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MARRIAGE OF SIR GATVAINE. 29
other half contained nearly the same number of stanzas." The story may be seen, unmutilated and in an older form, in Madden's Syr Gawayne, p. 298, The Weddynge of Syr Gawen and Dame Ragnell.
The transformation on which the story turns is found also in Chaucer's Wife of Bath's Tale, in Gow-er's tale of Florent and the King of Sicily's Daughter; (Confessio Amantis, Book I.) in the ballad of King Henry (page 147 of this volume) ; and in an Icelandic saga of the Danish king Helgius, quoted by Scott in his illustrations to King Henry, Minstrelsy, iii. 274.
Voltaire has employed the same idea in his Ce qui plait aux Dames, but whence he borrowed it we are unable to say.
Worked over by some ballad-monger of the sixteenth century, and of course reduced to dish-water, this tale has found its way into The Crown Garland of Golden Roses, Part I. p. 68 (Percy Society, vol. vi.), Of a Knight and a Faire Virgin. |
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Kinge Arthur Hues in merry Carleile, And seemely is to see ;
And there he hath with him Queene Genever, That bride so bright of blee.
And there he hath with him Queene Genever, That bride soe bright in bower; «
And all his barons about him stoode, That were both stiffe and stowre. |
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