“Cascun se mir el jove Manuel, Qu’era del mom lo plus valens dels pros.”...

To six most gallant champions is dedicated this history of a champion: less to repay than to acknowledge large debts to each of them, collectively at outset, as hereafter seriatim....

My Dear Lewis: To you (whom I take to be as familiar with the Manuelian cycle of romance as is any person now alive) it has for some while appeared, I know, a not uncurious circumstance that in the Ke...

My Dear Lewis: To you (whom I take to be as familiar with the Manuelian cycle of romance as is any person now alive) it has for some while appeared, I know, a not uncurious circumstance that in the Ke...

No schoolboy (and far less the scholastic chronicler of those last final upshots for whose furtherance “Hannibal invaded Rome and Erasmus wrote in Oxford cloisters”) needs nowadays to be told that the...

Between the two main epic cycles of Poictesme, as embodied in Les Gestes de Manuel and La Haulte Histoire de Jurgen, more or less comparison is inevitable. And Codman, I believe, has put the gist of t...

To Wilson Follett. “Then answered the Magician dredefully: Manuel, Manuel, now I shall shewe unto thee many bokes of Nygromancy, and howe thou shalt cum by it lyghtly and knowe the practyse therein. A...

They of Poictesme narrate that in the old days when miracles were as common as fruit pies, young Manuel was a swineherd, living modestly in attendance upon the miller’s pigs. They tell also that Manue...

The first thing of all that Manuel did, was to fill a knapsack with simple and nutritious food, and then he went to the gray mountain called Vraidex, upon the remote and cloud-wrapped summit of which ...

Now it was evening, and the two sought shelter in a queer windmill by the roadside, finding there a small wrinkled old man in a patched coat. He gave them lodgings for the night, and honest bread and ...

So Manuel and Niafer came unhurt to the top of the gray mountain called Vraidex, and to the doubtful palace of Miramon Lluagor. Gongs, slowly struck, were sounding as if in languid dispute among thems...

Manuel and Niafer came down from Vraidex without hindrance. There was no happier nor more devoted lover anywhere than young Manuel. “For we will be married out of hand, dear snip,” he says, “and you w...

What forthwith happened at the pool of Haranton is not nicely adapted to exact description, but it was sufficiently curious to give Manuel’s thoughts a new turn, although it did not seem, even so, to ...

So did it come about that as King Helmas rode a-hunting in Nevet under the Hunter’s Moon he came upon a gigantic and florid young fellow, who was very decently clad in black, and had a queer droop to ...

Now Manuel takes ship across the fretful Bay of Biscay, traveling always toward Provence and Alianora, whom people called the Unattainable Princess. Oriander the Swimmer followed this ship, they say, ...

In such estate it was that Count Manuel came, on Christmas morning, just two days after Manuel was twenty-one, into Provence. This land, reputed sorcerous, in no way displayed to him any unusual featu...

To Louis Untermeyer. “Often tymes herde Manuel tell of the fayrness of this Queene of Furies and Gobblins and Hydraes, insomuch that he was enamoured of hyr, though he neuer sawe hyr: then by this Con...

They of Poictesme narrate that after dinner King Raymond sent messengers to his wife, who was spending that Christmas with their daughter, Queen Meregrett of France, to bid Dame Beatrice return as soo...

Now the tale tells how, to humor Alianora, Count Manuel applied himself to the magic of the Apsarasas. He went with the Princess to a high secret place, and Alianora, crying sweetly, in the famous old...

Then came from oversea the Bishops of Ely and Lincoln, the prior of Hurle, and the Master of the Temple, asking that King Raymond send one of his daughters, with a suitable dowry, to be the King of En...

Now the Count of Poictesme departs from Provence, with his lackeys carrying his images, and early in April he comes to Helmas the Deep-Minded. The wise King was then playing with his small daughter Mé...

So by the light of the seven candles Dom Manuel first saw Queen Freydis in her own shape, and in the appearance which she wore in her own country. What Manuel thought there was never any telling: but ...

They came out of the enclosure, to the old altar of Vel-Tyno, while the moon was still void and powerless. The servitors of Freydis were thronging swiftly toward Upper Morven, after a pleasant hour of...

To H. L. Mencken. “Consider, faire Miserie, (quoth Manuel) that it lyes not in mans power to place his loue where he list, being the worke of an high Deity. A Birde was neuer seen in Pontus, nor true ...

They of Poictesme narrate how Queen Freydis and Count Manuel lived together amicably upon Upper Morven. They tell also how the iniquitous usurper, Duke Asmund, at this time held Bellegarde close at ha...

