Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 1, 1890.djvu/257

Rh investigations, which at first blush seem to belong wholly to literary history, may involve the wider problems of comparative mythology and folk-lore. A fragmentary German Arthurian poem of the 12th century, “Manuel et Amande,” the translation of a now lost French work, tells of Arthur’s death, caused, it would seem, by a cat. Now Arthur’s combat with a great cat is an episode often alluded to in the later romance, and is fully described in the Vulgate Merlin. The cat was fished up on the shores of the Lake of Geneva, nourished by its captor, whom in return it strangled, together with the rest of the family, and became thereafter the terror of the country side. Only after a desperate conflict was Arthur successful. This is one version. But André de Coutances, an Anglo-Norman poet of the early 13th century, is at some pains to refute the idle tales current in his days how Arthur was overcome and slain by Capalu. This name turns up in other poems of the same date, e.g., in the Bataille Loquifer, the title of which reveals its Celtic provenance (Loquifer = Lok Ifern and Ifern = Hell). Now the oldest series of Welsh triads, which can be carried back, paleographically, to the first quarter of the 13th century, tells anent the Cath Palug a story almost precisely similar to that of the Vulgate Merlin, and we can hark back still further on Welsh ground. The Black Book of Caermarthen is a Welsh MS. of the last quarter of the 12th century; a poem therein, unfortunately incomplete, describes how Cai warred against the Cath Palug, “nine score before | dawn would fall for its food | nine score chieftains.” In this instance, at least, the priority of the Welsh version of the episode cannot be seriously questioned. The Black Book poem belongs to the very oldest stage of the Arthur-saga, that wherein Arthur himself is the chief protagonist, and Kai and Bedwer his chief and constant companions; a stage, be it