Birdalone said: Whatsoever ye bid me; that will I do, and deem me your debtor still. But now I pray you, pleasure a poor captive somewhat more. Wherein? said they both; we be all ready thereto. Said the maiden: Would ye do so much as to tell me the tale of how ye came hither, and then how it hath been with you from your first coming until now? With a good will, said Atra; hearken! CHAPTER VI. ATRA TELLS OF HOW THEY THREE CAME UNTO THE ISLE OF INCREASE UNSOUGHT. We were born and bred in the land that lies south-west along this Great Water, and we waxed happily, and became fellows when we were yet but children, and thus grew up dear friends into maidenhood and womanhood. We were wooed by many men, but our hearts turned to none of them save unto three, who were goodly, kind, and valiant; and thou mayst call them the Golden Knight, who is Aurea’s man; the Green Knight, who is man of Viridis; and my man, the Black Squire. But in this was unhap, that because of certain feuds which had endured from old time, this love was perilous unto them and us; so that we lived in doubt and unrest. Came a day, now three years ago, when the king of the whole land brought his folk into our lakeside country, and there held a court and a mote in a fair great meadow anigh to the water. But even as the mote was hallowed, and the Peace of God proclaimed at the blast of the war-horn, came we three woeful ladies clad in black and knelt before the lord king, and prayed him hearken us. And he deemed that we were fair, so he had compassion on us, and raised us up, and bade us speak. So we told our tale, how that strife and wounds and death stood betwixt us and love; and we wept, and bewailed it, that our love must be slain because men were wroth with each other and not with us. The king looked on us kindly, and said: Who be the swains for whom these lovely damsels make such a piece of work? So we named them, and said that they were there in the mote; and the king knew them for valiant men who had done him good service; and he cried out their names, and bade them stand forth out of the throng. So forth they stood, the Golden Knight, the Green Knight, and the Black Squire (and he also was now a knight); but now were they all three clad in black, and they were unarmed, save for their swords girt to their sides, without which no man amongst us may come to the mote, be he baron or earl or duke, or the very lord king himself.