Aucassin and Nicolete

Aucassin, the son of the Count of Beaucaire, cares nothing for knighthood or his father's wars, because he loves Nicolete, a beautiful captive of Saracen birth. His father imprisons her, but she escapes from her tower on a rope of knotted sheets, and the lovers' adventures take them through forests, a shipwreck and the absurd kingdom of Torelore, where the king lies in childbed and battles are fought with baked apples and cheeses, until Nicolete, disguised as a minstrel, finds her way back to him.

This charming French tale of the late twelfth or early thirteenth century, unique in mixing prose with passages for singing, survives in a single manuscript. This translation is by Andrew Lang. Compare The Romance of Tristan and Iseult.