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Studies on the legend of the Holy Grail
With Especial Reference To The Hypothesis Of Its Celtic Origin
By Alfred Nutt 1888
CHAPTER VI.
The Lay of the Great Fool
The Aryan Expulsion and Keturn Formula - Comparison with the Mabinogi, Sir Perceval, and the Conte du Graal | Originality of the Highland, tale - Comparison with the Fionn legend - Summary of the Lay of the Great Fool | Comparison with the stag hunt incident in the Conte du Graal and the Mabinogi | The folk-tale of the twin brethren | The fight against the witch who brings the dead to life in Gerbert and the similar incident in the folk-tale of the Knight of the Red Shield | Comparison with the original form of the Mabinogi - Orginality of Gerbert
Summary of the Prose Opening
ONE of the most popular of the poetic narratives in tlie old heroic quatrain measure still surviving in the Highlands is the "Lay of the Great Fool" (Laoidh an Amadain Mhoir), concerning which, according to Campbell, vol. iii., p. 150, the following saying is current: "Each poem to the poem of the Red; each lay to the Lay of the Great Fool; each history to the history of Connal" (is to be referred as a standard). This Lay, as will be shown presently, offers some remarkable similarities with the central Grail episode of the quest romances, but before it is investigated a prose opening often found with it must be noticed. This prose opening may be summarised thus from Campbell, vol. iii., pp. 146, et seq.
There were once two brothers, the one King over Erin, the other a mere knight. The latter had sons, the former none. Strife broke out between the two brothers, and the knight and his sons were slain. Word was sent to the wife, then pregnant, that if she bore a son it must be put to death. It was a lad she had, and she sent him into the wilderness in charge of a kitchen wench who had a love son.
The two boys grew up together, the knight's son strong and wilf ul. One day they saw three deer coming towards them; the knight's son asked what creatures were these creatures on which were meat and clothing 'twas answered it were the better he would catch them, and he did so, and his fostermother made him a dress of the deer's hide. Afterwards he slew his foster-brother for laughing at him, caught a wild horse, and came to his father's brother's palace. He had never been called other than "Great fool," and when asked his name by his cousin, playing shinty, answered, "Great Fool." His cousin mocked at him, and was forthwith slain. On going into the King's (his uncle's) presence, he answered in the same way. His uncle recognised him, and reproaching himself for his folly in not having slain the mother with the father, went with him, as did all the people.
The Aryan Expulsion and Keturn Formula
In my article on the Aryan Expulsion and Return Formula among the Celts ("Folk-Lore Record," vol. iv.), I have shown that this tale is widely distributed in the Celtic Heldensage as well as in the Celtic folk-tale. Before noticing the variants, a word of explanation may be necessary. The term, Arische Aussetzungs-und Ruckkehr-Formel, was first employed by J. G. v. Hahn in his Sagwissenschaftliche Studien (Jena, 1876), to describe a tale which figured in the heroic literature of every Aryan race known to him.
He examined fourteen stories, seven belonging to the Hellenic mythology, Perseus, Herakles, Oedipus, Amphion and Zethos, Pelias and Neleus, Leukastos and Parrhasius, Theseus; one to Roman mythic history, Romulus and Remus; two to the Teutonic Heldensage, Wittich-Siegfried, Wolfdietrich; two to Iranian mythic history, Cyrus, Key Chosrew; two to the Hindu mythology, Kama, Krishna. I was able to recover from Celtic literature eight well-defined variants, belonging to the Fenian and Ultonian cycles of Irish Heldensage (heroes,|Fionn and Cu-Chulaind); to Irish mythic history, Labraidh Maen; to the folk-tale still living in the Highlands, Conall and the Great Fool; to the Kymric Heldensage, Peredur-Perceval, Arthur, and Taliesin. An examination of all these tales resulted in the establishing of the following standard formula, to the entirety of which it will of course be understood none of the tales answer:
I. Hero born
(a) Out of wedlock.
(b) Posthumously.
(c) Supernaturally.
(d) One of twins,
II. Mother, princess residing in her own country.
III. Father
(a) God
(b) Hero
from afar.
IV. Tokens and warning of hero's future greatness.
V. He is in consequence driven forth from home.
VI. Is suckled by wild beasts.
VII. Is brought up by a (childless couple), or shepherd, or
widow.
VIII. Is of passionate and violent disposition.
IX. Seeks service in foreign lands.
IXa. Attacks and slays monsters.
