Series) speaks of the knight in somewhat similar terms as "the fine
father of courtesy." Gawain was from the first the adventurous hero,
_par excellence_ of the cycle, but I know no other instance in which
this characteristic is so quaintly and forcibly expressed.

5. PAGE 28.--_In secret case_. The original words are "in hemeliker
stede." To which particular adventure of Lancelot this refers it is not
easy to decide; on more than one occasion he disappears from court, and
the knights headed by Gawain, ride in quest of him. Perhaps this refers
to his imprisonment by Morgain le Fay (_cf_. summary of _D.L._ in
_Legend of Sir Lancelot du Lac_. Grimm's Library XII. pp. 236-7).

6. PAGE 35.--_Sir Agloval, he is my father._ This should be compared
with the account of Gamuret's wooing and desertion of the Moorish queen,
Belakane, in Book I. of the _Parzival_; also with the meeting of the
unknown brothers in Book XV. of the same poem. It is perhaps worth
noticing as indicative of the source of the tradition that Wolfram
distinctly states that his Moor speaks in _French_.

7. PAGE 67,--_The slain and the slayer_. The belief that the blood of
a corpse would flow afresh, did the murderer approach it, was very
prevalent in the middle ages. In Chretien de Troyes' _Chevalier au lion_
(ll. 1177 et seq.) we find a similar situation, complicated by the fact
that Yvain (the slayer) protected by a magic ring is invisible to the
bystanders. The best known instance, however, is probably that of the
_Nibelungenlied_ where Kriemhild's suspicions that Hagen is Siegfred's
murderer are in this manner verified.

8. PAGE 91.--_I have no call to flee, nor to fear death_. This is
evidently the hermit whom Lancelot in the _Queste_ finds dead under