Unaware of his secret, the warlocks family laughed to see him so aloof and cold.

“All will change,” they prophesied, “when a maid catches his fancy!”

But the young warlock’s fancy remained untouched. Though many a maiden was intrigued by his haughty mien, and employed her most subtle arts to please him, none succeeded in touching his heart. The warlock gloried in his indifference, and the sagacity that had produced it.

The first freshness of youth waned, and the warlock’s peers began to wed, and then to bring forth children.

“Their hearts must be husks,” he sneered inwardly as he observed the antics of the young parents around him, “shriveled by the demands of these mewling offspring!”

And once again he congratulated himself upon the wisdom of his early choice.

In due course, the warlock’s aged parents died. Their son did not mourn them; on the contrary, he considered himself blessed by their demise. Now he reigned alone in their castle. Having transferred his greatest treasure to the deepest dungeon, he gave himself over to a life of ease and plenty, his comfort the only aim of his many servants.

The warlock was sure that he must be an object of immense envy to all who beheld his splendid and untroubled solitude. Fierce were his anger and chagrin, therefore, when he overheard two of his lackeys discussing their master one day.

The first servant expressed pity for the warlock who, with all his wealth and power, was yet beloved by nobody.

But his companion jeered, asking why a man with so much gold and a palatial castle to his name had been unable to attract a wife.

Their words dealt dreadful blows to the listening warlock’s pride. He resolved at once to take a wife, and that she would be a wife superior to all others. She would possess astounding beauty, exciting envy and desire in every man who beheld her; she would spring from magical lineage, so that their offspring would inherit outstanding magical gifts; and she would have wealth at least equal to his own, so that his comfortable existence would be assured, in spite of additions to his household.

It might have taken the warlock fifty years to find such a woman, yet it so happened that the very day after he decided to seek her, a maiden answering his every wish arrived in the neighborhood to visit her kinsfolk.

She was a witch of prodigious skill and possessed of much gold. Her beauty was such that it tugged at the heart of every man who set eyes on her; of every man, that is, except one. The warlock’s heart felt nothing at all. Nevertheless, she was the prize he sought, so he began to pay her court.

All who noticed the warlock’s change in manners were amazed, and told the maiden that she had succeeded where a hundred had failed.

The young woman herself was both fascinated and repelled by the warlock’s attentions. She sensed the coldness that lay behind the warmth of his flattery, and had never met a man so strange and remote. Her kinsfolk, however, deemed theirs a most suitable match, and, eager to promote it, accepted the warlock’s invitation to a great feast in the maiden’s honor.