Nouvelles franÇaises en prose du xiii iÈme siecle, par MM. L. Moland et C. D’Hericault. (Paris: Janet, 1856.) I have given a version of it in my English Fairy Tales, and there is a ballad on the subject entitled The Cruel Knight. See Clouston, Book of Sindibad, p. 279. Figured in M. Ulysse Robert, Signes d’infamie au moyen Âge, Paris, 1891. Lovers of Stevenson will remember the effective use made of this in The Black Arrow. It has been suggested that the names of our heroes have given rise to the proverbial saying: “A miss (Amis) is as good as a mile (Amile),” but notwithstanding the high authority from which the suggestion emanates, it is little more than a pun. For occurrences of this incident in sagas, etc., see Grimm, Deutsche RechtsalterthÜmer, 168–70; in folk-tales, Dasent, Tales from the Norse, cxxxiv.–v., n. xviii Mr. Hartland has studied the “Lifetoken” in the eighth chapter of his elaborate treatise on the Legend of Perseus. |
|