'Let him take that wand in _tha_t window,
And strike three strokes on that steed;
And then he will spring forth of his hand
As sparke doth out of gleede.'
68
And then bespake him the Greene Knight,
. . . . . . .
. . . . . . .
. . . . . . .
* * * * * * *
69
. . . . . . .
. . . . . . .
. . . . . . .
A lowd blast he may blow then.
70
And then bespake S_ir_ Bredebeddle,
To the ffeend these words said hee:
Says, 'I coniure thee, thou Burlow-beanie,
The powder-box thou feitch me.'
71
Then forth is gone Burlow-beanie,
As fast as he cold hie,
And feich he did the powder-box,
And came againe by and by.
72
Then S_ir_ Tristeram tooke powder forth of _tha_t box,
And blent it w_i_th warme sweet milke,
And there put it vnto that horne,
And swilled it about in that ilke.
73
Then he tooke the horne in his hand,
And a lowd blast he blew;
He rent the horne vp to the midst,
All his ffellowes this thé knew.
74
Then bespake him the Greene Knight,
These were the words said he:
Saies, 'I coniure thee, thou Burlow-beanie,
_Tha_t thou feitch me the sword _tha_t I see.'
75
Then forth is gone Burlow-beanie,
As fast as he cold hie,
And feitch he did that faire sword,
And came againe by and by.
76
Then bespake him Sir Bredbeddle,
To the k_ing_ these words said he:
'Take this sword in thy hand, thou noble K_ing_ A_rthur_,
For the vowes sake _tha_t thou made Ile giue it th[ee,]
And goe strike off K_ing_ Cornewalls head,
In bed were he doth lye.'
77
Then forth is gone noble K_ing_ Arthur,
As fast as he cold hye,
And strucken he hath off K_ing_ Cornwalls head,
And came againe by and by.
78
He put the head vpon a swords point,
. . . . . . .
. . . . . . .
. . . . . . .
* * * * * * *
* * * * *
1^1. _The tops of the letters of this line were cut off in
binding. Percy thought it had stood previously_,
come here Cuz_en_ Gawaine so gay.
_Furnivall says "~the bottoms of the letters left suit
better those in the text~" as given. 4 and 5, 8 and 9, are
joined in the MS._
10^4. _Half a page is gone from the MS., or about 38 or 40
lines; and so after 20^2, 28^4, 38^2, 47^4, 57^1, 68^1,
78^1._
14^2. they better.
17^3, 18^1. _The first two words are hard to make out, and
look like ~A vne~._
18^2. boirne.
19^1. his gone.
20^2. _The lower half of the letters is gone._
21. _In MS.:_
our Lady was borne
then thought cornewall K_ing_ these palmers had
beene in Brittanie.
28^4. _? MS. Only the upper part of the letters is left._
31^2. under thrub chadler.
35. _After this stanza is written, in the left margin of
the MS., ~The 3d Part~._
38^1. homly to my hurt. _Madden read ~hourly~._
39^1. _The top line is pared away._
41^2. they words.
43^2. of the trubchandler.
46^3. then had he.
64. p', _i. e._ pro _or_ per, me. _Madden._
66. _Attached to 65 in MS._
69^4. _? MS._
76^{5,6}. _Joined with 77 in MS. & and Arabic numerals
have been frequently written out._
[259] Half a page is gone in the manuscript between 'Robin Hood's Death'
and the beginning of this ballad, and again between the end of this
ballad and the beginning of 'Sir Lionel.' 'Robin Hood's Death,' judging
by another copy, is complete within two or three stanzas, and 'Sir
Lionel' appears to lack nothing. We may suppose that quite half a dozen
stanzas are lost from both the beginning and the end of 'King Arthur and
King Cornwall.'
[260] British Museum (but now missing), King's Library, 16, E, VIII,
fol. 131, recto: "Ci comence le liucr_e_ cu_m_ment charels de fraunce
voiet in ierh_usale_m Et pur p_ar_ols sa feme a co_n_stanti_n_noble
p_ur_ ver_e_ roy hugon." First published by Michel, London, 1836, and
lately reëdited, with due care, by Koschwitz: Karls des Grossen Reise
nach Jerusalem und Constantinopel, Heilbronn, 1880; 2d ed., 1883.
[261] See the argument of Gaston Paris, Romanis, XI, 7 ff; and of
Koschwitz, Karl des Grossen Reise, 2te Auflage, Einleitung, pp.
xiv-xxxii.