IXb. Acquires supernatural knowledge through eating a fish, or
other magic animal.
X. Returns to his own country, retreats, and again returns.
XI. Overcomes his enemies, frees his mother, seats himself on the
throne.
I must refer to my article for a full discussion of the various Celtic forms of this widely-spread tale, and for a tabular comparison with the remaining Indo-European forms analysed by J. G. von Hahn. Suffice to say here that the fullest Celtic presentment of the motif is to be found in the Ossianic Heldensage, the expelled prince being no other than Fionn himself. The Celtic form most closely related to it is that of the Great Fool summarised above, the relationship of Peredur-Perceval with which is evident. In both, the father being slain, the mother withdraws or sends her son into the wilderness; in both he grows up strong, hardy, ignorant of the world. Almost the same instances of his surpassing strength and swiftness are given; in the Mabinogi by celerity and swiftness of foot he drives the goats and hinds into the goat-house; in the Highland folk-tale he catches the wild deer, and seeing a horse, and learning it is a beast upon which sport is done, stretches out after it, catches and mounts it; in Sir Perceval he sees
. . . A fulle faire stode
Offe coltes and meres gude,
Bot never one was tame (v. xxi.).
and "smertly overrynnes" one. The Great Fool then comes to his nncle, in whom he finds the man who has killed his father. Sir Perceval likewise comes to his uncle, and gets knowledge from him of his father's slayer; in Chrestien and the Mabinogi no relationship is stated to exist between Arthur and the hero. The manner of the coming deserves notice. In the Conte du Graal, entering the hall the hero salutes the King twice, receives no answer, and, turning round his horse in dudgeon, knocks off the King's cap.
The Great Fool And The Conte Du Graal
In the English poem
At his first in comynge,
His mere withowtenne faylyrige,
Kiste the forehevede of the Kynge,
So nerehande he rade (v. xxxi.).
He then demands knighthood or
Bot (unless) the Kyng make me knyghte,
I shall him here slaa (v. xxxiii.).
In the Great Fool the horse incident is wanting, but the
hero's address to his uncle is equally curt: "I am the great fool
. . . and if need were it is that I could make a fool of thee
also." The incident then follows of the insult offered to Arthur
by the Red Knight. Here, be it noted, the Mabinogi version is
much the ruder of the three, " the knight dashed the liquor that
was in the goblet upon her (Gwenhwyvar's) face, and upon her
stomacher, and gave her a violent blow in the face, and said,"
etc.; in Chrestien the incident is not directly presented, but
related at second-hand, and merely that the discourteous knight
took away the goblet so suddenly that he spilt somewhat of its
contents upon the queen, and that she was so filled with grief
and anger that well nigh she had not escaped alive; in Sir
Perceval the knight takes up the cup and carries it off. Now it
is a lieu commun of Celtic folk-tales that as a King is sitting
at meat, an enemy comes in mounted, and offers him an insult, the
avenging of which forms the staple of the tale. A good instance
may be found in Campbell's Hi.,"
The Knight of the Red Shield." As the King is with his people and
his warriors and his nobles and his great gentles, one of them
says, " who now in the four brown quarters of the Universe would
have the heart to put an affront on the King? " then comes the
rider on a black filly, and, " before there was any more talk
between them, he put over the fist and he struck the King between
the mouth and the nose." It is noteworthy that this tale shows
further likeness to the Mabinogi-Great Fool series, generally, in
so far as it is the despised youngest who out of the three
warriors that set off to avenge the insult succeeds, even as it
is the despised Peredur who slays the Red Knight, and specially
in what may be called the prophecy incident. With the exception
of the opening incidents, this is the one by which the "formula"
nature of the Perceval sage is most clearly shown. In the
Mabinogi it is placed immediately after the hero's first
encounter with the sorceresses of Gloucester: " by destiny and
foreknowledge knew I that I should suffer harm of thee," says the
worsted witch. The Conte du Graal has only a trace of it in the
Fisher King's words as he hands the magic sword to Perceval
. . . Biaus frere, ceste espee
Yous fu jugie et destinee (4345-6),
whilst in Sir Perceval a very archaic turn is given to the incident by Arthur's words concerning his unknown nephew
The bokes say that he mone
Venge his fader bane (v. xxxvi.).
