Page:Gesta Romanorum - Swan - Wright - 1.djvu/48

xxii imagines "that the scenes and characters of our romantic histories were very generally, though not exclusively, derived from the Bretons, or from the Welsh of this island; that much of the colouring, and perhaps some particular adventures, may be of Scandinavian origin, and that occasional episodes, together with part of the machinery, may have been borrowed from the Arabians ." Which is as much as to say, that each nation contributed something, and very likely they did; but which furnished the greater part, or which originated the whole, is just as obscure as before a "reconciliation" of opinions was projected. This conciliatory system will remind the reader of Boccacio's tale of The Three Rings, "the question of which is yet remaining."

Another supposition attributes the chief source of romantic fiction to classical and