ABSTRACT
The Song of William is perhaps the oldest attestation of an epic belonging to the Cycle of Garin de Monglane, 2 although the unique manuscript (MS British Library, Additional 38663) in which it is preserved probably does not contain its most reliable version. This manuscript is a mid-thirteenth-century Anglo-Norman copy 3 that suffers from many textual corruptions, especially as far as the versification is concerned. It appears, therefore, that the Song of William in its present form is the reworking of an Urtext that can reasonably be viewed as pertaining to the oldest layers of the Cycle of Garin de Monglane.
