Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 11, 1900.djvu/435

 Reviews. 415

the writer arrives at the conclusion that it was this monster, originally a sea demon, who in one version of the story conveyed Arthur to Avalon ! It is certain that there was a tradition that Arthur was either slain in his combat with the Cat or disappeared after his victory over it — equally certain that the mysterious Chapalu or Capalu was in Avalon with Arthur.

Herr Freymond then discusses the subject of fights with sea- monsters, or monsters connected with water, and concludes by examining the process by which the legend became localised in Savoy. The scene of the story he considers to be the Mont du Chat, near the Lac du Bourget, which in the Romance has be- come confused with the better-known Lac de Losanne, i.e. Geneva. As to how the story, originally Welsh, arrived in Savoy, the writer does not dogmatise ; he suggests two theories, either that it was brought south by the pilgrims — the Mont du Chat lying on the direct route to Rome — or through intercommunication be- tween the reigning House of Savoy and the Kings of France and England. In the twelfth and thirteenth centuries the princely house of Savoy intermarried alike with these countries and with Flanders, then represented by Count Philip, patron of Chretien de Troies.

The study is both interesting and valuable, affording as it does additional evidence of the survivals of Celtic elements in the Arthurian legends, and showing how long a period of evolution must have preceded the final emergence of the purely knightly and chivalric form in which it is familiar to us. Unhappily, it makes us only the more conscious of the number of links in the chain of tradition which are lacking, with but scant hope of recovery.

There are one or two omissions in the section dealing with monsters generally which have struck us. Why does not Herr Freymond refer to Gawain's fight with the lion in the Chateau Merveil ? The beast is of monstrous size, " as large as a horse," is famishing for hunger, and attacks the knight as the cat does Arthur, fixing its claws in his shield. Gawain, too, smites off the fore-paw (only one here) and preserves the shield with the trophy attached, for doing which he is mocked by his " Proud Lady." Some connection between the stories there certainly must be.

Again, we hardly think that the Chevaher-Poisson, in the poem