the arm; then, his breast unshielded, Tristan used the sword again and
struck so strongly that the air rang all round about: but in vain, for
he could not wound and meanwhile the dragon vomited from his nostrils
two streams of loath-some flames, and Tristan’s helm blackened like a
cinder and his horse stumbled and fell down and died; but Tristan
standing on his feet thrust his sword right into the beast’s jaws, and
split its heart in two.

Then he cut out the tongue and put it into his hose, but as the poison
came against his flesh the hero fainted and fell in the high grass
that bordered the marsh around.

Now the man he had stopped in flight was the Seneschal of Ireland and
he desired Iseult the Fair: and though he was a coward, he had dared
so far as to return with his companions secretly, and he found the
dragon dead; so he cut off its head and 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