converted by his first victory. The course
of the adventures is, however, different from that which some people
know from Malory, and many from Tennyson. One of them is farcical: the
Fair Unknown rescues a damsel at her utmost need from two giants, a red
and a black, one of whom is roasting a wild boar and uses the animal as
a weapon, with the spit in it, for the combat. Moreover, he falls a
victim to the wiles of a sorceress-chatelaine whom he has also
succoured: and it is only after the year and day that Elene goads him on
to his proper quest. But this also is no bad story.

The limits of this volume admit of not much farther "argument" (though
the writer would very gladly give it) of these minor romances of
adventure, Arthurian and other. Ellis's easily accessible book supplies
abstracts of the main Arthurian story before Malory; of the two most
famous, though by no means best, of all the non-Arthurian romances, _Guy
of Warwick_ and _Bevis of Hampton_ (the former of which was handled and
rehandled from age to age, moralised, curtailed, lengthened, and hashed
up in every form); of the brilliant and vigorous _Richard
Coeur-de-Lion_; of the less racy Charlemagne romances in English; of the
_Seven Wise Masters_, brought from the East and naturalised all over
Europe; of the delightful love story of _Florice and Blancheflour_; of
that powerful and pathetic legend of the _Proud King_ (Robert of
Sicily), which Longfellow and Mr. William Morris both modernised, each
in his way; of those other legends, _Sir Isumbras_ and _Amis and
Amillion_, which are so beautiful to those who can appreciate the
mediaeval mind, and to the beauty of which others seem insensible; of
_Sir Triamond_ and _Sir Eglamour_ (examples of the romance at its
weakest); of the exceedingly spirited and interesting _Ipomydon_, and of
some others, including the best of Scotch romances, _Sir Eger, Sir
Grame, and Sir Graysteel_. But Ellis could not know others, and he left
alone yet others that he might have known--the exquisite _Sir Launfal_
of Thomas Chester at the beginning of the fifteenth century, where an
unworthy presentment of Guinevere is compensated by the gracious image
of Launfal's fairy love; the lively adventures of _William of Palerne_,
who had a werewolf for his friend and an emperor's daughter for his
love, eloping with her in white bear-skins, the unusual meat of which
was being cooked in her father's kitchen; _Sir Orfeo_--Orpheus and
Eurydice,