The story of Guingamor evidently represents a very favourite class of tales; setting aside the numerous parallels cited by Dr. Schofield in his study of the lay (_The Lay of Guingamor_, "Harvard Studies and Notes in Philology and Literature," vol. v.), we have among the French translations of Breton lays which have descended to us no fewer than three which closely correspond in subject and treatment, the lays of _Guingamor_, _Graalent_, and _Lanval_. In each of these the hero is tempted by a queen; rejects her proffered love; wins a fairy bride, and departs to dwell with her in her own land. Guingamor and Graalent agree in the circumstances under which the knight meets the fairy maiden (a feature in which Dr. Schofield sees the influence of the _Wayland_ story--_cf._ _The Lays of Graalent and Lanval, and the Story of Wayland_, W. H. Schofield); while Lanval and Graalent agree in the subsequent development of the story. Of the three, Guingamor is distinctly the most tragic. The knight who after two days spent in the delights of love and the festivities of the wondrous palace returns on the third day to his own land to find that kinsmen and friends have passed away, and his own name and fate but a folk-tale centuries old, is a really pathetic figure. We need not wonder that the story was a popular one; not only does Chrétien de Troyes in the quotation prefixed to my translation mention it, but it is again referred to as a well-known tale by Gautier de Doulens, one of the continuators of Chrétien's unfinished _Conte del Graal_. The knight who is coupled with Guingamor in our extract, _Graislemiers de Fine Posterne_, is by Prof. Foerster and other scholars identified with _Graalent mor_, and it seems probable that it was the close resemblance between their stories, noted above, which led the French poet to represent them as brothers. PAGE 6.--_He knew how to promise and how to give._ "Bien sot promestre et bien doner." This should be compared with Wace's description of Gawain, "plus volt faire que il ne dist, Et plus doner qu'il ne promist." It is impossible not to feel that Arthur's gallant nephew, who had a fairy for his love, and who according to Chaucer found his final home in fairy-land, stands in very close connection with these heroes of the earlier stratum of Arthurian legend. PAGE 18.--_Taking her robes set them high in the fork of a great oak._ This apparently unknightly proceeding on the part of the hero was doubtless originally connected with the supernatural character of the lady, and seems to have taken its rise in a confusion between a fay and a swan-maiden. As we know from Northern tradition (Brynhild's _Hell-reid_ and the _Wieland-saga_) to steal the "swan-shift" of such a maiden was the recognised means of effecting her capture. This has been well discussed by Dr. Schofield in the study quoted above. PAGE 22.--_I charge thee--that thou neither eat nor drink._