The Knight Of The Red Shield - The Rider Of Grianaig
This comparison is instructive as showing how impossible it is that Chrestien's poem can be the only source of the Mabinogi and Sir Perceval. It cannot be maintained that the meagre hint of the French poet is the sole origin of the incident as found in the Welsh and English versions, whilst a glance at my tabulation of the various forms of the Aryan Expulsion and Return formula (" olk-Lore Record," vol. iv.) shows that the foretelling of the hero's greatness is an important feature in eight of the Celtic and five of the non-Celtic versions, i.e., in more than one-third of all the stories built up on the lines of the formula. It is evident that here at least Mabinogi and Sir Perceval have preserved a trait almost effaced in the romance. In the above-mentioned Highland tale the incident is as follows: the hero finds "a treasure of a woman sitting on a hill, and a great youth with his head on her knee asleep"; he tries to wake the sleeper, even cuts off his finger, but in vain, until he learns how it was in the prophecies that none should rouse the sleeping youth save the Knight of the Red Shield, and he, coming to the island, should do it by striking a crag of stone upon his breast. This tale, as already remarked, shows affinity to the Perceval saga in two incidents, and is also, as I have pointed out (" Folk-Lore Record," vol. v., Mabinogion Studies), closely allied to a cycle of German hero and folk-tales, of which Siegfried is the hero. Now Siegfried is in German that which Fionn is in Celtic folk-lore, the hero whose story is modelled most closely upon the lines of the Expulsion and Return formula. We thus find not only, as might be expected, affinity between the German and Celtic hero-tales which embody the formula, but the derived or allied groups of folk-tales present likewise frequent and striking similarities.*
* In the notes to my two articles in the "Folk-Lore Kecord" will be found a number of references establishing this fact.
Another Highland tale (Campbell, Iviii., The Rider of Grianaig) furnishes a fresh example of this fact. Here, also, the deeds to be done of the hero were prophesied of him. But these deeds he would never accomplish, save he were incited thereto and aided therein by a raven, who in the end comes out as a be-spelled youth, and a steed, a maiden under spells, and the spells will not go off till her head be off. Even so Peredur is urged on and helped by the bewitched youth. In other respects, there is no likeness of plan and little of detail* to the Mabinogi, certainly no trace of direct influence of the Welsh story upon the Highland one.
* The hero renews his strength after his various combats by rubbing himself with the contents of a vessel of balsam. He has moreover to enter a house the door of which closes to of itself (like the Grail Castle Portcullis in Wolfram), and which kills him. He is brought to life by the friendly raven. The mysterious carlin also appears, "there was a turn of her nails about her elbows, and a twist of her hoary hair about her toes, and she was not joyous to look upon." She turns the hero's companions into stone, and to unspell them he must seek a bottle of living water and rub it upon them, when they will come out alive. This is like the final incident in many stories of the Two Brothers class. Cf. note, p. 162.
Independent Origin Of The Great Fool Tale
It may, however, be asserted that all of these tales are derived more or less directly from the French romance. This has been confidently stated of the Breton ballad cycle of Morvan le Breiz (Barzaz Breiz) and of the Breton Marchen, Peronik 1'idiot (Souvestre, Foyer Breton), and I have preferred making no use of either.
In the matter of the Scotch and Irish tales a stand must be made. The romance, it is said, may have filtered down into the Celtic population, through the medium of adaptations such as the Mabinogi or Sir Perceval. Granted, for argument sake, that these two works are mere adaptations, it must yet follow that the stories derived from them will be more or less on the same lines as themselves. Is this so? Can it be reasonably argued that the folk-tale of the Great Fool is a weakened copy of certain features of the Mabinogi, which itself is a weakened copy of certain features of the French poem? Is it not the fact that the folk-tale omits much that is in the Mabinogi, and on the other hand preserves details which are wanting not alone in the Welsh tale but in Chrestien. If other proof of the independent nature of these tales were needed it would be supplied by the close similarity existing between the Great Pool opening and the Fionn legend. This is extant in several forms, one of which, still told in the Highlands (Campbell's Ixxxii.), tells how Cumhall's son is reared in the wilderness, how he drowns the youth of a neighbouring hamlet, how he slays his father's slayer, and wins the magic trout the taste of which gives knowledge of past and to come, how he gets back his father's sword and regains his father's lands, all as had been prophesied of him. Another descendant of the French romance it will be said.
But a very similar tale is found in a fifteenth century Irish MS. (The Boyish Exploits of Finn Mac Cum hall, translated by Dr. J. O'Donovan in the Transactions of the Ossianic Society, vol. iv.); Cumhall, slain by Goll, leaves his wife big with a son, who when born is reared by two druidesses.
