292 Notes on Orendel and other Stories.
free, and were in sight of land and of the Holy Sepulchre when they were blown to sea again and wrecked. Orendel was saved on a piece of the ship ; his clothes were torn off among the rocks and breakers, as he was thrown on a desert shore. There he made a shelter for himself in a hole in the sand. On the fourth morning a fisher came sailing by, and Orendel cried to him for help, and was taken on board, calling himself a shipwrecked fisherman, and, like Ulysses, taking a leafy branch to cover his nakedness. He was put to the fishing by his master Ise, and acquitted himself well. The Gray Coat was found by Ise the fisherman in a whale that they had caught, and was sold to Orendel for 30 pence (provided by the Angel Gabriel). Orendel, later, went off by himself, helped by the fisherman and his wife, and came, after adventures, to the city of the Sepulchre. There the Templars took no notice of him ; one of the citizens called him " Gray Coat," which became his name, and pointed out Bride to him. Orendel was vexed at his want of a horse, but got a horse and shield from a heathen king Mercian. Bride saw him, and sent a messenger to ask him to enter her service. The Templars were jealous, and sent for a giant on an elephant to come and take Orendel's life. Orendel knocked him off his elephant (calling the beast a sea-cow), and thereafter routed twelve kings, and came back into the presence of Bride, who asked him if he was King Ougel's son, her destined lord, but he refused to acknowledge this. Then more heathens and another giant have to be disposed of. The Queen gives Orendel her father King David's sword, and after the battle says she will have no man but Gray Coat. Then came another heathen invasion. The Templars swore to stand by Gray Coat, and forswore themselves after. Bride armed herself, and rode out through the heathen (16,000 of them): this is one of the best passages in the minstrel's story. Bride and Orendel met (1. 2,080, sq.), and he recognised her voice, in the battle. After that, Orendel told her who he was.
