im to eat and to drink so that he revived once more.
After that they took him with them, and he dwelt with them in those
woodlands. There these forest folk played with him and made merry with him,
and he made them great sport. For he was ever gentle and mild like a little
child for innocence so that he did no harm to anyone, but only talked in
such a way that the swineherds found great sport in him.

Now Sir Andred of Cornwall very greatly coveted the possessions of Sir
Tristram, so that when several months had passed by and Sir Tristram did
not return to Tintagel, he said to himself: "Of a surety, Tristram must now
be dead in the forest, and, as there is no one nigher of kin to him than I,
it is altogether fitting that I should inherit his possessions."

But as Sir Andred could not inherit without proof of the death of Sir
Tristram, he suborned a certain very beautiful but wicked lady who dwelt in
the forest, persuading her that she should give false evidence of Sir
Tristram's death. Accordingly, he one day brought that lady before King
Mark, and she gave it as her evidence that Sir Tristram had died in the
forest and that she had been with him when he died. And she showed them a
new-made grave in the forest, and she said: "That is the grave of Sir
Tristram, for I saw him die and I saw him buried there with mine own eyes."

[Sidenote: Sir Adred seizes Sir Tristram's possessions] So everybody
believed this evidence, and thought that Sir Tristram was really dead, and
so Sir Andred seized upon all the possessions of Sir Tristram. And there
were many who were very sorry that Sir Tristram was dead and there were
others who were glad thereof in the same measure. But when the news was
brought to Belle Isoult that Sir Tristram was dead, she shrieked aloud and
swooned away. And she lay in that swoon so long that they thought for a
while she would never recover from it. But by and by she awoke therefrom,
crying, "Would to God that I were dead with Tristram and had never
awakened!"

And thereafter she mourned continually for Sir Tristram and would not be
comforted; for she was like to a woman who hath been widowed from a lover
of her youth.

And now it shall be told of how it fared with Sir Tristram in the forest
where he dwelt with the swineherds, and of how he achieved a very notable
adventure therein.

[Illustration: Sir Kay and the Forest Madman]

Chapter Second

_How Sir Tristram got him a sword from Sir Kay