He grows up fierce and stalwart, overcomes all his age-mates, overtakes wild deer he running, slays a boar, and catches the magic salmon of knowledge. An eighteenth century version given by Kennedy ("Legendary Fictions," p. 216) makes Cumhall offer violence to Mnirrean, daughter of the druid Tadg, and his death to be chiefly due to the magic arts of the incensed father. It will hardly be contended that these stories owe their origin to adaptations of Chrestien's poem. But in any case no such contention could apply to the oldest presentment of Fionn as a formula hero, that found in the great Irish vellum, the Leabhar na h'Uidhre, written down from older materials at the beginning of the twelfth century. The tract entitled "The cause of the battle of Cnucha" has been translated by Mr. Henessey ("Revue Celtique," vol. ii., pp. 86, et seq.).
In it we find Cumhall and Tadhg, the violence done to the latter's daughter, the consequent defeat and death of Cumhall, the lonely rearing of Fionn by his mother, and the youth's avenging of his father. I must refer to my paper in the " Folk-Lore Record " for a detailed argument in favour of the L.n.H. account being an euhemerised version of the popular tradition, represented by the Boyish Exploits, and for a comparison of the Fionn sage as a whole with the Greek, Iranian, Latin, and Germanic hero tales, which like it are modelled upon the lines of the Expulsion and Return formula. I have said enough, I trust, to show that the Fionn sage is a variant (a far richer one) of the theme treated in the boyhood of Perceval, but that it, and a fortiori the allied folk-tales are quite independent of the French poem. It then follows that this portion of Chrestien's poem must itself be looked upon as one of many treatments of a theme even more popular among the Celts than among any other Aryan race, and that its ultimate source is a Breton or Welsh folk-tale.
The genuine and independent nature of the Great Fool prose opening being thus established, it is in the highest degree suggestive to find in the accompanying Lay points of contact with the Grail Legend as given in Chrestien. Three versions of this Lay have been printed in English, that edited by Mr. John O'Daly (Transactions of the Ossianic Society, vol. vi., pp. 161, et seq.); Mr. Campbell's (West Highland Tales, vol. iii. pp. 154, et seq.) and Mr. Kennedy's prose version (Bardic Stories of Ireland, pp. 151, et seq.). O'Daly's, as the most complete and coherent, forms the staple of the following summary, passages found in it alone being italicised.*
Summary of the Lay of the Great Fool
(1) There was a great fool who subdued the world by strength of body;
(2) He comes to the King of Lochlin to win a fair woman, learns she is guarded by seven score heroes, overthrows them, and carries her off; (C. and K. plunging at once in medias res, introduce the Great Fool and his lady love out walking)
(3) The two enter a valley, are meet by a " Gruagach " (champion, sorcerer), in his hand a goblet with drink;
(4) The Great Fool thirsts, and though warned by his lady love drinks deep of the proffered cup; the "Gruagach" departs and the Great Fool finds himself minus his two legs;
(5) The two go onward, and (" swifter was he at his two knees than six at their swiftness of foot; " C.) A deer nears them followed by a white hound, the Great Fool slays the deer and seizes the hound;
(6) whose owner coming up claims but finally yields it, and offers the Great Fool food and drink during life;
(7) The three fare together (the glen they had passed through had ever been full of glamour) till they come to a fair city filled with the glitter of gold, dwelt in solely by the owner of the white hound and his wife, " whiter than very snow her form, gentle her eye, and her teeth like a flower";
(8) She asks concerning her husband's guests, and, learning the Great Fool's prowess, marvels he should have let himself be deprived of his legs;
(9) The host departs, leaving his house, wife, and store of gold in the Great Fool's keeping, he is to let no man in, no one out should any come in, nor is he to sleep;
(10) Spite his lady love's urgings the Great Fool yields to slumber, when in comes a young champion and snatches a kiss from the host's wife, ("She was not ill pleased that he came," C.);
(11) The Great Fool's love awakening him reproaches him for having slept he arises to guard the door, in vain does the intruder offer gold, three cauldrons full and seven hundred townlands, he shall not get out;
(12) At the instigation of the host's wife the intruder restores the Great Fool's legs, but not then even will the hero let him go pay for the kiss he must when the host returns; threats to deprive him of his legs are in vain, as are likewise the entreaties of the host's wife (All this is developed with great prolixity in O'Daly, but there is nothing substantial added to the account in C.);
(13) Finally the intruder discloses that he himself is the host, and he was the Gruagach, whose magic cup deprived the Great Fool of his legs, and he is, " his own gentle brother long in search of him, now that he has found him he is released from sorcery" The two kiss (C. and K. end here).
