popular of all perhaps, on the principle that in novels the flock "likes
the savour of fresh grass," seem to have been the pure _romans
d'aventures_--quite unconnected or nearly so with each other or with any
of the larger cycles. Those adventures of particular heroes have
sometimes a sort of Arthurian link, but they really have no more to do
with the main Arthurian story than if Arthur were not.

For the present purpose, however, filiation, origin, and such-like
things are of much less importance than the actual stories that get
themselves told to satisfy that demand which in due time is to produce
the supply of the novel. Of these the two oldest, as regards the actual
forms in which we have them, are capital examples of the more and less
original handling of "common-form" stories or motives. They were not
then, be it remembered, quite such common-form as now--the rightful heir
kept out of his rights, the usurper of them, the princess gracious or
scornful or both by turns, the quest, the adventure, the revolutions and
discoveries and fights, the wedding bells and the poetical justice on
the villain. Let it be remembered, too, if anybody is scornful of these
as _vieux jeu_, that they have never been really improved upon except by
the very obvious and unoriginal method common in clever-silly days, of
simply reversing some of them, of "turning platitudes topsy-turvy," as
not the least gifted, or most old-fashioned, of novelists, Tourguenief,
has it. Perhaps the oldest of all, _Havelok the Dane_--a story the age
of which from evidence both internal and external, is so great that
people have not quite gratuitously imagined a still older Danish or even
Anglo-Saxon original for the French romance from which our existing one
is undoubtedly taken--is one of the most spirited of all. Both hero and
heroine--Havelok, who should be King of Denmark and Goldborough, who
should be Queen of England--are ousted by their treacherous
guardian-viceroys as infants; and Havelok is doomed to drowning by his