bore it to the King, and
claimed the great reward.

The King could credit his prowess but hardly, yet wished justice done
and summoned his vassals to court, so that there, before the Barony
assembled, the seneschal should furnish proof of his victory won.

When Iseult the Fair heard that she was to be given to this coward
first she laughed long, and then she wailed. But on the morrow,
doubting some trick, she took with her Perinis her squire and Brangien
her maid, and all three rode unbeknownst towards the dragon's lair:
and Iseult saw such a trail on the road as made her wonder--for the
hoofs that made it had never been shod in her land. Then she came on
the dragon, headless, and a dead horse beside him: nor was the horse
harnessed in the fashion of Ireland. Some foreign man had slain the
beast, but they knew not whether he still lived or no.

They sought him long, Iseult and Perinis and Brangien together, till
at last Brangien saw the helm glittering in the marshy grass: and
Tristan still breathed. Perinis put him on his horse and bore him
secretly to the women's rooms. There Iseult told her mother the tale
and left the hero with her, and as the Queen unharnessed him, the
dragon's tongue fell from his boot of steel. Then, the Queen of
Ireland revived him by the virtue of an herb and said:

"Stranger, I know you for the true slayer of the dragon: but our
seneschal, a felon, cut off its head and claims my daughter Iseult for
his wage; will you be ready two days hence to give him the lie in
battle?"

"Queen," said he, "the time is short, but you, I think, can cure me in
two days. Upon the dragon I conquered Iseult, and on the seneschal
perhaps I shall reconquer her."

Then the Queen brewed him strong brews, and on the morrow Iseult the
Fair got him ready a bath and anointed him with a balm her mother had
conjured, and as he looked at her he thought, "So I have found the
Queen of the Hair of Gold," and he smiled as he thought it. But
Iseult, noting it, thought, "Why does he smile, or what have I
neglected of the things due to a guest? He smiles to think I have for--
gotten to burnish his armour."

She went and drew the sword from its rich sheath, but when she saw the
splinter gone and the gap in the edge she thought of the Morholt's
head. She balanced a moment in doubt, then she went to where she kept
the steel she had found in the skull and she put it to the sword, and
it fitted so that the join was hardly seen