The _Contes Lorrains_ of M. Cosquin[35] contains a story, _Le Petit
Berger_, in which we shall find our tournament adventure in what we may
term full fairy-tale form. A princess expresses a desire to own a flock
of sheep; her father consents, and hires a lad to guard them, of whom
the princess becomes secretly enamoured. On three successive days the
shepherd penetrates into a forbidden wood, and on each occasion slays a
terrible giant, clad in steel, silver, or golden armour. By the death of
these giants the hero becomes master of three castles, of steel, silver,
and gold, in each of which he finds a suit of armour and a steed to
correspond. He keeps the feat a profound secret, and when later on the
king proclaims a three days’ tournament, the prize of which is the hand
of the princess, he appears each day in different armour, and mounted on
the corresponding steed—steel, silver or golden—wins the tournament, and
weds the lady.
Now this is merely the shortest and simplest form of a story, which is
found practically all the world over. Let us look at some of the
variants.
In the notes to _Le Petit Berger_ M. Cosquin cites a Tyrolean variant,
where instead of three giants the hero slays three dragons, thereby
winning three castles. The armour corresponds to that of the previous
tale; but the horses are black, red, and white, herein agreeing with the
_Ipomedon_ and the _Prose Lancelot_; the compiler refers to other
versions from the same country given by Zingerle,[36] but cites no
details. In an Italian variant the horses are of crystal, silver, and
gold.
Now let us turn to another of M. Cosquin’s tales, _Jean de l’Ours_,[37]
where the main theme of the story is the release of a princess from an
Otherworld prison. Here we shall find a Greek tale given, the details of
which are, as we shall see, specially important for our investigation. A
prince delivers his sister and three stranger princesses from the prison
of a _drakos_ (translated by M. Cosquin as _sorte d’ogre_) on the summit
of a high mountain. When about to descend himself, his brother cuts the
cord and leaves him a prisoner on the mountain. In the ogre’s castle he
sees three marvellous objects: a greyhound of velvet pursuing a hare
also of velvet; a golden ewer which pours water of itself into a golden
basin; a golden hen with her chickens. He also finds three winged
horses, respectively white, red, and green, and sets them at liberty. In
gratitude they transport him to the plain, and each gives him a hair
from their tail, bidding him burn it when he needs their aid. The prince
takes service with a goldsmith in his father’s city. The eldest brother
desires to marry the eldest of the rescued princesses; she demands a
velvet greyhound pursuing a velvet hare, such as she has seen in the
ogre’s castle. The king offers a reward to any who can make such an
object. The pretended goldsmith’s apprentice undertakes to do so, and
sends the green horse to fetch the original. At the tournament in honour
of the wedding he appears on the horse in a dress to correspond, carries
off the honours of the day, and escapes unrecognised. His second brother
marries the second princess. She demands the golden ewer—the red horse
comes to his aid, and he wins the tournament in his red dress. When the
third and youngest princess is to be wedded to the king’s brother he
appears in white, on the white steed, slays the would-be bridegroom with
a cast of his javelin, reveals his identity, and wins the bride. Here we
have the three colours of the _Lanzelet_.
Again, in the variants of _Le Prince et son Cheval_, another tale of the
same collection,[38] we find the Three Days’ Tournament allied to the
rescue and escape from the Otherworld _motif_. In this latter story we
have the well-known incident of escape from a giant, or a magician, by
means of magical objects which, thrown behind the escaping pair, erect
mysterious barriers between pursuer and pursued.
In his notes to _Le Petit Berger_, M. Cosquin quotes a remark of M.
Mullenhoff, to the effect that in one variant of the story collected by
him it is combined with ‘_le conte bien connu où le héros gravit à
cheval une montagne de verre, pour conquérir la main d’une belle
princesse_.’[39] Now the glass mountain is a well-recognised form of the
Otherworld prison. Probably, too, we ought to connect with this some
variants of the tale where the feat is to attain the summit of a high
tower; a version of this is known among the Avares of the Caucasus; here
the horses are blue, red, and black.
Thus we may note two well-marked classes of the tales, in one of which
(_a_) the hero simply wins the hand of the princess at a tourney; in the
second of which (_b_) he also rescues her from the Otherworld.
But there is a third variant of our story, in which the feat differs
somewhat from _b_. The hero is again a rescuer, but this time he rescues
the princess from death at the jaws of a monster, generally a dragon.
