Synopsis

Sir Cawline falls love with the king's daughter and falls ill from it. She tells him that he must do some great deed to be worthy of her: he must keep watch all night on the Eldritch Hill, and the Eldritch (meaning Elf

Elf

An elf is a being of Germanic mythology. The elves were originally thought of as a race of divine beings endowed with magical powers, which they use both for the benefit and the injury of mankind...

) king has meant that no man has lived through that.

Sir Cawline goes, the king challenges him, and they fight with swords. Sir Cawline strikes him down, and the king's lady pleads for his life. Sir Cawline spares him but brings back his eldritch sword as proof.

In some variants, the king agrees to the marriage at this point.

In others, a giant

Giant (mythology)

The mythology and legends of many different cultures include monsters of human appearance but prodigious size and strength. "Giant" is the English word commonly used for such beings, derived from one of the most famed examples: the gigantes of Greek mythology.In various Indo-European mythologies,...

 demands the princess, and Sir Cawline must fight him, using the eldritch sword. The king agrees to the marriage, but a false steward releases a lion to try to kill him, and Sir Cawline must kill it. Then the marriage is performed, and Sir Cawline and the princess have fifteen sons.

Variants

There are noteworthy parallels between this tale and the romance

Romance (genre)

As a literary genre of high culture, romance or chivalric romance is a style of heroic prose and verse narrative that was popular in the aristocratic circles of High Medieval and Early Modern Europe. They were fantastic stories about marvel-filled adventures, often of a knight errant portrayed as...

, The History of Sir Eger, Sir Graham, and Sir Gray-steel.