Father and son fight together unwittingly in "The Lay of Milon";
but Rustum had striven with Sohrab long before in far Persia, and
Cuchulain with his child in Ireland. Such stories are common property.
The writer takes his own where he finds it. Marie is none the less
admirable because her stories were narrated by the first man in Eden;
neither are Boccaccio and the Countess D'Aulnoy blameworthy since they
told again what she already had related so well. Marie, indeed, was an
admirable narrator. That was one of her shining virtues. As a piece of
artful tale telling, a specimen of the craft of keeping a situation in
suspense, the arrival of the lady before Arthur's Court, in "The Lay
of Sir Launfal," requires a deal of beating. The justness and fineness
of her sentiment in all that concerns the delicacies of the human
heart are also remarkable. But her true business was that of the
storyteller. In that trade she was almost unapproachable in her day.
There may have been--indeed, there was--a more considerable poet
living; but a more excellent writer of romances, than the author of
"Eliduc," it would have been difficult to find.

The ladies who found the "Lays" of Marie after their own hearts
were not only admirers of beautiful stories; they had the delicate
privilege also of admiring themselves in their habit as they
lived--perhaps even lovelier than in reality--amidst their accustomed
surroundings. The pleasure of a modern reader in such tales as these
is enhanced by the light they throw on the household arrangements and
customs of the gentlefolk of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. It
may be of interest to consider some of these domestic arrangements, as
illustrated by stories included in the present volume.

The corporate life of a mediaeval household centered in the hall. It
was office and dining and billiard room, and was common to gentle and