This we may call class _c_. In the notes to _Leopold_,[40] M. Cosquin
refers to a German variant where the combat lasts for three days, and
horses and armour are black, red, and white. In this connection, as
member of class _c_, Mr. Hartland has studied the story in his
well-known _Legend of Perseus_,[41] and some of the variants he gives we
shall find of interest to us.
In an Irish version, _The Thirteenth Son of the King of Erin_,[42] the
hero, who has previously slain three giants, and taken possession of
their castles and wealth, comprising three steeds, black, brown, and
red, rescues the king’s daughter from a great monster, a serpent of the
sea, ‘which must get a king’s daughter to devour every seven years.’ The
combat lasts three days; but though the hero appears each day in a
different dress, only on the first does it correspond with the colour of
his horse. Here the tournament incident is lacking.
A very good example, this time hailing from the Odenwald, contains the
conquest of the giants (eight), the three days’ fight with the dragon,
and the Three Days’ Tournament. Here the hero is a king’s son, who,
seeing the portrait of the princess, falls in love with her and dares
the adventure from which his father shrinks.[43] This tale, as Mr.
Hartland points out, apparently bears traces of literary influence, and
it certainly recalls the _données_ of the _Ipomedon_ where the hero,
also a king’s son, is attracted by the fame of _La Fière’s_ beauty,
before he sees her.
In a gipsy variant from Transylvania, also given by Mr. Hartland, the
princess has been carried off by a dragon to the glass mountain (thus
apparently combining _b_ and _c_); and the horse—there is but one—has
the mysterious property of appearing red in the morning, white at noon,
and black at night.
It must be borne in mind that the legend which Mr. Hartland was engaged
in studying was, before all else, a rescue legend—the rescue of
Andromeda—consequently the variants of our tale, collected by him, are
practically confined to what we have designated as class _c_, where the
feat performed by the hero is the rescue of the princess from a monster.
This particular feature he carries back, in insular tradition, to the
old Irish story of Cuchullin’s rescue of Deborghill from the Fomori;
sea-robbers, whose real character and origin are doubtful. The hero
hears sounds of wailing, and finds the maiden, the daughter of the King
of the Isles, exposed upon the seashore. He confronts the Fomori, three
in number, and slays them one after the other. Thus the triple combat is
preserved, but it appears evident that, even at this early date, the
story had been modified in the interests of romantic saga.[44] With this
(class _c_) form of the story we frequently find combined what is known
as _The False Claimant_ ‘motif.’ The hero disappears after the rescue,
having either left behind him some proof of his identity, such as,
_e.g._, the binding of the heads of the monster on a withy in such a
manner that none but himself can unloose them; or having in his
possession such a proof as, _e.g._ the tongues of the severed heads, or
the handkerchief, ring, or ear-ring of the princess. By means of this
proof he confutes the cowardly rival who claims to have achieved the
feat. This particular form of the story is perhaps, on the whole, the
one in which it is best known. There is one group which, as we shall
see, is of extraordinary interest and importance for the special study
in which we are engaged.
In his _Popular Tales of the West Highlands_, under the title of the
_Sea Maiden_, Mr. Campbell gives the following story.[45] An old and
childless fisherman meets with persistent ill-luck in his calling, till
one day a sea-maiden rises from the waves and promises him future
success, if he in return will give her his firstborn son (assuring him
of the birth of three). The fisher consents, and all falls out as the
maiden foretells. Grown to manhood, the son, aware of the fate in store
for him, resolves to go ‘where there is not a drop of sea-water.’ He
sets out, and on his journey finds a lion, a wolf, and a falcon
disputing over the carcase of a horse. He divides the spoil between
them, and in return they promise him their aid, should he be in need of
it. He becomes herdsman to a king, and we have the adventure with the
three giants, in which the grateful beasts aid him, and he wins a white,
a red, and a green filly ‘that will go through the skies’—obviously the
winged horses of the Greek folk-tale[46]—and three dresses to
correspond. Here he also slays the giants’ mother, and wins a comb and a
basin, the use of which will make him the most beautiful man on earth.
Follows the adventure with the sea-monster, a dragon apparently. The
fight lasts for three days, and he appears each day in a different
dress, and mounted on a different steed. The princess makes a mark on
his forehead as he sleeps, and thus identifies the hero as her rescuer.
They marry, but while walking by the seashore, the sea-maiden rises from
the waves and carries off the hero as her property. The princess, by the
advice of a soothsayer, succeeds in releasing her husband, and with the
help of the grateful beasts, destroys the soul of the sea-maiden, which
is in an egg. She being slain, the pair live happily ever after.
