is long repose, will
one day return to the world of men and right the great wrongs which
afflict humanity.

FOOTNOTES:

[54] _The Flourishing of Romance and the Rise of Allegory_, p. 135.

[55] No matter.

[56] _I.e._ had the best knowledge of medicine. _Couthe_, from A.S.
_cunnan_ to know.

[57] Swinburne, _Tristram of Lyonesse_.

[58] This incident is common in Celtic romance, and seems to have been
widely used in nearly all medieval literatures.

[59] See Rev. Sir G. W. Cox, _Introduction to Mythology_, p. 326 ff.

[60] See Zimmer, _Zeitschrift fuer Franzoesische Sprache und Literatur_,
xii, pp. 106 ff.

CHAPTER XI: THE BRETON LAYS OF MARIE DE FRANCE

The wonderful _Lais_ of Marie de France must ever hold a deep interest
for all students of Breton lore, for though cast in the literary mould
of Norman-French and breathing the spirit of Norman chivalry those of
them which deal with Brittany (as do most of them) exhibit such
evident marks of having been drawn from native Breton sources that we
may regard them as among the most valuable documents extant for the
study and consideration of Armorican story.

Of the personal history of Marie de France very little is known. The
date and place of her birth are still matters for conjecture, and
until comparatively recent times literary antiquaries were doubtful
even as to which century she flourished in. In the epilogue to her
_Fables_ she states that she is a native of the Ile-de-France, but
despite this she is believed to have been of Norman origin, and also
to have lived the greater part of her life in England. Her work, which
holds few suggestions of Anglo-Norman forms of thought or expression,
was written in a literary dialect that in all likelihood was widely
estranged from the common Norman tongue, and from this (though the
manuscripts in which they are preserved are dated later) we may judge
her poems to have been composed in the second half of the twelfth
century. The prologue of her _Lais_ contains a dedication to some
unnamed king, and her _Fables_ are inscribed to a certain Count
William, circumstances which are held by some to prove that she was of
noble origin and not merely a _trouvere_ from necessity.

Until M. Gaston Paris decided that this mysterious king was Henry II
of England, and that the 'Count William' was Longsword, Earl of
Salisbury, Henry's natural son by the 'Fair Rosamond,' the mysterious