But he got no more strength from it than he had before.
And weeping bitter tears, he cried: “The sickle has played me false.” And he threw down into the moat both the heart and the body.
And the lady Halewyn seeing this poor heart and body dropping into the water, ordered that they should be taken out and brought to her.
Seeing the body rent open under the breast, and the heart taken out, she became afraid lest Siewert her first-born was following dark practices.
And she put the girl’s heart back in her breast, and gave her a very fine and Christian burial, and had a fair great cross made on her winding-sheet, and afterwards she was put in the ground and a fair mass said for the quiet of her soul.
IX. Of the heart of a maid and of the great strength which came to Sir Halewyn.
Sorely troubled, and falling on his knees, Halewyn said: “Alas, is the spell then impotent? I sang, and she would not come to my singing! What would you have me do now, Lord Prince of the Stones? If it is that I must wait until nightfall, that I will do. Then, without doubt, having no sun to hinder your powers, you will give me strength and beauty, and all prowess, and you will send me the virgin I need.”
And he went at night to wander in the woods round about the cottages, and there, singing his song, and looking out to see if any were coming.
He saw by the light of the bright moon the daughter of Claes, a poor mad man, nicknamed the Dog-beater, because he used to thump and pommel grievously whomever he met, saying that these accursed dogs had robbed him of his coat, and must give it him back again.