Note 55 — 59 SIR ALDINGAR

For these chronicles and for Palanus, see F. Wolf in Jahrbücher für wissenschaftliche Kritik, 1835, 945-56, and Lüdtke, 78 ff. In the Arles chronicle, as also in Desclot, Carbonell, Beuter, etc., the empress gives the count a ring when he visits her in prison, and the same is done earlier in The Erl of Tolous; see Lüdtke, pp 80,171,181,183,191,201, and vv 392, 1076 of the English romance. It may be noted, without the intention of suggesting any particular inference, that Arthur's queen in Le lai du Corn, v. 325 ff, to clear herself from the suspicion of loving amiss, professes herself ready to be thrown into a fire of thorns, and, should a hair of her head or any of her dress be burned, then to be dragged at a horse's heels. She owns that she had given a ring to a young donzel, who had killed a giant that had slandered Gawain, and then wished modestly to withdraw.