monarch was believed to be Henry III. It is highly probable that the
_Lais_ were actually written at the Court of Henry II, though the
'King' of the flowery prologue is hardly reconcilable with the stern
ruler and law-maker of history. Be that as it may, Marie's poems
achieved instant success. "Her rhyme is loved everywhere," says Denis
Pyramus, the author of a life of St Edmund the King; "for counts,
barons, and knights greatly admire it and hold it dear. And they love
her writing so much, and take such pleasure in it, that they have it
read, and often copied. These Lays are wont to please ladies, who
listen to them with delight, for they are after their own hearts."
This fame and its attendant adulation were very sweet to Marie, and
she was justly proud of her work, which, inspired, as she herself
distinctly states, by the lays she had heard Breton minstrels sing,
has, because of its vivid colouring and human appeal, survived the
passing of seven hundred years. The scenes of the tales are laid in
Brittany, and we are probably correct in regarding them as culled from
original traditional material. As we proceed with the telling of these
ancient stories we shall endeavour to point out the essentially Breton
elements they have retained.

_The Lay of the Were-Wolf_

In the long ago there dwelt in Brittany a worshipful baron, for whom
the king of that land had a warm affection, and who was happy in the
esteem of his peers and the love of his beautiful wife.

One only grief had his wife in her married life, and that was the
mysterious absence of her husband for three days in every week. Where
he disappeared to neither she nor any member of her household knew.
These excursions preyed upon her mind, so that at last she resolved to
challenge him regarding them.

"Husband," she said to him pleadingly one day after he had just
returned from one of these absences, "I have something to ask of you,
but I fear that my request may vex you, and for this reason I hesitate
to make it."

The baron took her in his arms and, kissing her tenderly, bade her
state her request, which he assured her would by no means vex him.

"It is this," she said, "that you will trust me sufficiently to tell
me where you spend those days when you are absent from me. So fearful
have I become regarding these withdrawals and all the mystery that
enshrouds them that I know neither rest nor comfort; indeed, so
distraught am I at times that I feel I shall