her head, coming towards the gate: she asked him to open it, which he said he should be only to glad to do if he could. The lady was a dear friend of the Black Knight's wife, and her name was Elunet, shortened always in this tale to Lunet, Tennyson's Lynette in his Idylls of the King. We are not told how she knew Owein, but in the conversation which ensued she expressed the highest opinion of his gallantry, and gave him a sort of Gyges' ring to make him invisible, and to enable him to get free when the Black Knight's men should come to fetch him for execution. He used it as he was directed, and Lunet kept him in concealment until the Black Knight had expired and his funeral was over. Now the holding of the Black Knight's dominions depended on successfully holding the Fountain, and no one could do that but one of Arthur's knights; so Lunet pretended to go to Arthur's court and in due time to return with one of them. The widow at once detected that neither Lunet nor Owein had travelled far that day, and she elicited the confession from her friend that Owein was the man who had killed the Black Knight of the Fountain. It was then urged that Owein was of all men the most fitted to hold the Fountain, and nolens volens she had to give him her hand. He stayed there with her three years. By that time, Arthur's longing for Owein had grown so grievous that he and his knights set out in quest of Owein. Suspecting that it was Kynon's story that had led him to leave the court, they came to the Fountain; and in time they found Owein out, and were feasted by him for three months at his castle. Then Arthur departed, and sent to ask the Lady of the Fountain, Owein's wile, if she would permit him
