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 mediæval passages occur which are not thus attributed they are my own versions from the original mediæval 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. CUCHULAIN, THE CHAMPION OF IRELAND 184 X. THE TALE OF GAMELYN 204 XI. WILLIAM OF CLOUDESLEE 225 XII. BLACK COLIN OF LOCH AWE 248 XIII. THE MARRIAGE OF SIR GAWAYNE 265 XIV. KING HORN 286 XV. ROBIN HOOD 314 XVI. HEREWARD THE WAKE 334 GLOSSARY AND INDEX 353 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS PAGE Robin Hood and the Black Monk (_William Sewell_) _Frontispiece_ _To face page_ "The demon of evil, with his fierce ravening, greedily grasped them" (_J. H. F. Bacon, A.R.A._) 4 Beowulf replies haughtily to Hunferth (_J. H. F. Bacon, A.R.A._) 12 Beowulf finds the head of Aschere (_J. H. F. Bacon, A.R.A._) 22 Beowulf shears off the head of Grendel (_J. H. F. Bacon, A.R.A._) 26