And the maiden departed; in vain did the king pray her to remain; and many there were who would fain have served her. Without the hall was there a great block of grey marble, from which the chief knights of the king's court were wont to mount their steeds; on this Launfal took his stand, and when the maiden rode forth from the palace he sprang swiftly upon the palfrey behind her. Thus, as the Bretons tell us, he departed with her for that most fair island, Avalon; thither the fairy maiden had carried her knight, and none hath heard man speak further of Sir Launfal. Nor know I more of his story. Tyolet [Illustration] _This is the Lay of Tyolet_ Aforetime when King Arthur reigned over the country of Britain, which is now called England, there were, I think me, far fewer folk in the land than there are to-day. But Arthur, whose valour men highly praise, had in his company many brave and noble knights. Of a sooth there are even now knights of high fame and renown, yet are they not such manner of men as they were of old time. For then the best and bravest knights were wont to wander through the land seeking adventures by day and by night, with never a squire for company, and it might well be that in the day's journey they found neither house nor tower, or again perchance they would find two or three such. Or by dusky night they might find fair adventures, the which they would tell again at court, even as they had befallen. And the clerks of the court would write them fairly on parchment in the Latin tongue, so that in days to come, men, an they would, might hearken to them. And these tales were turned from Latin into Romance, and from them, as our ancestors tell us, did the Britons make many a lay. And one lay they made will I tell ye, even as I myself heard the tale. 'Twas of a lad, fair and skilful, proud and brave and valiant. Tyolet was he called, and he knew strange wiles, for by whistling could he call the beasts of the woodland to him and trap them, even as many as he would. A fairy had taught him this skill, and never a beast that God had made but would come to him at his whistle. A lady had he for mother, who dwelt in the wide woodland where her lord had made his abode by day and by night, and the spot was passing lonely, for ten leagues round was there no other dwelling.