“Fair friend,” said she, “well I know that you tire:  drink now, I pray you, of the flacket, and so shall your manhood come again at need.”

But the varlet answered,

“Fair love, my heart is full of courage; nor for any reason will I pause, so long as I can hold upon my way.  It is the noise of all this folk—­the tumult and the shouting—­that makes my steps uncertain.  Their cries distress me, I do not dare to stand.”

But when two thirds of the course was won, the grasshopper would have tripped him off his feet.  Urgently and often the maiden prayed him, saying,

“Fair friend, drink now of thy cordial.”

But he would neither hear, nor give credence to her words.  A mighty anguish filled his bosom.  He climbed upon the summit of the mountain, and pained himself grievously to bring his journey to an end.  This he might not do.  He reeled and fell, nor could he rise again, for the heart had burst within his breast.

When the maiden saw her lover’s piteous plight, she deemed that he had swooned by reason of his pain.  She kneeled hastily at his side, and put the enchanted brewage to his lips, but he could neither drink nor speak, for he was dead, as I have told you.  She bewailed his evil lot, with many shrill cries, and flung the useless flacket far away.  The precious potion bestrewed the ground, making a garden of that desolate place.  For many saving herbs have been found there since that day by the simple folk of that country, which from the magic philtre derived all their virtue.

But when the maiden knew that her lover was dead, she made such wondrous sorrow, as no man had ever seen.  She kissed his eyes and mouth, and falling upon his body, took him in her arms, and pressed him closely to her breast.  There was no heart so hard as not to be touched by her sorrow; for in this fashion died a dame, who was fair and sweet and gracious, beyond the wont of the daughters of men.

Now the King and his company, since these two lovers came not again, presently climbed the mountain to learn their end.  But when the King came upon them lifeless, and fast in that embrace, incontinent he fell to the ground, bereft of sense.  After his speech had returned to him, he was passing heavy, and lamented their doleful case, and thus did all his people with him.

Three days they kept the bodies of these two fair children from earth, with uncovered face.  On the third day they sealed them fast in a goodly coffin of marble, and by the counsel of all men, laid them softly to rest on that mountain where they died.  Then they departed from them, and left them together, alone.

Since this adventure of the Two Children this hill is known as the Mountain of the Two Lovers, and their story being bruited abroad, the Breton folk have made a Lay thereof, even as I have rehearsed before you.

VIII

THE LAY OF THE WERE-WOLF