From a Middle-English poem narrating the events of the Trojan war, we learn that formerly in England, when folk gathered “at mangeres and at grete festes,” they listened gladly after meat to the “fair romance” of Horn, which “gestours” were then wont to recite; and, having this romance before us, we can readily understand the reason of its popularity: it interests us, as it did our forefathers, not only because it tells a tale of an ever-pleasing type, but also because it purports to record native English tradition.

The Chronicle of the Monastery of Hales (in Gloucestershire) occupies the first fifty-six folios of ms. Cotton Cleopatra D. iii, a manuscript written in or soon after the year 1301, with which it originally ended. As is the case with scores of other Latin Chronicles of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, its first part, the “Gesta Britonum,” consists essentially of a condensation of Geoffry of Monmouth's Historia, with a few divergences. It has no notable feature before the reign of Arthur.

On page 459 of the third volume of his Old Northern Runic Monuments, and on page 245 of his Handbook, Stephens gave a cut of an Anglo-Saxon sword found on the Isle of Wight and now in the British Museum, Of this he wrote the following facts and fancies: “Found about the middle of this century in an Old English grave. But the runes were first seen in 1882 by Aug. W. Franks, Esq., the Director. . . . The runes are on the inner side of the silver scabbard-mount, and were only seen lately when the piece was cleaned. Hence their perfect preservation, tho so slightly cut-in. They have been hidden for some 1300 winters! . . . In this case the owner had cut this spell, singing therewith some chaunt of supernatural power, to overcome the easier his unsuspecting enemy. All such witchcraft and amulet-bearing etc. was strictly forbidden. Whatever the staves mean, this is the only such secret rune-risting yet found.” Stephens' rendering is, as usual, quite worthless: “? Awe (terror, death and destruction) to-the-seve (brynie, armor, weapons, of the foe)!”

It has become evident so far that the basis for the different Latin forms of the story of the martyrdom of Saint George known in Western Europe during the Middle Ages was the apocryphal version. There is no evidence whatever of any direct influence of the Greek form of the legend upon the Latin variations. Zarneke in the Ber. ü. d. Verh. d. k. sächs. Ges. d. Wiss. zu Leipzig, 1874, p. 5, had laid down as a criterion for such influence the introduction of Diocletian and Maximian by the side of Datian; and Weber, in Z. f. r. Ph., V, p. 505, accepted this principle, and on the basis of it he made a rough classification of the different forms of the legend known to him. Our investigation, I think, has shown clearly that no historical study of the growth of the legend can be based upon this entirely external feature. The introduction of the name of Diocletian into Zc and the versions deriving from it may be due to some remote influence of the canonical version, but beyond the presence of this name, the texts of this group do not show the slightest influence of the Greek form of the legend. The further addition of Maximian was a simple and natural step, after the story of the martyrdom had been placed in the tenth persecution of the Christians, and can prove nothing. As a matter of fact, the name is found in versions that do not have the remotest connection with each other, such as Me, V, and Zc, d, e, g.