(14) The two brothers fare forth, encounter a giant with an eye larger than a moon and an iron club, wherewith he hits the Great Fool a crack that brings him to his knees, but the latter arising closes with the giant, kills him and takes his club, the two then attack four other giants, three of whom the Great Fool slays with his club, and the fourth yields to him. The brothers take possession of the giant's castle and all its wealth.
There are obvious similarities between the Lay and the story found in the Mabinogi and the Conte du Graal. A stag hunt is prominent in both, and whilst engaged in it the hero falls under "illusion," in both too the incident of the seizure of the hound appears, though in a different connection. Finally in the Lay, as in the Mabinogi, the mover in the enchantment is a kinsman whose own release from spells depends upon the hero's coming successfully out of the trials to which he exposes him. But while the general idea is the same, the way in which it is worked out is so different that it is impossible to conceive of the one story having been borrowed from the other. What can safely be claimed is that the Great Fool, counterpart of Peredar-Perceval in the adventures of his youth and up-bringing, is also, to a certain extent, his counterpart in the most prominent of his later adventures, that of the stag hunt. It is thus fairly certain that all this part of the Conte du Graal is, like the Enfances, a working up of Celtic folk-tales. The giant fight which concludes the Lay may be compared with that in Sir Perceval and in Morvan le Breiz, and such a comparison makes it extremely likely that the incident thus preserved by independent and widely differing offshoots from the same folk-tale stem, belongs to the oldest form of the story.
The folk-tale of the twin brethren
The analogies of the Lay with the Perceval sage are not yet exhausted. Tn virtue of the relationship between the two chief characters, the Lay belongs to the "twin-brother cycle." This group of folk-tales, some account of which is given below,* is closely related on the one hand to the "dragon slayer " group of mdrchen, on the other hand to the Expulsion and Return formula tales. In many versions of the latter (the most famous being that of Romulus and Remus) the hero is one of twins, and, after sharing for a while with his brother, strife breaks out between them. In the folk-tale this strife leads to final reconciliation, or is indeed a means of unravelling the plot.
* Of this widely spread group, Grimm's No. 60, Die zwei Briider, may be taken as a type. The brethren eat heart and liver of the gold bird and thereby get infinite riches, are schemed against by a goldsmith, who would have kept the gold bird for himself, seek their fortunes throughout the world accompanied by helping beasts, part at crossways, leaving a life token to tell each one how the other fares; the one delivers a princess from a dragon, is cheated of the fruit of the exploit by the Red Knight, whom after a year he confounds, wins the princess, and, after a while, hunting a magic hind, falls victim to a witch. His brother, learning his fate through the life token, comes to the same town, is taken for the young king even by the princess, but keeps faith to his brother by laying a bare aword twixt them twain at night. He then delivers from the witch's spells his brother, who, learning the error caused by the likeness, and thinking advantage had been taken of it, in a fit of passsion slays him, but afterwards, hearing the truth, brings him back to life again. Grimm has pointed out in his notes the likeness between this story and that of Siegfried (adventures with Mimir, Fafnir, Brunhilde, and Gunnar). In India the tale figures in Somadeva's Katha Sarit Sagara (Brockhaus' translation, ii., 142, et seq.}. The one brother is transformed into a demon through accidental sprinkling from a body burning on a bier. He is in the end released from this condition by his brother's performing certain exploits, but there is no similarity of detail. Other variants are Zingerle (p. 131) where the incident occurs of the hero's winning the king's favour by making his bear dance before him; this I am inclined to look upon as a weakened recollection of the incident of a hero's making a princess laugh, either by playing antics himself or making an animal of his play them (see supra, p. 134, Kennedy's Irish Tale). Grimm also quotes Meier 29 and 58, but these are only variants of the dragon -killing incident. In the variant of 29, giyen p. 306, the hero makes the king laugh, and in both stories occurs the familiar incident of the hero coming unknown into a tournament and overcoming all enemies, as in Peredur (Inc. 9). Wolf., p. 3G9, is closer, and here the hero is counselled by a. grey mannikin whom he will unspell if he succeeds. Stier, No. I. (not p. 67, as Grimm erroneously indicates) follows almost precisely the same course as Grimm's 60, save that there are three brothers. Graal, p. 195, has the magic gold bird opening, but none of the subsequent adventures tally. Schott, No. 11, is also cited by Grimm, but mistakenly; it belongs to the faithful-servant group. Very close variants come from Sweden (Cavallius-Oberleitner, V, VZ) and Italy (Pentamerone, 1. 7 and 1. 