In this particular variant there is no _False Claimant_; but he appears
in version number three of this story, and in version four we have the
curious detail that the beast ‘was a fresh-water lake when he had killed
her.’
Students of folk-lore will note that the tale in this form includes
features not found in the majority of the versions, but representing
well-recognised folk-tale _formulæ_. Thus the _Life Token_ is
here—incomplete—the maiden gives the fisherman ‘something’ to be given
to his wife, his horse, and his dog (obviously a _fisherman_ does not
need a horse and a dog—these two features do not belong to each other);
the wife has three sons, the horse three foals, and the dog three pups.
Horse and dog ought rightly to play a part in the story, but in this
special variant they do not appear, though in another they are mentioned
in a subordinate rôle. The _Grateful Beasts_ and the _External Soul_ are
equally well known in folk-tale, though again, as a rule, in a different
connection. But the tournament is lacking; and after examining many
variants of the tale, I have come to the conclusion that this feature
belongs exclusively to the continental versions. Horses and dresses are
found in the insular forms, but, so far, I have not found a single
instance of the tournament. On the other hand, no continental variant
appears to contain the sea-maiden episodes.
If we now summarise the leading incidents of the various groups, we
shall find them somewhat as follows:—
1. Hero—King’s son. Herdsman or shepherd. Fisherman’s son turned
herdsman.
2. Slays three giants and wins three castles in which he finds three
steeds of different colours with dresses or armour to correspond. The
horses are occasionally winged.
3. Appears at a Three Days’ Tournament in these dresses, and thus wins
the hand of a princess.
(Incidents 1, 2, 3, which combined correspond to _Le Petit Berger_,
form the shortest version of our story, but probably not the most
primitive.)
4. Rescues the princess from an ‘Otherworld’ prison. Form of
imprisonment varies, but the ‘rescue’ is most generally found in
company with the tournament.
5. Rescues princess from a monster. Here the conflict generally lasts
three days, the three disguises are employed, and the tournament is
often absent.
6. Is robbed of the credit of his deed by a cowardly rival. This,
which is most generally found in combination with 5, is also sometimes
found in a modified form combined with 4, and is often lacking
altogether.
7. Is carried off by a mermaid, to whom he had been promised before
his birth. This appears to be confined to the Celtic group collected
by Mr. Campbell.
If the reader will refer to the various examples I have given above, he
will see that these seven incidents represent what we may call the
perfect skeleton of our story (to use a simile often applied by Mr.
Campbell), though the bones are differently placed in different
versions.
But, having summarised them, we also become aware of a very curious
coincidence. Out of these seven incidents, six are found, and found more
than once, in the earlier forms of the _Lancelot_ story. Thus dropping
out incident 2, the winning of the armour, to which I know no good
parallel, we find that Lancelot was a king’s son (incident 1), which, in
itself, of course counts for little, but is of value in combination with
other features (_Lanzelet_—_Prose Lancelot_); that he appears at a
tournament, three days running, in different armour, the colours of
which correspond with the prevailing colours of the folk-tale—green,
red, white, or black, red, white (incident 3) (_Lanzelet_—_Prose
Lancelot_); that he frees a princess (queen) from an Otherworld prison
(incident 4) (_Charrette_—_Prose Lancelot_—_Lanzelet_, modified form);
that he slays a monster (apparently a dragon), and is robbed by a
cowardly rival (incidents 5 and 6) (_Morien_). A second version of the
_False Claimant_ story is found in _Le cerf au pied blanc_. Finally,
when a child, he was carried off by a water maiden, _meer-wîb_ (incident
7) (_Lanzelet_—_Prose Lancelot_).
Now these are characteristics which, in their _ensemble_, he shares with
no other Arthurian hero. True, Gawain visits the Otherworld, but he does
so rather in the character of lover of the queen of that world than as
rescuer of one confined within its precincts. In the Dutch _Walewein_
alone, so far as I know, is his rôle definitely that of the deliverer.
But none of the other incidents belong to his story. So, too, Tristan is
the hero of a very fine version of the _Dragon Slayer_ and _False
Claimant_ story, and it is moreover probable that the _Morien_ version
has borrowed certain details from the _Tristan_, but he too can claim no
share in the other incidents. The close correspondence, point by point,
with a folk-tale of so widespread and representative a character, is, I
submit, a peculiarity of the earlier _Lancelot_ story, which is of
extraordinary interest as throwing light upon the genesis and growth of
Arthurian legend.