[262] Printed by Koschwitz in Sechs Bearbeitungen von Karls des Grossen
Reise, the last from a somewhat later edition, pp. 40-133. The recovery
of a metrical form of Galien is looked for. In the view of Gaston Paris,
the Pilgrimage was made over (renouvelé) at the end of the twelfth or
the beginning of the thirteenth century, and this _rifacimento_
intercalated in Galien by some rhymer of the fourteenth. See his
'Galien,' in Hist. Litt. de la France, XXVIII, 221-239, for all that
concerns the subject.
[263] Il Viaggio di Carlo Magno in Ispagna, pubblicato per cure di
Antonio Ceruti, c. LI, II, 170: Rajna, Uggeri il Danese nella
letteratura romanzesca degl' Italiani, Romania IV, 414 ff. A king of
Portugal, of the faith of Apollo and Mahound, takes the place of the
king of Constantinople in the former, and one Saracen or another in the
several versions of the second. G. Paris, in Romania, IX, 3, 10, notes.
[264] The Norwegian version in Karlamagnus Saga ok Kappa hans, ed.
Unger, p. 466, the Seventh Part. Both the Swedish and Danish are given
in Storm's Sagnkredsene om Karl den Store, etc., Kristiania, 1874, pp.
228-245. For the sources, see p. 160 ff. The whole of the Danish
Chronicle of Charlemagne is printed in Brandt's Romantisk Digtning fra
Middelalderen, Copenhagen, 1877, the Journey to the Holy Land, p. 146
ff. Brandt does not admit that the Danish chronicle was translated from
Swedish: p. 347. The 'Geiplur,' 968 vv, and one version of
'Geipa-táttur,' 340 vv, are included in Koschwitz's Sechs Bearbeitungen,
p. 139 ff, p. 174 ff. For a discussion of them see Kölbing in Germania,
XX, 233-239, and as to the relations of the several versions, etc.,
Koschwitz, in Romanische Studien, II, 1 ff, his Ueberlieferung und
Sprache der Chanson du Voyage de Charlemagne, and Sechs Bearbeitungen,
Einleitung. The Färöe ballad is thought to show traces in some places of
Christiern Pedersen's edition of the Danish chronicle, 1584 (Kölbing, as
above, 238, 239), or of stall prints founded on that. This does not,
however, necessarily put the ballad into the sixteenth century. Might
not Pedersen have had ballad authority for such changes and additions as
he made? It may well be supposed that he had, and if what is peculiar to
Pedersen may have come from ballads, we must hesitate to derive the
ballads from Pedersen. It is, moreover, neither strange nor unexampled
that popular ballads should be affected by tradition committed to print
as well as by tradition still floating in memory. The Färöe copies of
'Greve Genselin,' for example, as Grundtvig remarks, I, 223, note,
though undoubtedly original and independent of Danish, evince
acquaintance with Vedel's printed text.
[265] Given, with an English translation by Professor Rhys, in Sechs
Bearbeitungen, p. 1, p. 19.
[266] There are some variations in the list of relics in the other
versions. The Rímur say "many," without specifying.
[267] On the way from Jerusalem to Constantinople the French, according
to Galien, were waylaid by several thousand Saracens. Three or four of
the peers prepared for a fight, though armed only with swords ("which
they never or only most reluctantly put off," Arsenal MS.), but Charles
and the rest felt a better confidence in the relics, and through the
prayers of the more prudent and pious of the company their foes were
turned into rocks and stones.
[268] The heir of a Scandinavian king, or earl, at the feast which
solemnized his accession, drank a bragur-full, a chief's cup or king's
toast, to the memory of his father, and then made some important vow.
This he did before he took his father's seat. The guests then made vows.
The custom seems not to have been confined to these funeral banquets.
See Vigfusson, at the word $Bragr$. Charles and his peers show their
blood.
[269] Excepting the Welsh translation, which conforms to the original,
all other versions give Bernard's gab to Turpin, and most others
Turpin's to Bernard. The Danish chronicle assigns the "grand three-horse
act" to Gerard; the Färöe ballad omits it; the two manuscript Galiens
attribute it to Bernard [Berart] de Mondidier, the printed Galien to
Berenger. In these last the feat is, though enormously weighted with
armor, to leap over two horses and come down on the back of the third so
heavily as to break his bones. There are, in one version or another,
other differences as to the feats.
[270] In Galien, Hugo is exceedingly frightened by Charlemagne's fierce
demeanor and by what he is told by a recreant Frenchman who is living in
exile at his court, and rouses the city for an assault on his guests, in
which he loses two thousand of his people. A parley ensues. Hugo will
hear of no accommodation unless the gabs are performed. "Content," says
Charles, angrily, "they shall be, if you wish;" but he feels how great
the peril is, and goes to church to invoke the aid of heaven, which is
vouchsafed.
