Being pursued, the lovers escape to Palermo, led always by the wer-wolf, Alphonso, half-brother to Braundinis, who was destined by Melior's father to become his son-in-law. William does battle with the proposed suitor and, still helped by the wer-wolf, whose symbol is painted on his shield, overcomes his rival, takes the King and Queen of Spain prisoner and refuses to let them go until Queen Braunde promises to transform the rightful heir from a wolf back into a human being. "Unless she disenchants you, she shall be burnt," he says forcibly. Braunde takes her stepson, the wolf, into a private chamber, draws forth a magic ring with a stone in it that is proof against all witchcraft and binds it with a red silk thread round the wolf's neck. Then she takes a book out of a casket and reads in it a long time till he turns into a man. The wer-wolf is delighted, but apologises to his stepmother for having no clothes on, and she commands him to choose who shall fetch his clothes. He answers that he will take his attire and the order of knighthood from the worthiest man alive, William of Palermo. William, being called, enters the chamber, where he sees a man who is an utter stranger and is only satisfied when he hears Alphonso's explanation, "I am the wer-wolf who saved you from many perils." William and Melior are married, all ends happily and William becomes Emperor of Rome.
The Bretons give the name of Bisclavaret to the wer-wolf, or wer-fox, which throws itself upon the hunter's horse and terrorises it. The same thing is called Garwal by the Normans. Bisclavaret is supposed to be a wizard, and if in olden times an unknown lady offered food to the hunters at the moment the animal appeared she was thought to be a witch.
Marie de France in her "Lay of the Bisclavaret" used the idea of a wer-wolf, and again in this case the animal has no savage instincts except against his enemies, a faithless wife and her perfidious lover.
A gallant knight of Brittany, a favourite with the king, weds a fair lady whom he loves tenderly. Only one cloud darkens the wife's horizon. Her husband leaves her invariably three days a week and she does not know where he goes. One day she has the temerity to ask him, and he warns her that the information may be dangerous, but when she pleads with him he says:
"Learn then that I become a wer-wolf during my absence. I go into the forest, hide in the thickets and seek my prey."
"But, my dear, tell me whether you take off your clothes," says the wife, "or whether you keep them on?"
"I am naked when the transformation occurs, Madame."
"And where do you leave your clothes?"
"I must not tell you, because if I were seen when I take them off I should remain a wer-wolf for the rest of my life. I can only recover human form at the moment I put them on again. After that you will not be surprised if I say no more." But she urges him to tell her, and finally he says that he hides his clothes under a bush near an old stone cross in the corner of a chapel, and there he puts them on when he wishes to resume his original shape.
Frightened by his awful story the wife decides to live with him no more and immediately sends for a young man who is in love with her, tells him the story and enjoins him to go and take away her husband's clothes. Thus she betrays her husband, the wer-wolf, who does not return and is given up for dead, and some time after she marries her false lover.