And owt ther of a tale ybroghht, That lufly is to tell." The child the lady now carries in her womb is Merlin's half-brother, we are told. But he is a fiendish child. As a baby, he sends numerous wet-nurses to their graves and tears off his mother's nipple on the only occasion she dares to suckle him. As he grows to be a youth, hunting becomes his favourite pastime, but as he nears adulthood he prefers to roam the land with a huge sword, terrorising everybody and in particular, the religious orders. He rapes with relish and then burns a convent of nuns to death. His father is so sickened by his son's behaviour that he dies of shame. Sir Gowther is now duke after the death of his father. But when he has his fiendish parentage thrown at him in accusation one day, he runs to his mother to find out if it is true. At the point of his sword, she admits to everything and, in a sudden change of heart, Sir Gowther resolves to travel to Rome to receive absolution for his sins from the Pope. Sir Gowther receives an audience with the Pope and is given the penance that he may not speak and that whatever he swallows must first have been in the mouth of a dog. The curious, possible implications of this are almost corroborated when, having been kept alive for a few days by a greyhound, he dashes into the palace of the Emperor of Germany (the Holy Roman Empire), hides beneath a table and the emperor's steward comes towards him brandishing a stick. However, he is soon adopted by the court as Hob their fool and eats beneath the tables with the dogs in the evening. The Emperor of Germany has a daughter who is mute, but this does not stop a sultan coming to claim her hand in marriage. The emperor refuses and a dreadful war begins. On three successive days, Sir Gowther, as Hob the fool, prays to God that he might be given arms to help defend the emperor's lands from the heathen hoards. And three times, he is rewarded by the magical appearance of a horse and armour outside his small room. For three days in succession, he sallies out with the emperor's army and fights invincibly, first as a black knight, then as a red knight