Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 17, 1906.djvu/358

 344 '^^^ European Sky -God.

magnificent palace on an island inhabited by women, who dwelt apart from men ; ^ and that he wedded the mistress of it, a lady of surpassing beauty known by various names {V Orgueilleuse de Logres, Orgeluse, Blancemal, Lorie, Florie, Flort, Aimirfina, etc.), but originally nameless, and to be regarded as 'either the Daughter of the King of the Other- world, or as herself the Queen of that Other-world!'^ Finally Miss Weston remarks that 'a feature recurring in the Irish tales, the bearing of a branch of a wondrous tree by the queen, seems reflected in the command laid upon the knight to pluck the bough of the tree guarded by Gramoflanz.'^

The incident in question occurs in the Parzival of Wolfram von Eschenbach.^ Orgeluse bids Gawain, if he would win her as his bride, to break a bough from off a certain tree and bring her a garland of its fresh leaves. The tree is guarded by Gramoflanz, king of Rosche Sabbins.^ Gawain, traversing a v/ood of Tamris (tamarisk) and Prisein QY and crossing the Perilous Ford, reaches the tree, breaks a bough, and makes of it a garland for his helmet. Hereupon up rides a knight :

'Twas King Gramoflanz— ' To the garland that doth there in thine helmet

wave I yield not my claim ! ' thus quoth he, ' Sir Knight, were ye two I trow, Who here for high honour seeking had reft from my tree a bough, I had greeted ye not, but had fought ye, but since thou alone shalt be. Thou canst ride hence, for strife unequal I deem it a shame to me ! '

And Gawain, too, was loth to fight him, for no armour the king did wear, And nought but a yearling falcon he did on his white hand bear. (And the sister of Gawain gave it, Itonje the maid was hight.)

^ Ead. ib. chapter v, p. 32 ff. ^ Ead. ib. chapter vi, p. 44 ff.

'^ Ead. ib. p. 37.

J. L. Weston xii. 269 ff.
 * Wolfram Farzival ed. K. Bartsch Leipzig 187 1 xii. 530 ff., trans. Miss

^ Ib. xiv. 233, cp. xii. 322, xiv. 858. This is Wolfram's equivalent of

Chretien 10186 Roche de Sangiiin (Bartsch vol. ii p. 298).

^ Ib. xii. 282. Bartsch ad loc. vol. ii p. 288 cp. Prov. tresil.