lant minstrel-knight.

Swiche lovers als thei
Never schal be moe.

And so they take their place with Hero and Leander, with Abelard and
Heloise, with Romeo and Juliet.

It would be unfitting here to tell how mythology has claimed the story
of Tristrem and Ysonde and has attempted to show in what manner the
circumstances of their lives and adventures have been adapted to the
old world-wide myth of the progress of the sun from dawn to
darkness.[59] The evidence seems very complete, and the theory is
probably well founded. The circumstances of the great epic of the
sun-god fits most hero-tales. And it is well to recollect that even if
romance-makers seized upon the plot of the old myth they did so
unconscious of its mythic significance, and probably because it may
have been employed in the heroic literature of "Rome la grant."

_The Giant of Mont-Saint-Michel_

It was when he arrived in Brittany to ward off the projected invasion
of England by the Roman Emperor Lucius that King Arthur encountered
and slew a giant of "marvellous bigness" at St Michael's Mount, near
Pontorson. This monster, who had come from Spain, had made his lair on
the summit of the rocky island, whither he had carried off the Lady
Helena, niece of Duke Hoel of Brittany. Many were the knights who
surrounded the giant's fastness, but none might come at him, for when
they attacked him he would sink their ships by hurling mighty boulders
upon them, while those who succeeded in swimming to the island were
slain by him ere they could get a proper footing. But Arthur,
undismayed by what he had heard, waited until nightfall; then, when
all were asleep, with Kay the seneschal and Bedivere the butler, he
started on his way to the Mount.

As the three approached the rugged height they beheld a fire blazing
brightly on its summit, and saw also that upon a lesser eminence in
the sea some distance away a smaller fire was burning. Bedivere was
dispatched in a boat to discover who had lit the fire on the smaller
island. Having landed there, he found an old woman lamenting loudly.

"Good mother," said he, "wherefore do you mourn? What has befallen you
in this place that you weep so sorely?"

"Ah, young sir," replied the dame, drying her tears, "get thee back
from this place, I beseech thee, for as thou livest the monster who
inhabits yonder mount will rend thee limb from limb and sup on thy
flesh. But yesterday I was the nurse of the fair Helena, niece t