Jessie L. Weston

“ I do not suppose it would very much astonish any competent student of these questions if some missionary in Africa, or traveller in the South Sea Islands, was to publish a savage variant of our romance: the substitution of the slayer for the slain, and the practice of rain-making by the pouring out of water, are customs alive in certain parts of the world to this day. But what would Professor Foerster say? Would he still maintain that his 'Meister' invented the story, and credit the savage folk, whoever they might be, with the remains of a vanished civilisation and literary culture? ”

“ I have suggested elsewhere that probably the historic germ of the Arthurian legend is to be found in his fights with the Saxons, his betrayal by his wife and nephew, and his death in battle with the latter. Certainly there is a genuine historic element in the account of his wars; and it is significant that the older Arthurian chroniclers—Geoffrey of Monmouth and his translators—all agree in relating at considerable length the story of Guinevere's betrayal of her husband; while the Welsh tradition, which does not know Lancelot, is even more emphatic on the subject of her infidelity. ”

“ The utter confusion of the writer as to the identity of the Fisher King and Maimed King; the inter-relation of Grail Winner, owner of Grail Castle, Fisher King and Maimed King; the neglect of the most obvious conditions of the quest, such as ignorance on the part of the predestined Grail Winner; his giving proof of identity by fulfilment of a test; the inaccessibility of the Grail castle to all but the elect knight—all show a most extraordinary carelessness on his part, were he intending to write a Grail romance pure and simple. Ignorance we cannot postulate. ”

“ A further indication of contact with the Perceval romances is afforded by the love-trances which overtake the hero at the most inconvenient moment, and are repeated ad nauseam in the most clumsy and inartistic manner. It is noticeable that on the occasion of the first attack (in the case of Lancelot one can only regard these trances as an intermittent malady) the knight is clad in red armour and leans on his spear—as does Perceval when he sees the blood-drops on the snow. ”

“ The hero knows all about the Grail, its keeper, where it is to be found, his own relation to it. He has grown up under its shadow as it were. Nor need he fulfil any test to gain it: in all the records of his adventures there is no temptation such as that undergone by Perceval or Bohort; he is as fit to become keeper of the Grail (for this and not Grail-King he practically becomes) when he leaves Arthur's court as when he finally, after a series of aimless adventures, arrives at Corbenic. Contrast this with the earlier versions: the hero knows nothing of the Grail ”

“ Then ought we not to distinguish between romantic and mythic? Professor Foerster's arguments appear to me to [Pg 57] ignore Arthur as a mythic hero. Romance and myth are not the same thing; though their final developments are apt to overlap, their root origins are distinctly different.
The mythic element in Arthurian legend cannot be ignored—in fact, it is practically admitted; but some scholars appear to lose sight of its character. Yet if that character be rightly apprehended it will, I think, be recognised that the distinguishing features are not due to any demonstrable Armorican element ”

“ Wechssler's Grail study is that he predicates the distinctive traits of Perceval as being of Galahad—to whom they never in any sense belonged. Galahad is not Perceval's understudy, much less is he his original: he is an absolutely and entirely independent creation. The only quality they have in common is that of virginity, which is not of them, but of the monkish redactors of the legend. It is certainly no part of the primitive Perceval tale. ”

“ Much of Lancelot's later popularity is doubtless due to his rôle as the queen's lover; but how account for the initial popularity which caused him to be chosen for that rôle? I can only explain the phenomenon of a knight, whose very name is unknown before the middle of the twelfth century, becoming before the end of that century the leading hero of a cycle to which he was originally a stranger, by supposing that there was some special charm in the lai originally connected with him, by means of which his story took hold of the public fancy. ”

“ In the previous chapters we have examined, so far as the material at our disposal permitted, the Lancelot legend in its gradual evolution from a collection of scattered tales, or lais, to the vast body of cyclic romance which was its final form. In this task we have restricted ourselves to those features which more intimately concern the personal character and fortunes of our hero; a choice which leaves untouched a large section of his adventures, such as his friendship with Galehault, and his winning of the Dolorous Garde. ”

