lish. The love of
extraordinary adventures, and of the books that tell of them, had crept
little by little into the hearts of these islanders, now reconciled to
their masters, and led by them all over the world. The minstrels or
wandering poets of English tongue are many in number; no feast is
complete without their music and their songs; they are welcomed in the
castle halls, they can now, with as bold a voice as their French
brethren, bespeak a cup of ale, sure not to be refused:

At the beginning of ure tale,
Fil me a cuppe of ful god ale,
And y wile drinken her y spelle
That Crist us shilde all fro helle![356]

They stop also on the public places, where the common people flock to
hear of Charlemagne and Roland[357]; they even get into the cloister. In
the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, nearly all the stories of the
heroes of Troy, Rome, France, and Britain are put into verse:

For hem that knowe no Frensche | ne never underston.[358]

"Men like," writes shortly after 1300, the author of the "Cursor Mundi":

Men lykyn jestis for to here
And romans rede in divers manere
Of Alexandre the conqueroure,
Of Julius Cesar the emperoure,
Of Grece and Troy the strong stryf
There many a man lost his lyf,
Of Brute that baron bold of hond,
The first conqueroure of Englond,
Of Kyng Artour....
How Kyng Charlis and Rowlond fawght
With Sarzyns nold they be cawght,
Of Trystrem and Isoude the swete,
How they with love first gan mete ...
Stories of diverce thynggis,
Of pryncis, prelatis and of kynggis,
Many songgis of divers ryme,
As English Frensh and Latyne.[359]

Some very few Germanic or Saxon traditions, such as the story of
Havelok, a Dane who ended by reigning in England, or that of Horn and
Rymenhild,[360] his betrothed, had been adopted by the French poets.
They were taken from them again by the English minstrels, who, however,
left these old heroes their French dress: had they not followed the
fashion, no one would have cared for their work. Goldborough or
Argentille, the heroine of the romance of Havelok, was originally a
Valkyria; now, under her French disguise, she is scarcely recognisable,
but she is liked as she is.[361]

Some English heroes of a more recent period find also a place in this
poetic pantheon, thanks again to French minstrels, who make them
fashionable by versifying about them. In this manner were wr