It was presently noised abroad that Queen Freydis of Audela had become a human woman; and thereafter certain enchanters came to Upper Morven, to seek her counsel and her favor and the aid of Schamir. ...

“But I cannot understand,” said Freydis, on a fine day in September, “how it is that, now the power of Schamir is in your control, and you have the secret of giving life to your images, you do not car...

When Manuel had reached the outskirts of the forest he encountered there a knight in vermilion armor, with a woman’s sleeve wreathed about his helmet: and, first of all, this knight demanded who was M...

In the morning, after doing the head’s extraordinary bidding, Manuel went to feed his horse, and found tethered to the holm-oak the steed’s skeleton picked clean. “I grieve at this,” said Manuel, “but...

So Count Manuel’s youth went out of him as he became more and more intimate with Misery, and an attachment sprang up between them, and the two took counsel as to all Manuel’s affairs. They often talke...

Now the tale tells how Dom Manuel sat at the feet of the image and played upon a flageolet. There was wizardry in the music, Dom Manuel said afterward, for he declared that it evoked in him a vision a...

Now the tale tells that all this while, near the gray hut in Dun Vlechlan, the earthen image of Niafer lay drying out in the November sun; and that gray Dom Manuel⁠—no longer the florid boy who had co...

So Manuel put on his armor, and with Manuel telling as much as he thought wise of the adventures which he had encountered while Niafer was dead, they left this peculiarly irrational part of the forest...

To Hugh Walpole. “Soe Manuel made all the Goddes that we call mamettes and ydolles, that were sett ouer the Subiection of his lyfe tyme: and euery of the goddes that Manuel wolde carue toilesomelie ha...

They of Poictesme narrate how Manuel and Niafer traveled east a little way and then turned toward the warm South; and how they found a priest to marry them, and how Manuel confiscated two horses. They...

Now Manuel, driven out of Poictesme, went with his wife to Novogath, which had been for some seven years the capital of Philistia. Queen Stultitia, the sixtieth of that name to rule, received them fri...

Then Manuel and Niafer put out to sea, and after two days’ voyaging they came to Sargyll and to the hospitality of Queen Freydis. Freydis was much talked about at that time on account of the way in wh...

So the month passed prosperously and uneventfully, while the servitors of Queen Freydis behaved in every respect as if they were human beings: and at the end of the month the stork came. Manuel and Ni...

In the morning Dom Manuel arose early, and left Niafer still sleeping with the baby. Manuel came down through the lower hall, where the table was as the revelers had left it. In the middle of the diso...

They went upstairs together, into the room with scarlet hangings, and to the golden bed where, with seven sorts of fruit properly arranged at the bedside, Dom Manuel’s wife Niafer lay asleep. Manuel d...

Now from the ship’s gangway came seven trumpeters dressed in glistening plaids: each led with a silver chain a grayhound, and each of the seven hounds carried in his mouth an apple of gold. After thes...

When then these matters were concluded, and the future of Poictesme had been arranged in every detail, then Miramon Lluagor’s wife told him that long words and ink-bottles and red seals were well enou...

To Joseph Hergesheimer. “Thus Manuel reigned in vertue and honoure with that noble Ladye his wyfe: and he was beloued and dradde of high and lowe degree, for he dyde ryghte and iustice according to th...

They of Poictesme narrate fine tales as to the deeds that Manuel the Redeemer performed and incited in the days of his reign. They tell also many things that seem improbable, and therefore are not inc...

Now Dom Manuel takes ship and goes into England: and for what happened there we have no authority save the account which Dom Manuel rendered on his return to his wife. Thus said Dom Manuel: He went st...

It seemed, in a word, that trouble had forgotten Count Manuel. None the less, Dom Manuel opened a window, at his fine home at Storisende, on a fine, sunlit, warmish morning (for this was the last day ...

Thereafter Count Manuel could not long remain away from the window through which Ruric had climbed with a lantern, and through which Ruric had returned insanely blaspheming against law and order. The ...

Now the tale tells that on Michaelmas morning little Melicent, being in a quiet mood that time, sat with her doll in the tall chair by the third window of Ageus while her father wrote at his big table...

But after dinner Dom Manuel came alone into the Room of Ageus, and equipped himself as the need was, and he climbed out of the charmed window for the last time. His final visit to the depths was horri...

Then as Dom Manuel turned from the window of Ageus, it seemed that young Horvendile had opened the door yonder, and after an instant’s pensive staring at Dom Manuel, had gone away. This happened, if i...

Now some of Poictesme⁠—but not all they of Poictesme, because the pious deny this portion of the tale, and speak of an ascension⁠—some narrate that after the appalling eucharist which young Jurgen wit...