Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 15, 1904.djvu/75

 Rh personage upon whom pressure has to be put, in this case, the refusal to partake of his hospitality; a pressure analogous to that legally recognised in the codes of Brahminic India and early Ireland for the purpose of exacting settlement of debt. As in most tales of this class, the supernatural helper at first succeeds in eluding the request of his mortal applicant. Twice Arthur yields to the invitation to dismount and eat, and it is only on his showing himself firm that, at the third attempt, he meets with success. Professor Kittredge's conjecture that the three kings are in reality one and the same personage must command universal assent. The three names (if we disregard Torleil as due to a scribal error) are variant Welsh terms signifying Werwolf, and in fact etymologically allied to the Teutonic term. The story thus follows the familiar conventions of fairydom—the supernatural helper is compelled to give the mortal three chances, and that mortal, stupid or incurious though he be, always pulls off the third one.

But if this is so, our version has obviously suffered modification. The second and third kings cannot be the werwolf's brothers, as is indeed evident from the conduct of the story. The werwolf knows nothing of the third king when he appeals to him for protection, which would be absurd if he were really his brother. The statement really testifies to a confused reminiscence of the essential identity of the three informants. Furthermore, traces of contamination are glaringly evident. There is "superfluity of naughtiness" in the duplication of the adultery theme; and the Gellert episode—the false accusation resting upon the wolf of having slain the child—is dragged in clumsily. On the other hand, the form and conduct of the story wear an archaic and genuine folk character; the triadic arrangement, the repeated attempts, couched in a set formula, to induce Arthur to desist, find their parallels in the phenomena of popular story-telling generally, but especially in those of Gaelic popular story-telling as it still flourishes, and as it can be proved to have flourished for the last eight hundred years at least. No one familiar with Gaelic story-telling (whether in its Irish or Scotch form) can fail to