After searching for so long, Maeve stood before him, surrounded by the mist that enveloped her in his dreams as well as in reality. Baird knelt before her on some strange impulse, and his entourage followed suit. They had been hearing about the beautiful Maeve for weeks, and although they frankly did not perceive the same magic that Baird did, they did not want to embarrass their prince regent.

 Maeve did. Or maybe she didn't care. She walked past the prince and his entourage as if they were a circle of mushrooms and continued walking with her buckets. The group of nobles and brave knights stood in the mud for a while, silent.

No one dared to move until Baird admitted defeat. And he didn't. He remained crouched, reconciling the events he had imagined with reality. Eventually, he realised that he would lose Maeve again if he stayed still. He had found her hideout, a kind of small hut in a clearing in the forest, surrounded by moss and manure. The poor woman must have been beside herself living in such a miserable way for so long; she even seemed to share her space with various animals: cows, ducks, pigs...

 The prince sighed when he saw the state of her lands. A lady should have at least two servants and a plot of land she didn't have to share with beasts. Baird jumped up and ran towards Maeve, dodging a mother duck with ducklings, two fat chickens and three or four pigs. He took her by the shoulder and forced her to turn around. ‘I have come for you, beautiful Maeve.’

The beauty examined his face for a few seconds. ‘What do you want with me?’ she said, shaking the prince's hand off her shoulder. Baird did not answer, for suddenly the answer seemed too stupid to say out loud. 'I've come to rescue you,“ he wanted to say, but rescue her from what, exactly? Maeve guessed his predicament: 'I don't want to leave my home for anything that isn't important.”

 She looked straight into Baird's soul, and then she seemed to understand what had brought him to her little hideaway. He took a few steps back at the expression on his beloved's face, which seemed more exasperated than pleased, her bright eyes narrowing like someone listening to the meaningless babble of a child. ‘I'd rather die,’ she said dryly to the prince before turning away and disappearing into the forest.

 The men behind him tried to look away, trying not to make the situation worse. In recent days, the heir to the throne seemed to have been completely possessed by the image of his beloved, to the point that he refused to talk about anything else. His mother, the queen, had ordered him to forget the woman and choose a lady of the nobility, as was proper, for a prince owed his duty to his people, and among them were the nobles, who would be incredibly offended if he preferred a malodorous hermit to one of their daughters.

 Baird's response was to lock himself in his manor and refuse all food for a week. Finally, for reasons unknown, his mother gave in to his wishes. Perhaps it was because the goddess Aine heard Baird's prayers and opened the queen's heart, or perhaps she was tired of dealing with the madness of her men.

The important thing for him was that he was given permission to choose Maeve as his wife. And there he was, in the farmstead, surrounded by adorable, odorous creatures, kneeling in the mud again, watching his beloved, for whom he had endured sleepless nights and fasting, walk away. The small entourage then proposed returning to the castle.

Baird refused to get up from the ground, so they had to force him, and shortly afterwards they also had to guide his Epona. He said nothing on the way, just stared ahead with dull eyes and his mouth half open. His men whispered among themselves stories of heartbreak similar to his, but always coming to the conclusion that his was the most humiliating. When they reached the castle, they had to get him off the mare and drag him to his quarters.

No one wanted to comment on his condition, as they all feared he might be developing a disorder similar to that of his father, the king. His younger brother, Prince Ailill, was playing in the gardens at the time and tried to greet the prince regent, but his older brother barely turned to look at him. Baird was put to bed and a doctor who lived in the castle was consulted, who recited endless theories about humours and substances in the body.

 Baird appeared to be suffering from an excess of black bile, something different from his father's excess of yellow bile, so Her Majesty the Queen and her men need not fear that he would be afflicted by the same kind of madness. The doctor then withdrew for his bottles, Latin translations, and other unpleasant instruments, promising the afflicted that he would spend the night watching over the prince, if necessary.

 Baird moved little and cooperated even less. He would not sit up to eat, but had to be propped up by three people and forced to take soup. His father had been made of glass, but he was now made of stone, heavy and immovable. The queen spent several days sitting by his side, begging him once again to give up the idea of marrying that woman. But her son did not respond.

Little Prince Ailill kept asking about his brother, as he had been his only male companion now that he was not allowed to see His Majesty, his father.

The king, incidentally, continued to drain the energy of everyone around him, demanding that they treat him with absolute care and shouting at the top of his lungs until he was dragged away to his throne.

Day by day, life in the castle became more difficult to tolerate, and now Her Majesty the Queen had to deal with two infants instead of the two adult men who were supposed to run the country.

Eventually, the monarch's patience came to an end, and she ordered the woman to be brought before her. If her son wanted to live a legendary love, she would be the ogre of the story.