did win;
Had I been a woman, as I am a man,
My bedfellow ye should hae been.

11.
'Will ye marry my daughter Janet,
By the truth of thy right hand?
I'll gi'e ye gold, I'll gi'e ye money,
And I'll gi'e ye an earldom o' land.'

12.
'Yes, I'll marry yere daughter Janet,
By the truth of my right hand;
But I'll hae nane o' yer gold, I'll hae nane o' yer money,
Nor I winna hae an earldom o' land.

13.
'For I hae eighteen corn-mills
Runs all in water clear,
And there's as much corn in each o' them
As they can grind in a year.'

THE MARRIAGE OF SIR GAWAINE

+The Text+ is from the early part of the Percy Folio, and the ballad is
therefore deficient. Where gaps are marked in the text with a row of
asterisks, about nine stanzas are lost in each case--half a page torn
out by a seventeenth-century maidservant to light a fire! Luckily we can
supply the story from other versions.

+The Story+, also given in _The Weddynge of Sr Gawen and Dame Ragnell_
(in the Rawlinson MS. c. 86 in the Bodleian Library), runs as follows:--

Shortly after Christmas, Arthur, riding by Tarn Wadling (still so
called, but now pasture-land, in the forest of Inglewood), meets a bold
baron, who challenges him to fight, unless he can win his ransom by
returning on New Year's Day with an answer to the question, What does a
woman most desire? Arthur relates the story to Gawaine, asks him and
others for an answer to the riddle, and collects their suggestions in a
book ('letters,' 24.1). On his way to keep his tryst with the baron, he
meets an unspeakably ugly woman, who offers her assistance; if she will
help him, Arthur says, she shall wed with Gawaine. She gives him the
true answer, A woman will have her will. Arthur meets the baron, and
after proffering the budget of answers, confronts him with the true
answer. The baron exclaims against the ugly woman, whom he asserts to be
his sister.

Arthur returns to his court, and tells his knights that a wife awaits
one of them on the moor. Sir Lancelot, Sir Steven (who is not mentioned
elsewhere in Arthurian tales), Sir Kay, Sir Bauier (probably Beduer or
Bedivere), Sir Bore (Bors de Gauves), Sir Garrett (Gareth), and Sir
Tristram ride forth to find her. At sight, Sir Kay, without overmuch
chivalry, expresses his disgust, and the rest are unwilling to marry
her. The king explains that he has promised to give her to Sir Gawaine,
who, it seems, bows