So all the company proceeded to the castle of the Countess of the Fountain, and there partook of a great banquet, which had been three years preparing; for Owain had always said that Arthur would come to seek him. And when all was over Arthur prepared to depart, but first he sent a message to the Countess, begging her to permit Owain to go and visit him for the space of three months. So Owain departed, though much against the will of his Countess; and when he was once more among his kindred and friends he forgot all about his wife and the People in Yellow, and stayed away three years instead of three months. At the end of these three years, as Owain sat one day at meat in the royal city of Caerleon-on-Usk, there rode through the doorway of the hall a damsel on a bay horse covered with foam, wearing a bridle and saddle of gold; and the damsel was clad in a robe of yellow satin. She came up to Owain, and, taking the ring from off his hand, "Thus," she said, "shall be treated the deceiver, the traitor, the faithless and the disgraced." Then she turned her horse's head, and rode away. Then was Owain deeply ashamed and sorrowful; and on the next day he left the Court, and wandered to the distant parts of the country and to waste places and barren mountains. And he stayed there until his clothes were worn out and his body wasted away and his hair grown long. His only companions were the wild beasts with whom he fed, and they grew to love him as their friend; but after a time he became so weak that he could no longer abide with them, so he descended from the mountains into the fairest park in all the world, which was said to belong to a widowed countess. One day the Countess and her maidens were walking by a lake that was in the middle of the park, when they saw in the pathway the prostrate figure of a man. At first they thought he was dead; but they went near, and touched him, and found there was life in him, though he was very much exhausted. So the Countess returned to the castle, and sent one of her maidens with a flask full of precious balsam to the sick man, together with a horse and a good suit of clothes, and said: "Go with these, and place them near the man we saw just now. Anoint him with the balsam near his heart, and if there is still life in him he will arise through the strength of the balsam. Then watch what he will do." The maiden departed, and forthwith poured the whole of the balsam on Owain, and left the horse and the garments close by, and hid herself, and watched what would happen. Presently he began to move his hands, then his arms, and then all at once he rose up, and was ashamed to see how ragged and dirty he looked. Then he perceived the horse, and the garments; so he washed in the lake, and crept to the horse, and with difficulty clothed himself, and clambered on to the saddle. Then came the maiden from her hiding-place, and he was rejoiced to see her, and asked her to whom the park belonged.