"The lady gently blushing
- With modest grace came on,
And now to trye the wondrous charm
- Courageously is gone.
"'When she had tane the mantle,
- And put it on her backe,
About the hem it seemed
- To wrinkle and to cracke.
"Lye still,' she cryed, 'O mantle!
- And shame me not for naught,
I'll freely own whate'er amiss
- Or blameful I have wrought.
"Once I kist Sir Cradocke
- Beneathe the greenwood tree:
Once I kist Sir Cradocke's mouth
- Before he married me.'
"When thus she had her shriven,
- And her worst fault had told,
The mantle soon became her
- Right comely as it shold.
"Most rich and fair of colour
- Like gold it glittering shone;
And much the knights in
- Arthur's court Admir'd her every one."
I do not hold that this story belongs to Carlisle, but to Caerleon or to Callington.
This last place was one of the three royal cities of Britain, of which Caerleon was the second, says a Welsh triad, and the third I cannot identify. At one of these three Arthur was wont to celebrate the high festivals of Christmas, Easter, and Whitsuntide. Caradoc Freichfras, the Sir Cradock of the ballad, was chieftain in Gelliwig, or the region of which Callington was capital, and Bedwin was the bishop
