The bishops heard this, and book-learned men; this heard earls, this heard barons; each by his wit said wisdom, and this dream they interpreted, as to them best seemed. There durst no knight to evil expound no whit, lest he should lose his limbs that were dear to him. Forth they gan to voyage exceeding quickly; the wind stood to them at will, weather best of all; they had all that to them was need; to land they came at Barbefleot. To Barbefleot, at Constantin, therein came a mickle multitude, from all the lands that Arthur had in hand. So soon as they might, out of ship they moved, the king ordered his folk to seek lodging, and the king would rest, until his folk came. He was not there but one night, that a fair knight came to him; he told tiding to Arthur the king, he said that there was arrived a monster, westward from Spain; a fiend well loathsome; and in Britanny was busy to harm. By the seaside the land he wasted wide--now it hight Mount Saint Michel--the land he possesseth every part.--"Lord king," quoth the knight, "in sooth I make known to thee right here, he hath taken away thy relative, with great strength, a nobly born woman, Howel's daughter choice, who was named Helen, noblest of maidens. To the mount he carried her, noblest of maidens; now full a fortnight the fiend hath holden her there right; we know not in life whether he have her not to wife. All the men that he seizeth, he maketh to him for meat, cattle, horses, and the sheep, goats, and the swine eke; all this land he will destroy, unless thou allay our care, the land and this people; in thee is our need." Yet said the knight to the monarch: "Seest thou, lord, the mount, and the great wood, wherein the fiend dwelleth that destroyeth this people? We have fought with him well many times; by sea and by land this folk he destroyed; our ships he sank, the folk he all drowned, those that fought on the land, those he down laid. We have driven (suffered) that so long, that we let him alone, to act how so he will, after his will, the knights of this land dare not with him any more fight."