general ; and Gottfried seems to have been quite ad-
mirably and almost ideally qualified to treat them.
His French original is not known, for the earlier
French versions of this story have perished or only
survive in fragments ; and there is an almost inextri-
cable coil about the "Thomas" to whom Gottfried
refers, and who used to be (though this has now been
given up) identified with no less a person than Thomas
7 the Ehymer, Thomas of Erceldoune himself. But we
can see, as clearly as if we had parallel texts, that
Gottfried treated his original as all real and sensible
poets do treat their originals — that is to say, that he
took what he wanted, added what he chose, and dis-
carded what he pleased. In his handling of the French
octosyllable he at once displays that impatience of the
rigidly syllabic system of prosody which Teutonic
poetry of the best kind always shows sooner or later.