“ It is certainly remarkable that in each of the three great prose branches, the Merlin, [120] the Tristan, and the Lancelot, Guinevere's moral character is apparently unaffected by her conduct with Lancelot. The compilers all agree in extolling her as the noblest of queens and best of women. Even so aggressively virtuous and clerical a romance as the prose Perceval li Gallois, though quite aware of the connection, regards Guinevere in a favourable light—indeed, as morally superior to Arthur! ”

“ Is it not the fact that story-tellers in mediæval times depended for their popularity less upon the manner in which they told their stories than on the stories themselves? i.e., if they wished to write a really popular poem they took a subject already popular, and which they knew would be secure of a favourable hearing. Are we really so unreasonable when we contend that it was the traditional, folk-lore, popular character of the stories told in Erec, Yvain, and Perceval, which made them so much more popular than Cligés? ”

“ Now I would submit that the rational progress of evolution is by expansion, not by contraction, and that the name of Robert de Borron became associated with a cycle representing the ensemble of Arthurian romance because there was a smaller cycle which was really the work of the genuine Robert de Borron, which smaller cycle formed the germ of the later and more extended body of romance. ”

“ We are, so far, only on the threshold of a satisfactory and scientific criticism of the Arthurian cycle, and I doubt whether all who are engaged in this study recognise sufficiently either the extent and complexity of the questions involved, or the absolute futility of, at this early stage, enunciating dogmatic decisions on any of the various points at issue. Is there any one living scholar who is perfectly aware of all the evidence at our disposal for any of the great stories of the cycle? ”

“ The adventures ascribed to Lancelot might just as well be placed to the credit of any other knight: they are the ordinary stock-in-trade of the mediæval romancer. Guinevere's lover he is, but the love-story is of the most conventional character: the more it is studied the more clearly do the records in which it is shrined appear the offspring of conscious literary invention, and that invention of by no means a high order. He is certainly no hero of prehistoric myth, solar or otherwise, as Gawain or Perceval may well be ”

“ Whatever be the connection between the Perceval and Bel Inconnu stories, I think it is clear that both were well known before the development of the Lancelot legend took place, and that in the process of development this latter borrowed from both. A close examination of the variants of the Lancelot 'Enfances' will, I think, strengthen the hypothesis advanced in a previous chapter, i.e. that the connection of the hero with a water-fairy alone is of the essence of the tale, all the rest is comparatively late in development, and markedly non-original and secondary in character. ”

“ Next to Galahad and Perceval, the hero of the Queste is Bohort (Bors) . But for a single youthful lapse he yields in nothing to those doughty champions of celibacy: his purity, alike of body and soul, is emphatically insisted upon; his confession fills the priest who receives it with a fervour of admiration; yet it is precisely this saintly youth who, in the section preceding and following the Queste (the Lancelot and the Mort Artur) , is the confidant and go-between of Lancelot and Guinevere. ”

“ True, of late years the popularity of Wagner's music has made their ears, at least, familiar with the names of Tristan and Iseult. Still, that Tristan and Iseult were ever as famous as Lancelot and Guinevere, few outside the ranks of professed students of mediæval literature would believe; still fewer admit that the loves of Arthur's queen and Arthur's knight were suggested by, if not imitated from, the older, more poetic, and infinitely more convincing, Celtic love-tale; that Lancelot, as Arthur's knight and Guinevere's lover, is a comparatively late addition to the Arthurian legend. ”

“ It may help us to solve certain puzzles. Certain heroes of course represent what we may call the general stock-in-trade of Aryan tradition: their names vary with the lands in which their tales are told, but whether Cuchullain or Gawain, Siegfried or Perceval, the hero represents a traditional tale which antedates any special form of recital; such a tale would be assured of welcome, and practically independent of musical aid. But in the case of Lancelot we have no such prehistoric tradition, no striking parallels in early legends. ”

