e or to Celtic sources. They include some of the most
beautiful and original poems of the Middle Ages. Appearing first about
the opening of the twelfth century, later in date than the early
_chansons de geste_, and contemporary with the courtly lyric poetry
of love, they exhibit the chivalric spirit in a refined and graceful
aspect; their marvels are not gross wonders, but often surprises of
beauty; they are bright in colour, and varied in the play of life;
the passions which they interpret, and especially the passion of love,
are felt with an exquisite delicacy and a knowledge of the workings
of the heart. They move lightly in their rhymed or assonanced verse;
even when they passed into the form of prose they retained something
of their charm. Breton harpers wandering through France and England
made Celtic themes known through their _lais_; the fame of King Arthur
was spread abroad by these singers and by the _History_ of Geoffrey
of Monmouth. French poets welcomed the new matter of romance, infused
into it their own chivalric spirit, made it a receptacle for their
ideals of gallantry, courtesy, honour, grace, and added their own
beautiful inventions. With the story of King Arthur was connected
that of the sacred vessel--the graal--in which Joseph of Arimathea
at the cross had received the Saviour's blood. And thus the rude Breton
_lais_ were elevated not only to a chivalric but to a religious
purpose.

The romances of Tristan may certainly be named as of Celtic origin.
About 1150 an Anglo-Norman poet, BEROUL, brought together the
scattered narrative of his adventures in a romance, of which a large
fragment remains. The secret loves of Tristan and Iseut, their
woodland wanderings, their dangers and escapes, are related with fine
imaginative sympathy; but in this version of the tale the fatal
love-philtre operates only for a period of three years; Iseut, with
Tristan's consent, returns to her husband, King Marc; and then a
second passion is born in their hearts, a passion which is the
offspring not of magic but of natural attraction, and at a critical
moment of peril the fragment closes. About twenty years later (1170)
the tale was again sung by an Anglo-Norman named THOMAS. Here--again
in a fragment--we read of Tristan's marriage, a marriage only in name,
to the white-handed Iseut of Brittany, his fidelity of heart to his
one first love, his mortal wound and deep desire to see the Queen
of Cornwall, the device of the