the bed, and passing several times over the face of
the entranced Guilliadun, so far incensed the page,
that with a blow of his stick he laid it dead at his
feet, and then threw it on the floor. The animal
had lain there only a few moments, when another weasel,
coming from the same hole, ran up, and attempted awhile
to sport with it, and then, after exhibiting every
appearance of grief, suddenly ran off into the wood,
and returned with a flower of a beautiful vermilion
colour, which it carefully inserted into the mouth
of the dead animal. The effect was sudden, the
weasel instantaneously got upon its legs, and was
preparing to escape; when the lady exclaimed to the
page, to strike it again, and he aimed a second blow,
that caused the creature to drop the flower, which
Guildeluec instantly seized, and carefully placed
between the lips of Guilliadun. The plant had
not lost its efficacy. The princess, awakening
from her trance, expressed her surprise at having
slept so long, and then gazed with astonishment at
the bed on which she lay, at the walls of the chapel
by which she was surrounded, and at the two unknown
figures, of Guildeluec and the page; who, kneeling
by her side, loudly expressed their thanksgiving to
the Almighty for what they thought her miraculous
resurrection. At length the good lady, having
finished her devotions, began to question the fair
stranger respecting her birth and preceding adventures,
which she related with the utmost candour and exactness,
till the fatal moment when the discovery of Eliduc’s
prior marriage had deprived her of sense and motion.
The rest was better known to her hearers than herself;
and Guildeluec, more and more charmed with her innocence,
and frankness, after avowing herself, lost no time
in comforting her, by the assurance that all her hopes
and wishes might now be speedily gratified. “Your
youthful beauty,” said she, “might captivate
any heart, and your merit will fix for ever that of
Eliduc, who is unalterably attached to you, and whose
grief for your loss was such as to preclude all hopes
of consolation. It is my intention to take the
veil, and abandon all claim to those affections which
are estranged from me for ever. In restoring
you to the now wretched Eliduc, I shall promote, by
the only means in my power, that happiness to which
I have hitherto been the unintentional obstacle.”
Guilliadun consented, with silent gratitude, to accept
the sacrifice so generously offered, and was united
to her lover as soon as the solemn ceremony had taken
place, by which Guildeluec consecrated the remainder
of her days to heaven, in a nunnery erected and endowed
by her husband, on the site of the ancient hermitage.
Their union was followed by many years of happiness;
and they closed a life of charity and benevolence
by following the pious example of Guildeluec, who
received Guilliadun into her order, while Eliduc took
the cowl in a monastery, to the endowment of which
he dedicated the remainder of his worldly possessions.
From the adventure of these three, “the olde
gentil Bretons” (li auncien Bretun curteis)
formed a lay to transmit to future ages.