Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 17, 1906.djvu/359

 The European Sky -God. 345

His headgear in Sinzester^ fashioned was of peacock's plumage bright, And green as grass was the mantle of velvet that wrapped him round, And with ermine lined, and on each side it swept even unto the ground.^

When Gramoflanz learns that the trespasser is Gawain, whose father king Lot had slain his father king Irot, he alters his mind, and at once challenges Gawain to fight him sixteen days hence at loflanz in the presence of a great company. Gawain meantime returns with his bough to the Chateau Merveil and there weds Orgeluse. Next morning Parzival too breaks a bough from the same tree and wreaths it round his helmet. Gawain and he meet accidentally and, mistaking each other for king Gramo- flanz,^ fight a furious duel, in which Gawain is worsted. Parzival on discovering his error cries aloud :

Alas ! that with gallant Gawain I have foughten so fierce a fight, 'Tis myself whom I here have vanquished, and my joy shall have taken flight.*

Gawain's combat with Gramoflanz is necessarily post- poned for a day ; and Parzival begs leave to encounter the king in Gawain's stead :

' Right gladly will I defy him, King Gramoflanz, in his pride ; I brake from his tree this morning a bough ere I thence did ride. And for that he of need must fight me — For conflict I sought his land. And for nothing else came I hither but to fight with his strong right hand.' ^

Gawain of course will not let Parzival go ; but Parzival steals out at break of day, meets and beats King Gramo- flanz. Gramoflanz, however, still insists on fighting Gawain, and is only reconciled to the loss of his bough by wedding Itonje, Gawain's sister, of whom he has long been enamoured.

1 Probably Winchester, according to Bartsch vol. ii p. 292. In vi. 603 Kondrie, daughter of Lot, wears 'a hat of the English peacock' (Miss Weston vol. ii. p. 210).

"^Ib. xii. 332 ff. '^ lb. xiv. 9 f., 363 f.

^Ib. xiv. 157 f. 5/^. xiv. 359fir.