The Kindness of Strangers

Today's stories feature impulsive young lovers, separated by misfortune, and reunited by kindly strangers. In the first (5.2), a man rejected by his lover's family turns to piracy to make his fortune, only to be captured and imprisoned in Tunis. His lady, believing him to be dead, attempts suicide, but instead washes up on a foreign shore, and with the help of several people she meets there, is eventually reunited with him. In our second story (5.3), two young idiots elope, take a wrong turn, get lost in the woods, and are reunited at the house of a friend after a harrowing night.

CONTENT WARNINGS: In the first story, unsuccessful suicide attempt (by casting herself out to sea in a tiny boat). In the second story, male character is attacked by a group of soldiers, forced to strip, and is about to be hanged before the soldiers are interrupted. Later, implied fear of sexual assault of a female character by bandits; horse attacked and eaten (fairly graphically) by a pack of wolves.