eroic
change with changing years, and vary with each individual mind; hence
it often happens that one person sees in a legend only the central
heroism, while another sees only the inartistic details of mediaeval
life which tend to disguise and warp the heroic quality.

It may be that to some people the heroes I have chosen do not seem
heroic, but there is no doubt that to the age and generation which
wrote or sang of them they appeared real heroes, worthy of remembrance
and celebration, and it has been my object to come as close as
possible to the mediaeval mind, with its elementary conceptions of
honour, loyalty, devotion, and duty. I have therefore altered the
tales as little as I could, and have tried to put them as fairly as
possible before modern readers, bearing in mind the altered conditions
of things and of intellects to-day.

In the work of selecting and retelling these stories I have to
acknowledge with most hearty thanks the help and advice of Mr. F. E.
Bumby, B.A., of the University College, Nottingham, who has been
throughout a most kind and candid censor or critic. His help has been
in every way invaluable. I have also to acknowledge the generous
permission given me by Mr. W. B. Yeats to write in prose the story of
his beautiful play, "The Countess Cathleen," and to adorn it with
quotations from that play.

The poetical quotations are attributed to the authors from whose
works they are taken wherever it is possible. When mediaeval passages
occur which are not thus attributed they are my own versions from the
original mediaeval poems.

M. I. EBBUTT

TANGLEWOOD
BARNT GREEN
_July 1910_

CONTENTS

CHAP. PAGE
INTRODUCTION xvii

I. BEOWULF 1

II. THE DREAM OF MAXEN WLEDIG 42

III. THE STORY OF CONSTANTINE AND ELENE 50

IV. THE COMPASSION OF CONSTANTINE 63

V. HAVELOK THE DANE 73

VI. HOWARD THE HALT 95

VII. ROLAND, THE HERO OF EARLY FRANCE 119

VIII. THE COUNTESS CATHLEEN 156

IX. C