Page:Origin and Growth of Religion (Rhys).djvu/369

Rh they lamented his coming among thorn, as they had no doubt about his fate. Owein then went out and fell in with the Perverse Black Fellow himself; they fought, and Owein bound the robber with his hands behind him. The latter said that it was prophesied that Owein was to overcome him, and he asked for mercy, which was granted by Owein on condition that his castle was in future to be a hospice. But Owein took away with him to Arthur's court the twenty-four ladies, with their horses, their apparel, and all the treasure they had when they were robbed.

With regard to this episode, it is a matter of considerable doubt where it should stand in the story: as the lion has no part in it, one should possibly regard it as connected with Owein's first stay with his wife in the Earldom of the Fountain, and not with his second visit to the same. But in any case the doubt seems to attach exclusively to the sequence of the story, while the description of the castle of the Perverse Black Fellow and Owein's triumph over him, together with the release of the twenty-four matrons, has the air of being genuinely ancient. For the Perverse Black Robber, whose castle may be inferred to have been not very far from the dominions of the Lady of the Fountain, corresponds in this tale to the giants against whom Labraid of the Swift Hand on the Sword was aided by Cúchulainn; but, above all, he forms the counterpart of Echaid Glas, whom Cúchulainn is made to kill in order to release the three Sons