There all the traiterous men were slaine
Not one escapte away
And there dyed all my vallyant knights
Alas! that woful day!
Two and twenty yeere I ware the crown
In honor and grete fame;
And thus by deth[4] suddenlye
Deprived of the same.


Some distinguished English critics, like Warton and Dr. Warburton,
maintain that the materials as well as the taste for romantic fiction
were derived almost exclusively from the Arabians. They assume therefore
that the traditions, fables and mode of thought in Northern Asia from
whence the Scandinavians and Germans are supposed to have originated,
were identical with those which the secluded people of Arabia afterwards
incorporated into their literature. It is more natural to assume that
there is always a similarity in the mythologies, as in the manners,
religion, and armor of rude ages and races. Respect for woman was a
characteristic of the northern nations of Europe, and not of the
Mohammedans. This is an all pervading element in romantic and chivalric
fiction. The Northmen believed in giants and dwarfs; in wizzards and
fairies; in necromancy and enchantments; as well as the Oriental
natives. It is reasonable, therefore, to assume that the immense tide of
song which inundated Europe from the eleventh to the sixteenth century,
under the form of metrical romances, ballads, and songs, was made up of
confluent streams from classical, Oriental, and Gothic mythologies. The
Troubadours of Province (from Provincia, by way of eminence), the
legitimate successors of the Latin citharcedi, the British bards, the
northern scalds, the Saxon gleemen, and English harpers, all contributed