[271] Arthur is said to have "socht to the ciete of Criste," in
'Golagros and Gawane,' Madden's 'Syr Gawayne,' p. 143, v. 302. The
author probably followed the so-called Nennius, c. 63.
[272] Cf. 'Young Beichan,' where the porter has also served thirty years
and three; 'The Grene Knight,' Percy MS., Hales and Furnivall, II, 62;
the porter in Kilhwch and Olwen, Mabinogion, II, 255 f.
[273] In Heinrich vom Türlin's Crône we have the following passage, vv
3313-4888, very possibly to be found in some French predecessor, which
recalls the relations of Cornwall King and Guenever. The queen's
demeanor may be an imitation of Charlemagne's (Arthur's) wife's
bluntness, but the _liaison_ of which Cornwall boasts appears to be
vouched by no other tradition, and must be regarded as the invention of
the author of this ballad.
Arthur and three comrades return half frozen from a hunt. Arthur sits
down at the fire to warm himself. The queen taunts him: she knows a
knight who rides, winter and summer alike, in a simple shirt, chanting
love-songs the while. Arthur resolves to go out with the three the next
night to overhaul this hardy chevalier. The three attendants of the king
have an encounter with him and fare hard at his hands, but Arthur has
the advantage of the stranger, who reveals himself to the king as
Guenever's first love, by name Gasozein, and shows a token which he had
received from her.
[274]
Under thrub chadler closed was hee. 29^2.
The bunge of the trubchandler he burst in three. 43^2.
Being unable to make anything of thrub, trub, I am compelled to conjecture
_the rub-chadler, that rub-chandler_. The fiend is certainly closed under
a barrel or tub, and I suppose a rubbish barrel or tub. Rubb, however
derived, occurs in Icelandic in the sense of rubbish, and chalder, however
derived, is a Scottish form of the familiar chaldron. Professor Skeat,
with great probability, suggests that chadler==chaudeler, chaudière.
Caldaria _lignea_ are cited by Ducange. Cad or kad is well known in the
sense barrel, and cadiolus, cadulus, are found in Ducange. Cadler, chadler,
however, cannot be called a likely derivative from cad.
In stanza 48 the fiend, after he has been ousted from the
"trubchandler," is told to "lie still in that wall of stone," which is
perhaps his ordinary lair. The spy is concealed under a flight of stone
steps in the French poem; in "a large hollow stone in the door outside"
in the Welsh story; in a hollow pillar in Galien and the Rímur; in a
stone vault in the Färöe ballad: Koschwitz, Karls Reise, p. 64; Sechs
Bearbeitungen, pp 29, 52, 85, 117, 153, 179.
[275] Roland's last blast splits his horn. See the citations by G.
Paris, in Romania, XI, 506 f.
[276] The first has been printed by Kölbing in Koschwitz's Sechs
Bearbeitungen, as already said. The four texts were most kindly
communicated to me by Professor Grundtvig, a short time before his
lamentable death, copied by his own hand in parallel columns, with a
restoration of the order of the stanzas, which is considerably disturbed
in all, and a few necessary emendations.
[277] Pól, #A#, #C#, Kortunatus, #B#, i. e. Koronatus (Grundtvig).
Coronatus==clericus, tonsura seu corona clericali donatus: Ducange.
[278] The white bears and the wolf-dogs are found in another Färöe
ballad, as yet unprinted, 'Ásmundar skeinkjari,' where they are subdued
by an arm-ring and "rune-gold:" the white bears in a kindred ballad,
Grundtvig, No 71, #A# 4, 5, 8, 9, #C# 6, 7, 13, quelled with a
lily-twig; #E# 12, 13, with runes; and in No 70, #A# 28, #B# 27, 30. The
source of this ballad is Fjölsvinnsmál, which has two watch-dogs in 13,
14. 'Kilhweh and Olwen,' Mabinogion, II, has a similar story, and there
are nine watch-dogs, at p. 277. (Grundtvig.)
[279] Romania, IX, 8 ff. The English ballad has also combined two
stories: that of the gabs with another in which a magical horse, horn,
and sword are made prize of by a favored hero.
[280] The particular for which superiority is claimed will naturally
vary. The author of Charlemagne's Journey has the good taste not to give
prominence to simple riches, but in Galien riches is from the beginning
the point. So none hath so much gold as Cornwall King. Solomon's fame is
to exceed all the kings of the earth "for riches and for wisdom;" and
although the queen of Sheba came to prove him with hard questions, she
must have had the other matter also in view, for she says, The half was
not told me; thy wisdom and prosperity exceedeth the fame which I heard:
1 Kings, x. Coming down to very late times, we observe that it is the
wealth of the Abbot of Canterbury which exposes him to a visit from the
king.
