With this the damsel is sent back to anoint Ywain.

He comes to his senses, is armed and clothed, undertakes the lady's defence, and discomfits the earl: but is as miserable as ever.

Resisting the lady's offer of herself and all her possessions, he rides off once more "with heavy heart and dreary cheer." Soon he hears a hideous noise and, riding in its direction, finds that a dragon has attacked a lion.

He succours the holier beast, kills the dragon, and though he has unavoidably wounded the lion in the _melee_ is thenceforth attended by him not merely as a food-provider, but as the doughtiest of squires and comrades in fight.

To aggravate his sorrow he comes to the fountain and thorn-tree of the original adventure, and hears some one complaining in the chapel hard by.