12th-century Old French romance upon which Le Bel Inconnu was based, and Chrétien de Troyes' Erec and Enide. Geoffrey Chaucer's parody of tail-line romance in his Canterbury Tale of Sir Thopas, has the hero Sir Thopas begin a fight with a giant in order to try to reach an elf-queen with whom he wishes to fall in love. It mentions Libeaus Desconus in its list of excellent romances, or “romances of prys”. Perhaps in riposte, Thomas Chestre names in Sir Launfal an invisible squire, a gift to the hero from his elf-queen and in her own words: "Gyfre, my owen knave." Notes References Laskaya, Anne and Salisbury, Eve (Eds). 1995. The Middle English Breton Lays. Kalamazoo, Michigan: Western Michigan University for TEAMS. Writers of Arthurian literature 14th-century English writers 14th-century English people Middle English poets 14th-century deaths 14th-century English poets Year of birth unknown English male poets