and finally, on the third day, as a white knight, even managing to cut off the sultan's head during the final day's fighting. Like the Anglo-Norman romance hero Ipomedon, he fights in differently-coloured arms every day and nobody knows who these knights are who have conducted themselves so magnificently on the field of combat. The emperor's daughter, however, knows the truth. However, she is mute and thus unable to tell anyone anything. But victory comes at a price. Following the sultan's death, on seeing Sir Gowther wounded on the final day of battle, the emperor's daughter, in her anguish, falls from her tower. The Pope is summoned to bury her. But as the funeral is about to start, she awakens from her bier and tells the assembled gathering that God has forgiven Sir Gowther all his sins. He may speak again, and so can she. Following this miracle, the two are married and, when her father dies, Sir Gowther becomes Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire. He builds an abbey and attaches to it a convent, in which nuns can pray for the souls of the poor nuns he once burnt alive in their church. When Sir Gowther dies, many miracles are witnessed around his tomb. Legends The most widely cited source for Sir Gowther is a late-twelfth or early-thirteenth century romance of a fictitious Norman duke named Robert de Diable, a story probably taken from legend. Influences may also be found in the saintly Legend of Gregorius and the Life of Saint Alexius. At one time, the lai was believed to have come from Normandy, but a study published in the 1960s suggests that the fairy tale elements make historical inspiration unlikely and that the tale may have arisen in Italy. The visit of an other-worldly creature in an orchard, promising a marvelous child, parallels the legends of St. Anne and the birth of the Virgin Mary so closely that there would appear to be influence, especially as these are the closest parallels to be found. Unsurprisingly, resonances exist in other Breton lais, in particular the twelfth- or thirteenth-century lai Tydorel, which may itself derive from Robert de Diable, The Middle English Breton lai Sir Orfeo also sees the heroine accosted by an Otherworldly figure in an orchard and the Middle English Breton lai Sir Degaré has the hero conceived when his mother is raped in a forest by