the secret they guard--is the only one which can reward your search."
And with this the old hare went to sleep.
El-ahrairah went asking everywhere for the Three Cows, but received no replies, except bantering and mocking ones, until he began to feel that he was doing nothing but make a fool of himself. Sometimes he was maliciously misdirected and went on journeys only to find at the end that he had been tricked. Yet he would not give up.
One evening of early May, when he was lying under a bush of flowering blackthorn and the sun was setting in a silver sky, he once again heard, close by, his friend the yellowhammer singing among the low-growing branches.
"Come here, friend," he called. "Come and help me!"
Then the yellowhammer sang:
"El-ahrairah, behind and before
The bluebell wood and the wide downs o'er,
El-ahrairah need search no more."
"Oh, where? Where, little bird?" cried El-ahrairah, springing up. "Only tell me!"
"Now by my wings, my tail and beak,
The First Cow isn't far to seek.
Just under the Down, in the neighborhood,
Lies the brindled cow's enchanted wood."
The yellowhammer flew away and left El-ahrairah sniffing among the first burnets and early purple orchids. He was puzzled, for he knew that there was no wood anywhere in the neighborhood of the Down. At last, however, he went to the very foot, and there, to his astonishment, he saw a deep wood on the far side of the meadow. In front of the outskirts sat the biggest brown-and-white cow he had ever seen.
This could only be the cow he had been looking for; and El-ahrairah knew that the wood must in some way or other be enchanted, for how else could it have come to be standing where to his knowledge no wood had been before? If he hoped to find what he was looking for, into that wood he would have to go.
He approached the cow cautiously, for he had no idea whether she would attack him, although he thought that if the worst came to the worst he could always run away. The cow simply stared at him out of her great brown eyes and said nothing.
"Frith bless you, mother!" said El-ahrairah. "I am looking for a way through the wood."
The cow said nothing for so long that El-ahrairah wondered whether she had heard him. At last she replied, "There is no way through."
"Yet through I must go," said El-ahrairah.
He could see now that the edge of the wood was thick with thorns and briers, tangled and twisted so that nothing bigger than a beetle could possibly get through. Only where the cow sat was there a gap, which she filled entirely. Perhaps, he thought, she would be bound to move, yet it would be useless to ask her to do so, for had she not said there was no way?
Night fell, and the cow had not moved. In the morning she was still there in the same place, and El-ahrairah knew then that it must be a cow of sorcery, for it seemed to feel no need to graze or to drink. He perceived that he would have to resort to a trick. He got up, still watched by the cow, and wandered slowly away down the length of the outskirts until at last he came to a place where the mass of trees and brambles curved inward. He had hoped for a corner of the wood, where he might try to go round it, but as far as he could see, there was none. He made his way some distance into the curve, came out running and hurried back to the cow.
"Are you sure that no one goes into your wood, mother?" he asked.
"No one enters the wood," answered the cow. "It is sacred to Lord Frith and enchanted by sunlight and moonlight."
"Well, I don't know about sunlight and moonlight," said El-ahrairah. "But round that curving bit, there are two badgers who evidently mean to get in. They're digging like fury, and it won't take them long."
"They have no chance," replied the cow. "The enchantment is too strong. Nevertheless, I had better go and stop them." She clambered up and went lumbering away.