+Text.+--The Percy Folio is the sole authority for this excellent lively
ballad. It is here given as it stands in the manuscript, except for
division into stanzas. Percy printed the ballad '_verbatim_,'--that is,
with emendations--and also a revised version.
+The Story+, which exists in countless variations in many lands, is told
from the earliest times in connection with the Arthurian legend-cycle.
Restricting the article used as a criterion of chastity to a mantle, we
find the elements of this ballad existing in French manuscripts of the
thirteenth century (the romance called _Cort Mantel_); in a Norse
translation of this 'fabliau'; in the Icelandic _Mantle Rhymes_ of the
fifteenth century; in the _Scalachronica_ of Sir Thomas Gray of Heton
(_circ._ 1355); in Germany, and in Gaelic (a ballad known in Irish
writings, but not in Scottish); as well as in many other versions.
The trial by the drinking-horn is a fable equally old, as far as the
evidence goes, and equally widespread; but it is not told elsewhere in
connection with the parallel story of the mantle. Other tests used for
the purpose of discovering infidelity or unchastity are:-- a crown, a
magic bridge (German); a girdle (English; cp. Florimel's girdle in the
_Faery Queen_, Book iv. Canto 5); a bed, a stepping-stone by the
bedside, a chair (Scandinavian); flowers (Sanskrit); a shirt (German and
Flemish); a picture (Italian, translated to England--cp. Massinger's
_The Picture_ (1630), where he localises the story in Hungary); a ring
(French); a mirror (German, French, and Italian); and so forth.
Caxton, in his preface to _Kyng Arthur_ (1485), says:-- 'Item, in the
castel of Douer ye may see Gauwayn's skull and Cradok's mantel.' Sir
Thomas Gray says the mantle was made into a chasuble, and was preserved
at Glastonbury.
Thomas Love Peacock says (_The Misfortunes of Elphin_, chap. xii.),
'Tegau Eurvron, or Tegau of the Golden Bosom, was the wife of Caradoc
[Craddocke], and one of the Three Chaste Wives of the island of
Britain.' A similar statement is recorded by Percy at the end of his
'revised and altered' ballad, taking it from 'the Rev. Evan Evans,
editor of the Specimens of Welsh Poetry.'