“Guinevere, Giant Ogurvan’s daughter,
Naughty young, more naughty later.”
Of Lancelot, and her passion for him, the old Welsh has nothing to say.
Probably Chrétien de Troyes, by a happy blunder or misconception, gave
Lancelot his love and his pre-eminent part. Lancelot was confused with
Peredur, and Guinevere with the lady of whom Peredur was in quest. The
Elaine who becomes by Lancelot the mother of Galahad “was Lancelot’s
rightful consort, as one recognises in her name that of Elen, the
Empress, whom the story of Peredur” (Lancelot, by the confusion) “gives
that hero to wife.” The second Elaine, the maid of Astolat, is another
refraction from the original Elen. As to the Grail, it may be a
Christianised rendering of one or another of the magical and mystic
caldrons of Welsh or Irish legend. There is even an apparent Celtic
source of the mysterious fisher king of the Grail romance. {112}