All this, Stimming concludes, is an unmistakable evidence of the later time of R. H.’s composition. Granting the truth of this conclusion, the difference of treatment in the two versions is also no doubt in part due to the difference in the public for which each version was intended, and also still more, perhaps, to the difference in function of the two works. It must be noted that K. H. is a popular ballad-like poem perhaps of the kind referred to in R. H., while the French R. H. is an artificial and conventionalized romance of prowess and love.
That the ballad-like version K. H., simple, even primitive in matter, in manner, and in metrical form, should have been derived from the sophisticated, artificial romance, R. H. deserves little consideration. On the other hand that the artificial romance should have been derived from the simple ballad-like story, incomplete in its record of details, is even more unworthy of consideration, though quite probably Thomas, the French romancer, may have been to some extent influenced by this English version, with which he was probably acquainted, as we may infer from the following passage:
_Mes un lai ai oi dunt ioe sai la meitie Si iol sousse tut, par ma crestiente En cest nostre pais nad taunt bone cite Ki tant me fust a main e á ma uolente Ke ainz ne la perdisse ke lousse ublie . . . . . . . . . . . . Mut en auez oi parler en cest regne E de lamur de horn ke ele od taunt ame . . . . . . . . . . . . Coe est ueir dist Guffer, Rigmel est mut loéé Bele soeur de beaute en meinte cuntréé E de horn ai oi meinte feiz renoméé Quil est pruz e uallanz e corteis sanz pounéé._
The French romance is no doubt constructed from an English story, as we may infer from the proper names, which in general seem to be Germanic in origin, from occasional English words, _e.g._ _welcumeȝ_ 800, _wite God_, _wrec_ 150, etc., from references to English such as, _Mes com apelent horn li engleis_, R. H. 4206, and especially from the general features of the story which seem to be Germanic. Further, “in the introduction to the French romance of Waldelf we are informed that the romance of Horn was taken from an English original” (T. Wright, Essays on Middle Ages, I, 102. London, 1846). The English gleeman’s version quite likely was composed directly from oral tradition, while the romance rests upon some version of the story, the “_parchemin_” so often referred to. This hypothetical version, judging from the identity of the story in its main outline with that in K. H., must be the version upon which R. H. rests also, or must rest upon the same tradition with K. H.