interest for us, in that we have in our English Gawayne and Golagros another version of the same tales. Sir Frederick Madden, in his Syr Gawayne, drew attention to this, and gave a brief summary of the French text. It seemed to me that the interest of the story itself, and its connection with our vernacular literature, were sufficient to warrant a full translation being placed at the disposal of English readers. For indeed the interest of these stories is great, and if I be not mistaken, their importance as yet scarcely realised. Since the publication of the last volume of this series we have become aware of certain facts, small in themselves, but weighty in their connection and ensemble, which go to prove that there existed at an early date a collection of poems dealing with the feats of Gawain and his kin, which may be styled The Geste of Syr Gawayne, the authorship of which was ascribed to a certain Bleheris. Of this collection the story in vol. i., Sir Gawain and the Green Knight; the first visit of Sir Gawain to the Grail castle, in vol. vi.; and the stories here given all formed part, while our English Gawain poems are a late and fragmentary survival of the same collection.