9). The Swedish tales have the miraculous conception opening, which is a prominent feature in tales belonging to the Expulsion and Eeturn group (e.g., Perseus, Cu-Chulaind, and Taliesin), but present otherwise very nearly the same incidents as Grimm. The second of the Italian versions has the miraculous conception opening so characteristic of this group of folk-tales, and of the allied formula group, the attainment of riches consequent upon eating the heart of a sea dragon, the tournament incident (though without the disguise of the hero) , the stag hunt, wherein the stag, an inimical wizard haunting the wood, is a cannibal and keeps the cautured hero for eating. In the story of the delivery by the second brother, the separating sword incident occurs. The first version opens with what is apparently a distorted and weakened form of the hero's clearing a haunted house of its diabolical inmates (see infra Ch. VII., Gawain) and then follows very closely Grimm's Two Brothers, save that the alluring witch is young and fair, the whole tale being made to point the moral, " more luck than wit." Straparola, a 3, is a variant of the dragon fight incident alone. It, is impossible not to be struck by the fact that in this widely spread group of tales are to be found some of the most characteristic incidents of the Perceval and allied Great Fool group. The only version, however, which brings the two groups into formal contact is O'Daly's form of The Great Fool.
In the hero-tale on the other hand the strife mostly ends with the death or defeat of the one brother. It would seem that when the folk-tale got associated with a definite hero (generally the founder and patron of a race) and became in brief a hero-tale, the necessity of exalting the race hero brought about a modification of the plot. If this is so the folk-tale group of the "two brothers" must be looked upon as older than the corresponding portion of the Expulsion and Return hero-tales, and not as a mere weakened echo of the latter. To return to the twin-brother features. The Peredur-Perceval sage has a twin-sister, and is parallel herein to the Fionn sage in one of its forms ("How the Een was set up"), though curiously enough not to the Great Fool folk-tale (otherwise so similar to "How the Een was set up "), which, as in the Lay, has a brother. But beyond this formal recognition of the incident in the Perceval sage, I am inclined to look upon the Perceval-Gawain dualism as another form of it. This dualism has been somewhat obscured by the literary form in which the sage has been preserved and the tendency to exalt and idealise one hero. In the present case this tendency has not developed so far as to seriously diminish the importance of Gawain; his adventures are, however, left in a much more primitive and mdrchenhaft shape, and hence, as will be shown later on, are extremely valuable in any attempt to reach the early form of the story.*
* The brother feature appears likewise in Wolfram von Esehenbach, where Parzival's final and hardest struggle is against the unknown brother, as the G-reat Fool's is against the Grruagach. This may be added to other indications that Wolfram did have some other version before him besides Chrestien's.
If Simrock's words quoted on the title page were indeed conclusive " If that race among whom the 'Great Fool ' folk-tale was found independent of the Grail story had the best claim to be regarded as having wrought into one these two elements " then my task might be considered at an end. I have shown that this race was that of the Celtic dwellers in these islands, among whom this tale is found not only in a fuller and more significant form than elsewhere, but in a form that connects it with the French Grail romance. But the conclusion that the Conte du Graal is in the main a working up of Celtic popular traditions, which had clustered round a hero, whose fortunes bore, in part, a striking resemblance to those of Fionn, the typical representative of the Expulsion and Return formula cycle among the Celts, though hardly to be gainsaid, does not seem to help much towards settling the question of the origin of the Grail itself. The story would appear to be Celtic except just the central incident upon which the whole turns. For the English Sir Perceval, which undoubtedly follows older models, breathes no word of search for any magic talisman, let alone the Grail, whilst the Mabinogi, which is also older in parts than the Conte du Graal, gives a different turn to and assigns a different motif for the hero's conduct. The avenging of a kinsman's harm upon certain supernatural beings, and the consequent release from enchantment of another kinsman, supply the elements of a clear and consistent action to which parallels may easily be adduced from folk-tales, but one quite distinct from the release of a kinsman through the medium of certain talismans and certain magic formulas. Numerous as have been the points of contact hitherto established between Celtic folk belief and the French romance, the parallel would seem to break down at its most essential point, and the contention that the Grail is a foreign element in the Celtic legend would still seem to be justified. Before, however, this can be asserted, what I have called the central episode of the romance requires more searching and detailed examination than it has had, and some accessory features, which, on the hypothesis of the Christian legendary origin of the Grail, remain impenetrable puzzles must be commented upon. And another instructive point of contact between romance and folk-tale must be previously noticed, connected as it is with stories already dealt with in this chapter.
