As he is still weak from his wounds, his friend Sir Grime or Graham takes his armour and sets out, bidding farewell to Winglaine.
[8] She took the title deeds of both knights' lands as a pledge for the sword, with a warning that it should never come into a coward's hands, saying:"There was no fault with Egeking,but for want of grace and governinge,may loose a kingdom and a king.
In a final episode sometimes suggested to be a late addition, Eger joins the crusades, and on his return marries Lillias.
[12] Edith Rickert who published a popular translation of the tale has also stated that "The Story of Gray-Steel, fundamentally Teutonic, but with perhaps some Celtic admixture.
Van Duzee (who draws parallels from romances of the Arthurian cycle, the Lais of Marie de France, etc.)
[15] Caldwell (the editor of the parallel text edition) said the plot was taken from a Celtic variant of the widespread Die Zwei Brüder type story, that is, it was a cognate of "The Two Brothers" from the Grimms' Fairy Tales).
Other tales with this association are Lay of the Thorn (Le lai de l'espine), where a thorn tree grows at the ford where the hero combats, the Arthurian tale Diu Crône where Gasozein guards the ford of the Blackthorn, and Van Duzee has many more Celtic and Arthurian examples to offer.
So another Celtic tale that Van Duzee uses as a parallel is the combat at the ford that the human Pwyll, prince of Dyfed takes up with his Otherworldly adversary Hafgan in the Mabinogi.
Compare the horse with two red ears, ridden by the knight of the Ford of the Thorn in the aforementioned lai de l'Espine.
One of the fays is the mistress of Urbain, the son of the Queen of Blackthorn, whom Perceval defeats at the Ford Perilous in the Didot-Perceval.
"Gray Steil" was sung by "twa fithelaris [two fiddlers]" to James IV at Lecropt on 17 April 1498 who were paid 9 shillings for their performance.
When Lindsay mentions the poem in his 1552 prologue, the Auld Man and Wife in the Cupar Banns, he has the boasting soldier Fynlaw place the Forbidden Country, which was bounded by sea and river, near Bo'ness;This is the sword that slew GreysteillNocht half a myle beyond Kinneil.