



Produced by Louise Hope, Robert Cicconetti and the Online
Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This
file was produced from images generously made available
by The Internet Archive/Canadian Libraries)






[Transcriber’s Note:

This e-text includes characters that require UTF-8 (Unicode) file
encoding, including:

  ſ  (long “s”)
  Ȝȝ (yogh)
  m̅  (m with over-line; the equivalent “n” form is shown as
      ñ with tilde for better font support)
  ǽ  (æ with accent, only in the Glossary)

There are also a few letters with macron (“long” mark). If any of these
characters do not display properly--in particular, if the diacritic
does not appear directly above the letter--or if the apostrophes and
quotation marks in this paragraph appear as garbage, make sure your text
reader’s “character set” or “file encoding” is set to Unicode (UTF-8).
You may also need to change the default font. As a last resort, use the
Latin-1 version of the file instead.

Unlike most EETS productions, this book was printed with long “s” (ſ).
The editor’s Introduction says:

  We find, in the MS., both the long and the twisted _s_ (ſ and s).
  These have been noted down as they occur, though I do not observe
  any law for their use. The letter “ß” has been adopted as closely
  resembling a symbol in the MS., which apparently has the force of
  double _s_, and is not unlike the “_sz_” used in modern German
  hand-writing.

An italic form of þ (thorn) was apparently not available to the printer.
In the modern parts of this e-text, the letter has been italicized when
context seems to warrant it. In the poem, all italics--representing
expanded contractions or abbreviations--are shown with {braces} as
“se{n}t” or “{and}”. Other italics are shown conventionally with
_lines_. To reduce visual clutter, italics in folio numbers (“1 _b_”)
are unmarked. The change in labeling from “21, 21b” to “22a, 22b”
appears to be accidental.

Large initial letters in the primary texts are marked with leading
double ++ as “++Messire”, “++Maist{er}”. The random variation between
capital and lower-case letters after an initial is as in the original.
Superscripts are shown with ^ alone. Unless otherwise noted, the
superscripting continues to the end of the word.

In the Glossary, ȝ (yogh) is alphabetized as z.

In the printed book, some line numbers were moved or omitted for reasons
of space; they have been silently regularized. Sidenotes giving folio
numbers are shown as printed. Other sidenotes have been moved to the
nearest convenient sentence break or major punctuation. Where practical,
footnotes are grouped together, preferably before headnotes, stanza
breaks (random) or decorative capitals. Headnotes have been moved to
agree with the text, and will generally not coincide with printed page
breaks.

Except for footnotes and similar, all brackets [] are in the original.
Conversely, except for the indented stanzas at ll. 699-719, all blank
lines within the poem were added by the transcriber.]




  The Romans
  of
  Lancelot of the Laik.




  Dublin:       William Mcgee, 18, Nassau Street.
  Edinburgh:    T. G. Stevenson, 22, South Frederick Street.
  Glasgow:      Ogle & Co., 1, Royal Exchange Square.
  Berlin:       Asher & Co., Unter Den Linden, 11.
  Boston, U.S.: Dutton & Co.
  New York:     C. Scribner & Co.; Leypoldt & Holt.
  Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott & Co.




  LANCELOT OF THE LAIK:

  A Scottish Metrical Romance,
  (About 1490-1500 A.D.)

  re-edited
  From a Manuscript in the Cambridge University Library,

  with an
  Introduction, Notes, and Glossarial Index,

  by
  THE REV. W. W. SKEAT, M.A.,

  Late Fellow of Christ’s College, Cambridge;
  and Translator of the Songs and Ballads of Uhland.


  [Second and Revised Edition, 1870.]


  LONDON:
  Published for the Early English Text Society,
  By N. Trübner & Co., 60, Paternoster Row.
 