“ After a fierce conflict, in which he is desperately wounded, he succeeds in slaying them, and secures the white foot. At this moment a stranger knight appears, and Lancelot, exhausted by the fight, gives him the foot, bidding him carry it to the queen, and say that the knight who has achieved the adventure lies sorely wounded, and prays her aid. The knight promises this, but having received the foot, deals Lancelot a treacherous blow with his sword, and leaving him for dead rides off to the castle, and claims the reward due to the slayer of the lions. ”

“ Every one knows who Lancelot is; every one will know why he, and no other knight, shall rescue the queen.
That there was a previous story of Guinevere's rescue from imprisonment under analogous circumstances is quite clear: the references found in the Arthurian romance are too numerous, and too archaic in form to be derived from a poem so late in date, so artificial in character, and so restricted in popularity as the Charrette. ”

“ The writer of the tale informs us (but it should be kept in mind that the hermit does not tell Lancelot) that the lady of the country has promised her hand to whoever will slay the monster. A knight who has long loved her, but is too cowardly to dare the venture, keeps a watch upon all those who may attack the beast, with the secret intention of, if possible, slaying the victor and taking the credit of the deed to himself. Lancelot arrives at the monster's lair, which is surrounded by the bones of men and animals slain by the fiend. ”

“ I am not clear that it was, in its origin, a tale of conjugal infidelity; it rather appears to me to be a Pluto-Proserpine abduction tale. The abductor may at one period have been Guinevere's lover; but, as we now have it, the queen is the innocent victim of violence. Further, it is evident that the abductor had ceased to be the lover before the introduction of Lancelot into the story (cf. Lanzelet) . Therefore, if originally an infidelity story, we are met by the same perplexing gap in the tradition as we find in the Mordred version. ”

“ Another point which is often overlooked is the discrepancy of age between Lancelot and the queen; the hero's birth takes place some considerable time after the marriage of Arthur and Guinevere. In the final war with Arthur we are told that Lancelot is twenty-one years Gawain's junior, this latter being seventy, [126] while Arthur is ninety years old! It is quite clear that we have here no tale of the genuine spontaneous love of youth and maiden such as we find in Tristan and Iseult, but rather the account of the liaison between a young knight and a lady, his superior in years and station. ”

“ Some perhaps will say it was the story of Guinevere's imprisonment and rescue, but they must remember that in the Lanzelet this is not the work of the hero. I think myself that the root of the Lancelot tale was simply a Breton lai, relating the theft of a king's son by a water fairy: this seems to be the one abiding and persistent element in the tale, all else is uncertain and shifting. Here the hero is Arthur's nephew; elsewhere he is but the son of an old ally; at one time his father is a tyrant, 'chassé' by his own people; again he is a noble king, the victim of treachery and a foreign foe. ”

“ The prose Lancelot version is entirely different, and far less archaic: there is no real lake, the appearance is but a mirage; men are admitted; Lancelot has not only his cousins for companions, but other knights as well. The lady herself is conceived of more as a mortal versed in enchantment than as a fairy proper. In the Suite de Merlin she is identified with the Demoiselle Chaceresse, daughter of the King of Northumberland; [28] and in both these romances, the Lancelot and the Merlin Suite, she is the lover and the betrayer of Merlin. ”

“ When he first appears he plays but a small part, gradually his rôle becomes more and more prominent, till in the later portion of the prose Lancelot he has become a very efficient understudy to the hero, even surpassing in valour Gawain himself. Thus, on the return of the knights from one of their numerous quests in search of Lancelot, when they are called upon to rehearse their adventures, in order that a record of them may be made, it is decided that their rank, in order of merit, is Bohort, Gawain, Hector, Gaheriet, Lionel, and Baudemagus. ”