The Witch Who Brings The Dead To Life
In the latest portion of the Conte du Graal, the interpolation of Gerbert, the following incident occurs: The hero meets four knights carrying their wounded father, who turns out to be Gonemans, the same who armed him knight. He vows vengeance upon Gonemans' enemies, but his efforts are at first of no avail. As fast as in the daytime he slays them, at night they are brought back to life by "Une vieille" who is thus described:
La poitrine ot agiie et seche;
Ele arsist ausi come une esche
Si on boutast en li le fu.*
* * * * *
La bouche avoit grant a merveilles
Et fendue dusqu'as oreilles,
Qu'ele avoit longues et tendans;
Lons et lez et gausnes les dans
Avoit. (Potvin vi., 183, 184.)
* I cannot but think that these words have connection with the incident in the English Sir Perceval of the hero's throwing into the flames and thus destroying his witch enemy.
She carries with her
II. barisiax d'ivoire gent;
containing a "poison," the same whereof Christ made use in the Sepulchre, and which serves here to bring the dead back to life and to rejoin heads cut off from bodies. She goes to work thus:
A la teste maintenant prise,
Si 1'a desor le bu assise;
then taking the balm
Puis en froie celui la bouche
A cui la teste avoit rajointe;
Sor celui n'ot vaine ne jointe
Qui lues ne fust de vie plaine.
Perceval stops her when she has brought back three of her men to life; she recognises in him her conqueror:
Bien vous connois et bien savoie
Que de nului garde n'avoie
Fors que de vous; car, par mon chief
Nus n'en peust venir a chief
Se vous non. . . .
So long as she lives, Perceval shall be powerless to achieve his Quest. She wars against Gonemant by order of the King of the Waste City, who ever strives against all who uphold the Christian faith, and whose chief aim it is to hinder Perceval from attaining knowledge of the Grail. Perceval gets possession of somewhat of the wonder-working balm, brings to life the most valiant of his adversaries, slays him afresh after a hard struggle, in which he himself is wounded, heals his own hurt, and likewise Gonemant's, with the balsam.
Compare now Campbell's above-cited tale, the Knight of the Red Shield. The hero, left alone upon the island by his two treacherous companions, sees coming towards him " three youths, heavily, wearily, tired." They are his foster-brothers, and from the end of a day and a year they hold battle against the Son of Darkness, Son of Dimness, and a hundred of his people, and every one they kill to-day will be alive to-morrow, and spells are upon them they may not leave this (island) for ever until they kill them.
The hero starts out on the morrow alone against these enemies, and he did not leave a head on a trunk of theirs, and he overcame the Son of Darkness himself. But he is so spoilt and torn he cannot leave the battle-field, and he lays himself down amongst the dead the length of the day. " There was a great strand under him below; and what should he hear but the sea coming as a blazing brand of fire, as a destroying serpent, as a bellowing bull; he looked from him, and what saw he coming on the shore of the strand, but a great toothy carlin . . . there was the tooth that was longer than a staff in her fist, and the one that was shorter than a stocking wire in her lap." She puts her finger in the mouth of the dead, and brings them alive.
She does this to the hero, and he bites off the finger at the joint, and then slays her. She is the mother of the Son of Darkness, and she has a vessel of balsam wherewith the hero's foster-brothers anoint and make him whole, and her death frees them from her spells for ever.*
* I must refer to my Mabinogion Studies, I. Branwen for a discussion of the relation of this tale with Branwen and with the Teutonic Heldensage.
This "toothy carlin" is a favourite figure in Celtic tradition. She re appears in the ballad of the Muilearteach (probably Muir larteach, i.e., Western Sea), Campbell, iii., pp. 122, et seq., and is there described as " the bald russet one," " her face blue black, of the lustre of coal, her bone tufted tooth like rusted bone, one deep pool-like eye in her head, gnarled brushwood on her head like the clawed-up wood of the aspen root."
