Among the original Sagas there are some that show the beginning of the process by which the substance was eliminated, and the romantic _eidolon_ left to walk about by itself. The introductions of many of the older Sagas, of _Gisli_ and _Grettir_ for example, giving the adventures of the hero's ancestors, are made up in this way; and the best Sagas have many conventional passages--Viking exploits, discomfiture of berserkers, etc.--which the reader learns to take for granted, like the tournaments in the French books, and which have no more effect than simple adjectives to say that the hero is brave or strong. Besides these stock incidents, there are ethical passages (as has already been seen) in which the hero is in some danger of turning into a figure of romance. Grettir, Gisli, Kjartan, Gunnlaug the Wormtongue, Gunnar of Lithend, are all in some degree and at some point or other in danger of romantic exaggeration, while Kari has to thank his humorous squire, more than anything in himself, for his preservation. Also in the original Sagas there are conventions of the main plot, as well as of the episodes, such as are repeated with more deliberation and less skill in the romantic Sagas. The love-adventures of Viglund are like those of Frithiof, and they have a common likeness, except in their conclusion, to the adventures of Kormak and Steingerd in _Kormaks Saga_. Kormak was too rude and natural for romance, and the romancers had to make their heroes better-looking, and to provide a happy ending. But the story of the poet's unfortunate love had become a commonplace. The plot of _Laxdæla_, the story of the _Lovers of Gudrun_, which is the Volsung story born again, became a commonplace of the same sort. It certainly had a good right to the favour it received. The plot of _Laxdæla_ is repeated in the story of Gunnlaug and Helga, even to a repetition of the course of events by which Kjartan is defrauded. The true lover is left in Norway and comes back too late; the second lover, the dull, persistent man, contrasted with a more brilliant but less single-minded hero, keeps to his wooing and spreads false reports, and wins his bride without her goodwill. Compared with the story of Kjartan and Gudrun, the story of Gunnlaug and Helga is shallow and sentimental; the likeness to _Frithiof_ is considerable. The device of a false report, in order to carry off the bride of a man absent in Norway, is used again in the story of _Thorstein the White_, where the result is more summary and more in accordance with poetical justice than in _Laxdæla_ or _Gunnlaug_. This is one of the best of the Icelandic short stories, firmly drawn, with plenty of life and variety in it. It is only in its use of what seems like a stock device for producing agony that it resembles the more pretentious romantic Sagas.