In this connection I have by no means forgotten the energetic protests
which, in certain quarters, were evoked by Mr. Nutt’s attempt to show
that the story of _Perceval_ might in this way be connected with popular
tales; and I am quite prepared to be told that tales collected in the
nineteenth century are not to be trusted as indications of the sources
of twelfth century romance. But in the instance before us the evidence,
while of precisely the same nature as in the case of _Perceval_, exceeds
it, both in bulk and extent. The story is not one story, but a large and
well-marked group of tales; the folk-lore parallels affect not one, but
many incidents of the romance. How large and how widely diffused is that
story-group can only be appreciated by those who will examine the lists
of variants appended by M. Cosquin to the four stories I have named
above and those cited by Mr. Campbell under the heading of the _Sea
Maiden_, and then compare these stories with the numerous examples given
by Mr. Hartland in his exhaustive study of the _Perseus_ legend. The
incidents are, as I have shown, six out of a possible list of seven. If,
further, we remember that the group, with all its varying forms, is
connected with such pre-historic heroes as Perseus and Cuchullin, we
have, I think, a sufficient answer to those critics who would reject the
evidence _en masse_ on the ground of modernity.
But supposing, for the sake of argument, that we accept the possible
priority of the romantic over the popular form, what, with regard to the
criticism of the Arthurian literary cycle, is the logical result? This:
if the folk-tale be dependent upon a romance, that romance must of
necessity be the _Lancelot_, as no other hero offers the same
combination of incident. But a version of the _Lancelot_ story, from
which _all_ these incidents could have been borrowed, must have been
older than any form of the story we now possess. As we have seen above,
the correspondence is sometimes with one, sometimes with another
version; and a very famous incident of the tale, the _False Claimant_,
only exists now in two romances, each of them preserved in an isolated
and unique form. Therefore, if this be not a fully proven instance of
the conversion of a popular folk-tale into an Arthurian romance, it must
be a case of the development of a folk-tale from a fully organised and
coherent _Lancelot_ story in a form anterior to Chrétien. The adherents
of the theory which ascribes independent invention to Chrétien de
Troyes, and a literary origin to the Arthurian stories, can make their
choice between these two solutions of the problem—one or the other it
must be.
For myself, I unreservedly accept the verdict pronounced by Mr. Campbell
upon the _Sea Maiden_ as representative of the entire story-group. ‘Is
it possible that a Minglay peasant and Straparola[47] (_or we may add
Hue de Rotelande and the peasants of the Odenwald and Lorraine_)—neither
of whom can have seen a giant, or a flying horse, or a dragon, or a
mermaid—could separately imagine all these impossible things, and,
having imagined them simultaneously, invent the incidents of the story
and arrange so many of them in the same order?
‘Is it on the other hand possible that all these barefooted, bareheaded,
simple men, who cannot read, should yet learn the contents of one class
of rare books and of no other? I cannot think so.
‘I have gone through the whole _Sea Maiden_ story, and all its Gaelic
versions, and marked and numbered each separate incident, and divided
the whole into its parts, and then set the result beside the fruit of a
similar dissection of Straparola’s _Fortunio_, and I find nearly the
whole of the bones of the Italian story, and a great many bones which
seem to belong to some original antediluvian Aryan tale. The Scotch
(_insular_) is far wilder and more mythical than the Italian
(_continental_).[48] The one savours of tournaments, kings’ palaces, and
the manners of Italy long ago; the other of flocks and herds, fishermen
and pastoral life; but the Highland imaginary beings are further from
reality and nearer to creatures of the brain. The horses of Straparola
are very material and walk the earth; those of old John MacPhie are
closely related to Pegasus and the horses of the Veda, and fly and soar
through grimy peat-reek to the clouds.’[49]
Mr. Campbell continues: ‘What is true of the Gaelic and Italian versions
is equally true of all others which I know. If examined, they will be
found to consist of a bare tree of branching incidents common to all,
and so elaborate that no minds could possibly have invented the whole
seven or eight times over[50] without some common model, and yet no one
of these is the model, for the tree is defective in all, and its foliage
has something peculiar to each country in which it grows. They are
specimens of the same plant, but their common stock is nowhere to be
found.’[51] Were Mr. Campbell living now, may we not feel sure that to
these closing words he would add: _Assuredly it is not to be sought in
an Arthurian romance of the twelfth century_?