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352 to take Owein with him in order to show him for three months to the nobles of Britain. Much against her will, she gave her permission; but Owein, finding himself once more among his fellows, forgot his wife, and remained there, not three months, but three years, until, in fact, a strange maiden, on a horse caparisoned with gold, rode one day into the hall of Arthur's court. She went right up to Owein and took away the ring that was on his hand, saying, 'Thus is done to a deceiver, a false traitor, for a disgrace to thy beard.' She then rode away, and his former adventure came back to Owein's mind. This made him sad, and he left the society of men to live with wild beasts; but it would take me too long to relate how he was restored to his former life, how he rescued a lion from a serpent, and how the former followed him ever after as his faithful ally. At last Lunet brought Owein back to his wife, the Lady of the Fountain; and when he came away he brought her with him to Arthur's court, and she was his wife as long as she lived. So ends the tale; but it recommences by telling us how Owein one day went to the castle of a robber knight called the Du Traws, or the Perverse Black One. The owner was at the time not in his castle; and Owein found there twenty-four of the finest women one had ever seen, but they were in rags and extreme wretchedness. They had come there, they said, each with her husband, and at first they were hospitably and kindly treated, but later they were made drunk and stripped of their clothing, of their gold, and of their silver; while their husbands were murdered and their horses taken away. They pointed out to him where the corpses of their husbands and many others were heaped together; and