ABSTRACT
This amusing romance, written about 1450 at the end of the Middle Ages, treats the Loathly Lady theme that medieval readers know well from Geoffrey Chaucer's Wife of Bath's Tale. In essence, this familiar folklore motif concerns the transformation of an ugly hag into a beautiful woman after a man has placed himself under her "sovereynte" (sovereignty, power). To this is added the theme of A Riddle Asked and Answered; both here and in Chaucer, the riddle asks what women most desire. In both cases, the answer is that very same sovereignty that transforms the harridan into a lady of beauty and grace. In Chaucer, the tale is didactic, enforcing the Wife of Bath's own selfish desires and dreams of wish fulfillment; here, without the Wife as a narrator, the tale has a whimsical charm that makes it one of the most delightful of Middle English romances.
