There can, I think, be little doubt that whoever was responsible for the _Geste of Syr Gawayne_, and whether Bleheris, whose name is more than once connected with it, composed, or merely arranged, the poems, they represent a tradition of great poetical force and vitality. The adventure with the sister of Bran de Lis is an admirable story, picturesque, vivid, and full of human interest. Our _Syr Gawayne and the Grene Knyghte_ is notoriously one of the finest of our Mediæval poems. The visit of Sir Gawain to the Grail castle, related in our last volume, yields in dramatic detail and picturesque directness of narration to no other version of that mysterious story. We can well understand that, in its original form, the collection must have been one that appealed forcibly to the imagination of the hearers. If any one will glance through these stories consecutively, he cannot fail to realise that the character of the hero is the same throughout. Gawain is unfailingly valiant, generous, and courteous, even, as we see in our final story, to excess. We realise as we read that, as Professor Maynadier, in his _Wife of Bath's Tale_, has well pointed out, it is in truth Gawain and not Arthur who was the typical English hero. Is it too much to ask of the students of Malory, fascinated by the noble style in which he has clothed and disguised the real poverty of his _réchauffée_, that they should for a short time lay him aside, and turning back to the true Arthurian legend, learn at last to do justice to one of the most gracious and picturesque figures in literature--a figure to which gross injustice has been done--that, rejecting Malory's libel, they do tardy justice to our own insular hero--for not the most fanatical partisan of the Continental school has ever ventured to claim him--to the true Sir Gawain? Then, perhaps, we may have a demand for his real story, and it may be possible once more to rejoice the hearts of our English folk with a restored and modern rendering of the _Geste of Syr Gawayne_, even as Bleheris told it well nigh a thousand years ago. If that day ever come neither author nor hero will need any apology on the part of the translator! Paris, _February 1907_. Sir Gawain and the Lady of Lys Hearken to me and ye shall hear how the good King Arthur and his knights went forth to the wood for archery, and how at vesper-tide they gat them homeward right joyfully. The knights rode gaily ahead, holding converse the one with the other, and behind them came the king, on a tall and prancing steed. He ware no robe of state, but a short coat, which became him right well.