[281] The tale in the Mille et un Jours is directly from the Persian,
but the Persian is in the preface said to be a version from Indian, that
is, Sanskrit. There are two Tatar traditional versions in Radloff, IV,
120, 310, which are cited by G. Paris.
[282] Cited by G. Paris, who refers also to King Gylfi's expedition to
Asgard (an imitation of Odin's to Vafþrúðnir), and sees some resemblance
to the revolving palace of King Hugo in the vanishing mansion in which
Gylfi is received in Gylfaginning; and again to Thor's visit to the
giant Geirröðr, Skáldskaparmál, 18, which terminates by the giant's
flinging a red-hot iron bar at Thor, who catches it and sends it back
through an iron pillar, through Geirröðr skulking behind the pillar,
through the wall of the house, and into the ground, a fair matching of
Charlemagne's gab. (The giant Geirröðr, like Cornwall King, is skilled
in magic.) The beginning of Biterolf and Dietleib also recalls that of
Charlemagne's Journey. Biterolf, a Spanish king, hears from an old
palmer, who has seen many a hero among Christians and heathens, that
none is the equal of Attila. Biterolf had thought that he himself had no
superior, and sets out with eleven chosen knights to see Etzel's court
with his own eyes. Romania, IX, 9 f.
Játmundr [Hlöðver], a haughty emperor in Saxon-land, sitting on his
throne one day, in the best humor with himself, asks Sigurðr, his prime
minister, where is the monarch that is his match. Sigurðr demurs a
little: the emperor specifies his hawk, horse, and sword as quite
incomparable. That may be, says the counsellor, but his master's glory,
to be complete, requires a queen that is his peer. The suggestion of a
possible equal rouses the emperor's ire. "But since you talk such folly,
name one," he says. Sigurðr names the daughter of Hrólfr [Hugo] of
Constantinople, and is sent to demand her in marriage. Magus saga jarls,
ed. Cederschiöld, c. I: Wulff, Recherches sur les Sagas de Mágus et de
Geirard, p. 14 f.
[283] G. Paris, Histoire Poétique de Charlemagne, p. 344.
31
THE MARRIAGE OF SIR GAWAIN
Percy MS., p. 46. Hales & Furnivall, I, 105; Madden's Syr
Gawayne, p. 288; Percy's Reliques, ed. 1794, III, 350.
We have here again half a ballad, in seven fragments, but the essentials
of the story, which is well known from other versions, happen to be
preserved, or may be inferred.
Arthur, apparently some day after Christmas, had been encountered at
Tarn Wadling,[284] in the forest of Inglewood, by a bold baron armed
with a club, who offered him the choice of fighting, or ransoming
himself by coming back on New Year's day and bringing word what women
most desire. Arthur puts this question in all quarters, and having
collected many answers, in which, possibly, he had little confidence, he
rides to keep his day. On the way he meets a frightfully ugly woman; she
intimates that she could help him. Arthur promises her Gawain in
marriage, if she will, and she imparts to him the right answer. Arthur
finds the baron waiting for him at the tarn, and presents first the
answers which he had collected and written down. These are
contemptuously rejected. Arthur then says that he had met a lady on a
moor, who had told him that a woman would have her will. The baron says
that the misshapen lady on the moor was his sister, and he will burn her
if he can get hold of her. Upon Arthur's return he tells his knights
that he has a wife for one of them, and they ride with the king to see
her, or perhaps for her to make her choice. When they see the bride,
they decline the match in vehement terms, all but Gawain, who is somehow
led to waive "a little foul sight and misliking." She is bedded in all
her repulsiveness, and turns to a beautiful young woman. To try Gawain's
compliance further, she asks him whether he will have her in this
likeness by night only or only by day. Putting aside his own preference,
Gawain leaves the choice to her, and this is all that is needed to keep
her perpetually beautiful. For a stepmother had witched her to go on the
wild moor in that fiendly shape until she should meet some knight who
would let her have all her will. Her brother, under a like spell, was to
challenge men either to fight with him at odds or to answer his hard
question.