In another version of the ballad, printed in the Scottish Celtic Review, No. 2, pp. 115, et seq., the monster is "bald red, white maned, her face dark grey, of the hue of coal, the teeth of her jaw slanting red, one flabby eye in her head, her head bristled dark and grey, like scrubwood before hoar."*
* Another parallel is afforded by the tale of Conall Gulban (Campbell, III., 274). Conall, stretched wounded on the field, sees " when night grew dark a great Turkish carlin, and she had a white glaive of light with which she could see seven miles behind her and seven miles before her; and she had a flask of balsam carrying it." The dead men are brought to life by having three drops of balsam put into their mouths. The hero wins both flask and glaive.
The editor of this version, the Rev. J. G. Campbell, interprets the ballad, and correctly, no doubt, "as an inroad of the Personified Sea." There is no connection, pave in the personage of the "toothy carlin," between the ballad and the folk-tale.*
* Cf. my Branwen for remarks on the mythological aspect of the ballad. It should be noted that most of the ballads traditionally current in the Highlands are of semi-literary origin, i.e., would seem to go back to the compositions of mediaeval Irish bards, who often sprinkled over the native tradition a profusion of classical and historical names. I do not think the foreign influence went farther than the " names " of some personages, and such as it is is more at, work in the ballads than in the tales.
Celtic Source Of The Incident In Gerbert
It is impossible, I think, to compare Gerbert's description of the witch with that of the Highland " Carlin " without coming to the conclusion that the French poet drew from traditional, popular Celtic sources. The wild fantasy of the whole is foreign in the extreme to the French temperament, and is essentially Celtic in tone. But the incident, as well as one particular feature of it, admits of comparison: the three foster-brothers of the Highland tale correspond to the four sons of Gonemant, who be it recollected, represents in the Conte du Graal, Peredur-Perceval's uncle in the Mabinogi; in both, the hero goes forth alone to do battle with the mysterious enemy; the Son of Darkness answers to the King of the Waste City; the dead men are brought back to life in the same way; the release of the kinsman, from spells, or from danger of death, follows upon the witch's discomfiture. And yet greater value attaches to the incident as connected with the Mabinogi form of the story; in Gerbert, as in the Mabinogi, the hero's uncle is sick to death, his chief enemy is a monstrous witch (or witches), who foreknows that she must succumb at the hero's hands.*
* This may seem to conflict with the statement made above (p. 145), that the Mabinogi probably took over the maimed unele from Chrestien. But there were in all probability several forms of the story; that hinted at in Chrestien and found in Manessier had its probable counterpart in Celtic tradition as well as that found in Gerbert. It is hardly possible to determine what was the form found in the proto-Mabinogi, the possibility of its having been exactly the same us that of Gerbert is in no way affected by the fact that the Mabinogi, as we now have it, has in this respect been influenced by Chrestien. Meanwhile Birch-Hirschfeld's hypothesis that Gerbert's section of the Conte du Graal is an interpolation between Gautier and Manessier is laid open to grave doubt. It is far more likely that Gerbert's work was an independent and original attempt to provide an ending for Chrestien's unfinished poem, and that he had before him a different version of the original from that used by Gautier and Manessier.
Something has obviously dropped out from the Mabinogi. May it not be those very magic talismans, the winning of which is the chief element of the French romances, and may not one of the talismans have been the vessel of life-restoring balsam which figures in Gerbert and the Highland tales?* The study of subsidiary versions and incidents may thus throw upon the connection of the Grail with the Perceval romance a light which the main Celtic forms of the latter have not hitherto yielded.
* It occurs also in Peredur (Inc. 16), where tlie hero comes to the Castle of the Youths, who, fighting every day against the Addanc of the Cave, are each day slain, and each day brought to life by being anointed in a vessel of warm water and with precious balsam.
The Thornton MS
Sir Perceval differs in this incident from both Manessier and Gerbert. As in Gerbert and the Highland Tale the hero meets his uncle and cousins; there is the same fight with the mother of the enemy of his kin, the hideous carlin, but it precedes, as does also the slaying of that enemy, the meeting of uncle and nephews. There is thus no room for the healing motif for which the unconscious avenging of the father's death is substituted. These differences bear witness both to the popular and shifting nature of the traditions upon which the romances are based, and to the fact that the avenging of a blood feud was the leading incident of its earliest form.
