specting hearts of Tristan and Iseult, has been treated in many ways by
the different poets and prose writers who have handled it. In many of the
older versions we have lengthy descriptions of stolen interviews,
hairbreadth escapes, and tests of love, truth, and fidelity without number.

In many respects the story is a parallel of that of Lancelot and Guinevere,
although it contains some incidents which are duplicated in the
"Nibelungenlied" only. But throughout, the writers all aver that, owing to
the magic draught, the lovers, however good their intentions, could not
long exist without seeing each other.

By means of this boundless love Tristan is said to have had an intuitive
knowledge of Iseult's peril, for he hastened to rescue her from danger
whenever events took a turn which might prove fatal to her. There are in
some of these old romances pretty descriptions of scenery and of the
signals used by the lovers to communicate with each other when forced by
adverse circumstances to remain apart. One of the poems, for instance, says
that Tristan's love messages were written on chips of wood, which he
floated down the little stream which flowed past his sylvan lodge and
crossed the garden of the queen.

[Sidenote: Meliadus.] The inevitable villain of the tale is one of Mark's
squires, the spy Meliadus, also a very unheroic character, who told the
king of Tristan's love for Iseult. Mark, who all through the story seems
strangely indifferent to his beautiful wife, was not aware of the magic
draught and its powerful effect, but Meliadus roused him temporarily from
his apathy.

[Illustration: ISEULT SIGNALS TRISTAN.--Pixis.]

As the queen had been publicly accused, he compelled her to prove her
innocence by undergoing the ordeal of fire, or by taking a public oath that
she had shown favor to none but him. On her way to the place where this
ceremony was to take place, Iseult was carried across a stream by Tristan
disguised as a beggar, and, at his request, kissed him in reward for this
service.

When called upon to take her oath before the judges and assembled court,
Iseult could truthfully swear that, with the exception of the beggar whom
she had just publicly kissed, no other man than the king could ever boast
of having received any special mark of her favor.

Thus made aware of their danger, the lovers again decided to part, and
Tristan, deprived for a time of the sight of Iseult, went mad, and
performed many extr