proficient at metalwork that he is able to make himself a suit of armour. Meanwhile, the sultan has been campaigning throughout Europe and only now do the forces of Christendom feel able to commit an army to battle. The two sides face one another across a field of conflict. Sir Isumbras, keen to avenge himself on the sultan who stole his wife, rides into battle on a horse used by the smithy for carrying coal, armed in his own armour (perhaps conjuring an image like that of Florent riding out against a giant wearing his father's rusty armour in the medieval romance Octavian). Sir Isumbras performs magnificent deeds of valour and when his sorry horse is killed from under him, an earl rescues him from the battlefield, gives him a new horse and new arms and Sir Isumbras rides once again into the melee, managing at last to kill the sultan himself, winning the battle. When the Christian king wishes to congratulate him, however, Sir Isumbras acknowledges himself simply as a blacksmith, much to the monarch's incredulity. He is sent to a convent to receive medical attention and convalescence and when he is fit again, rather than going to the king to claim the honours promised him, he makes his way once more towards the Holy Land as a beggar. For many years Sir Isumbras lives in desperate poverty in the city of Acre, which was the last Christian stronghold to fall to the Muslims, in the late-thirteenth century. Then he makes his way to Jerusalem, and outside the walls of this city an angel appears one night to tell Sir Isumbras that God has at last forgiven him his sins. Destitute still, however, Sir Isumbras wanders the eastern lands until he comes to a city that once belonged to a great sultan before he was killed on the battlefield. Now it is ruled by his former queen. This lady is accustomed to distributing alms to wandering paupers and to taking in the most needy to feed and to ask them about their travels; as though keen to hear news of somebody. He is brought into the castle, meets with her, tells her his news and is invited to live there and to serve at the table. Yet, like Sir Eglamour of Artois after his travels, he does not recognise his own wife. Like Sir Yvain's wife, the Lady of