The Gateway to Spenser. Tales Retold by Emily Underdown from The Faerie Queene of Edmund Spenser (1913)

6o The Gateway to Spenser.
chance of any one hearing her in that lonely
spot.
It happened, however, that in the forest
were a number of little wild creatures of
the wood, half man and half elf, who were
dancing a merry fantastic dance round their
master and leader, old Sylvanus, when Una's
cries for help echoed through the air. At
the sound the woodmen stopped their dance
and hurried in the direction whence it
came ; and when Sansloy found himself
suddenly surrounded by this strange crowd,
the like of which he had never seen
before, he took fright, and mounting his
steed, rode quickly away, leaving Una to
her fate.
The funny little
woodmen now crowded
round her, gazing at her with eyes of pitying
admiration, but Una lay before them trembling
with fear, just as the Saracen had left
her, and still too much frightened to move.
The little men became more and more
compassionate as they saw her distress,
and having cleared the frowns from their
funny wrinkled foreheads, clad with horns,