Unfortunately the fragment printed from the Hanover MS. is too short to allow of an exact comparison with that version. We only know[65] that some names, the spelling of which in the «Sowdan» differs from that in the other versions, have the same form in the Hanover MS. as in the «Sowdan». Thus we find the following names agreeing in both versions: «Lucafer», «Maragonde», «Maupyn». Only instead of «Laban» which is used in the «Sowdan», we read «Balan». In the fragment printed by Grœber,[66] we find the name of the Soudan’s son [p-xxxii] with the same spelling as in the «Destruction», «Fier»en«bras», which is nearer to «Fer»um«bras» than «Fier»a«bras».[67] This resemblance of the names contained in the two versions might lead us to believe the Hanover MS. of «Fierabras» to be the original of the second part of the «Sowdan», just as the «Destruction», found in the same MS., is the original of the first part. But as, according to Gaston Paris, the Hanoverian version “is the same as the printed text, differing only in slight variations of readings,”[68] we may suppose it likely that in all passages where the «Sowdan» differs from the printed «Fierabras», it also differs from the Hanover MS. Nevertheless, as the differences between the «Sowdan» and the printed «Fierabras» are, on the whole, not very significant; for the several instances of omission in the «Sowdan», being easily accounted for by the general plan of the poet, cannot be regarded as real variations; and as some names, the spelling of which differs in «S» and «F», are found to be identical in «S» and «H», we might, perhaps, be entitled to think the second part of the «Sowdan» to be founded on a MS. similar to the Hanover one. It still remains for us to compare the «Sowdan» with the Provençal version. In most cases where «S» differs from «F», it also differs from «P», therefore «S» cannot have taken those variations of readings from the Provençal poem. The account of the knights sent on a mission to Laban, in «S» 1663–1738, considerably differs from the corresponding passage in «P» 2211 ss. In «P» the scene of the whole poem is placed in Spain, there is no mention of the combat before Rome,[69] as in the first part of the «Sowdan». The game of blowing a coal, «S» 1996 ss., is not mentioned in the Provençal version. From these variations, taken at random out of a greater number, [p-xxxiii] it becomes evident that the Provençal poem has not been the original of the «Sowdan». If now we compare the «Sowdan» with Caxton’s version, which we know to be simply a translation of the French prose romance of «Fierabras»;[70] the few following instances of differences between «C» and «S» will show at once, that also that version from which the prose romance was copied or compiled[71] cannot have been the original of the «Sowdan».