Page:Stories from Old English Poetry-1899.djvu/82

60 should be united to some one worthy of her high deserts. When Cambello saw that this was the people’s will, he announced that he would hold a grand tournament in the kingdom, at which all brave foreign princes and knights should be bidden. Each who entered the lists should engage in fight with Cambello, and he who was able to conquer him, should be the husband of Candace.

There were three lovers of Candace, who, on hearing this announcement, resolved at once to risk their lives for her. These three were the twin-born brothers, Priamond, Dyamond, and Triamond, who all bore charmed lives. It happened in this wise:They were the children of a fay who dwelt deep in the heart of an enchanted forest. There in a secluded bower had the fay reared her brave sons. But alas! they were of mortal sire, and from their earliest youth the shadow of their death hung over their mother, who was a fairy of immortal birth and lineage.

When they were still babes, she went to the dread abode of the Fates, to entreat them to spare the lives of her three boys. Atropos, angry at the request, refused her such a boon; but Clotho, the youngest and most pitiful of the Parc, permitted her to look into the web of destiny and behold the threads of her sons’ lives,