an Otherworldly knight. The heroine of the Middle English Breton lai Emaré has to suffer a new life in reduced circumstances before gaining acknowledgement of her previous rank. The late-twelfth century Anglo-Norman romance Ipomedon has the hero fight as an unknown knight on three successive days of a tournament, first as a white knight, then as a red knight and finally as a black knight, in a reversal of an otherwise identical sequence later used by the anonymous author of Sir Gowther. Indeed, the tournament where the hero fights in disguise and claims to have been busy is a fairy tale commonplace (such as in The Golden Crab or The Magician's Horse, or in Little Johnny Sheep-Dung and The Hairy Man, where it is actual battle), and from there passed into romance. Two manuscript versions The two manuscript versions, although telling the same story, do so with different emphasis and perhaps with different intention. Social story The version of Sir Gowther in British Library Royal MS 17.B.43 was "probably intended for a more cultured and refined audience" and although it is the version that explicitly identifies Sir Gowther with a saint at the conclusion, may concern itself also with the aristocratic trauma of a dynasty in distress, first by childlessness, then by an 'heir from hell', a son who inherits something of the egocentric arrogance of his forebears. This is resolved in the tale by Sir Gowther descending to be amongst the lowest of the low, eating beneath the table with the dogs; and when at last his fortunes rise again, in the saddle of the white knight, "we are told: 'Rode he not with brag nor bost'", as though this may be significant to the author's intention. The romance may therefore address "deep-seated anxieties in medieval society about breeding and dynasty." The devilish aspect of pride illustrated in the fifteenth-century manuscript illustration at the top of this article may reflect this. Saint’s life The version of Sir Gowther in National Library of Scotland MS Advocates 19.3.1 is told in "a more vigorous and decidedly more explicit manner", like a hagiography. It is in this version alone that the burning of the nuns in their own church is referred to and the ultimate forgiveness of Sir Gowther's heinous crimes by God, through penance and contrition, carry him onwards almost to beatification. Not only does the emperor's mute daughter come back