These incidents, with the variation that Arthur (who does not show all
his customary chivalry in this ballad) waits for Gawain's consent before
he promises him in marriage, are found in a romance, probably of the
fifteenth century, printed in Madden's Syr Gawayne, and somewhat hastily
pronounced by the editor to be "unquestionably the original of the
mutilated poem in the Percy folio."[285]
Arthur, while hunting in Ingleswood, stalked and finally shot a great
hart, which fell in a fern-brake. While the king, alone and far from his
men, was engaged in making the assay, there appeared a groom, bearing
the quaint name of Gromer Somer Joure,[286] who grimly told him that he
meant now to requite him for having taken away his lands. Arthur
represented that it would be a shame to knighthood for an armed man to
kill a man in green, and offered him any satisfaction. The only terms
Gromer would grant were that Arthur should come back alone to that place
that day twelvemonth, and then tell him what women love best; not
bringing the right answer, he was to lose his head. The king gave his
oath, and they parted. The knights, summoned by the king's bugle, found
him in heavy cheer, and the reason he would at first tell no man, but
after a while took Gawain into confidence. Gawain advised that they two
should ride into strange country in different directions, put the
question to every man and woman they met, and write the answers in a
book. This they did, and each made a large collection. Gawain thought
they could not fail, but the king was anxious, and considered that it
would be prudent to spend the only month that was left in prosecuting
the inquiry in the region of Ingleswood. Gawain agreed that it was good
to be speering, and bade the king doubt not that some of his saws should
help at need.
Arthur rode to Ingleswood, and met a lady, riding on a
richly-caparisoned palfrey, but herself of a hideousness which beggars
words; nevertheless the items are not spared. She came up to Arthur and
told him that she knew his counsel; none of his answers would help. If
he would grant her one thing, she would warrant his life; otherwise, he
must lose his head. This one thing was that she should be Gawain's wife.
The king said this lay with Gawain; he would do what he could, but it
were a pity to make Gawain wed so foul a lady. "No matter," she
rejoined, "though I be foul: choice for a mate hath an owl. When thou
comest to thine answer, I shall meet thee; else art thou lost."
The king returned to Carlisle with a heart no lighter, and the first man
he saw was Gawain, who asked how he had sped. Never so ill: he had met a
lady who had offered to save his life, but she was the foulest he had
ever seen, and the condition was that Gawain should be her husband. "Is
that all?" said Gawain. "I will wed her once and again, though she were
the devil; else were I no friend." Well might the king exclaim, "Of all
knights thou bearest the flower!"
After five or six days more the time came for the answer. The king had
hardly ridden a mile into the forest when he met the lady, by name Dame
Ragnell. He told her Gawain should wed her, and demanded _her_ answer.
"Some say this and some say that, but above all things women desire to
have the sovereignty; tell this to the knight; he will curse her that
told thee, for his labor is lost." Arthur, thus equipped, rode on as
fast as he could go, through mire and fen. Gromer was waiting, and
sternly demanded the answer. Arthur offered his two books, for Dame
Ragnell had told him to save himself by any of those answers if he
could. "Nay, nay, king," said Gromer, "thou art but a dead man." "Abide,
Sir Gromer, I have an answer shall make all sure. Women desire
sovereignty." "She that told thee that was my sister, Dame Ragnell; I
pray I may see her burn on a fire." And so they parted.
Dame Ragnell was waiting for Arthur, too, and would hear of nothing but
immediate fulfillment of her bargain. She followed the king to his
court, and required him to produce Gawain instantly, who came and
plighted his troth. The queen begged her to be married privately, and
early in the morning. Dame Ragnell would consent to no such arrangement.
She would not go to church till high-mass time, and she would dine in
the open hall. At her wedding she was dressed more splendidly than the
queen, and she sat at the head of the table at the dinner afterwards.
There her appetite was all but as horrible as her person: she ate three
capons, three curlews, and great bake meats, all that was set before
her, less and more.[287]
A leaf is wanting now, but what followed is easily imagined. She chided
Gawain for his offishness, and begged him to kiss her, at least. "I will
do more," said Gawain, and, turning, beheld the fairest creature he ever
saw. But the transformed lady told him that her beauty would not hold:
he must choose whether she should be fair by night and foul by day, or
fair by day and foul by night.[288] Gawain said the choice was hard, and
left all to her. "Gramercy," said the lady, "thou shalt have me fair
both day and night." Then she told him that her step-dame had turned her
into that monstrous shape by necromancy, not to recover her own till the
best knight in England had wedded her and given her sovereignty in all
points.[289] A charming little scene follows, vv 715-99, in which Arthur
visits Gawain in the morning, fearing lest the fiend may have slain him.
Something of this may very likely have been in that half page of the
ballad which is lost after stanza 48.
Gower and Chaucer both have this tale, though with a different setting,
and with the variation, beyond doubt original in the story, that the man
whose life is saved by rightly answering the question has himself to
marry the monstrous woman in return for her prompting him.