[1] The lai is contained one existing manuscript: Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale de France, nouv.
All the men in the land try to woo her, but she refuses unless her suitor can travel from Southampton to Edinburgh in the span of one day.
One day, a noble knight named Doon from France attempts to win the hand of the lady.
With his great horse Baiart, Doon makes it from Southampton to Edinburgh and is invited into the woman's castle.
Rather than laying down, however, Doon stays up all night, realizing that he risks death by sleeping in the bed prepared for him.
When the servants find him alive the next morning, they all rejoice; but the lady procrastinates by giving Doon a second quest.
The father-son motif, including the tournament at the Mont Saint-Michel, bears a striking resemblance to Marie de France's lai "Milun".
The motif of a test to determine a worthy suitor can be found in another of Marie's lais, "Les Deux Amants" as well as in the anonymous "Tyolet".
Doon is the forefather of a line of heroes who generally oppose Charlemagne, and gives his name to one of the three major cycles of Carolingian chansons de geste.