average in interest. _Ywain and Gawain_, one of the former, is derived
directly or indirectly from the _Chevalier au Lyon_ of Chrestien de
Troyes; and both present some remarkable affinities with the unknown
original of the "Sir Beaumains" episode of Malory, and, through it, with
Tennyson's _Gareth and Lynette_. The other, _Lybius Disconus (Le Beau
Déconnu)_ is also concerned with that courteous nephew of Arthur who, in
later versions of the main story, is somewhat sacrificed to Lancelot.
For a "_real_ romance," as it calls itself (though it is fair to say
that in the original the word means "royal"), of the simpler kind but
extremely well told, there are not many better metrical specimens than
_Ywain and Gawain_, but it has less character-interest, actual or
possible, than those which have been commented on. The hero, King
Urien's son, accepts an adventure in which another knight of the Table,
Sir Colgrevance, has fared ill, after it has been told in a conversation
at court which is joined in first by the Queen and afterwards by the
King. Sir Kay here shows his usual cross-grainedness; and Guinevere
"with milde mood" requests to know "What the devil is thee within?" The
adventure is of a class well known in romance. You ride to a certain
fountain, pour water from it on a stone, and then, after divers marvels,
have to do battle with a redoubtable knight. Colgrevance has fared
badly; Kay is as usual quite sure that he would fare better; but Ywain
actually undertakes the task. He has a tough battle with the knight who
answers the challenge, but wounds him mortally; and when the knight
flies to his neighbouring castle, is so hard on his heels that the
portcullis actually drops on his horse's haunches just behind the
saddle, and cuts the beast in two. Ywain is thus left between the
portcullis and the (by this time shut) door--a position all the more
awkward that the knight himself expires immediately after he has reached
shelter. The situation is saved, however, by the guardian damsel of
romance, Lunet (the Linet or Lynette of the Beaumains-Gareth story), who