Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 18, 1907.djvu/320

 284 Hitherto, in criticising the Grail legend, we have been under the grave disadvantage of uncertainty as to the relative position of the extant versions of the story; we were not sure which of the varying forms represented most faithfully the original données of the tale. It is obvious that this was a serious hindrance. You cannot safely theorize as to the original form of a story while you are still in doubt as to which of certain widely differing versions is the older. Inasmuch as, in point of MS. date, the Perceval of Chrétien de Troyes is the oldest of our Grail romances, the tendency has been to regard the story as told by him as the most nearly approaching the original, and to argue from that; although the vague and unsatisfactory details there given left it open to conjecture whether the author were dealing with a tradition already formed, or with one in process of formation.

Now, owing to recent discoveries, the standpoint has been shifted back, and we know that the earliest attainable Grail story is that of which not Perceval but Gawain was the hero, and the authorship of which is ascribed not to Chrétien de Troyes, but to Bleheris the Welshman. The date at which Bleheris lived is uncertain, but his identity alike with the Bledhericus referred to by Giraldus Cambrensis, and the Bréri quoted as authority for the Tristan of Thomas, has been frankly accepted by the leading French and American scholars; so far the Germans have preserved silence on the subject.

The passage in Giraldus is unfortunately very vague; he simply refers to Bledhericus as 'famosus ille fabidator,' and says he lived 'a little before our time,' words which may mean anything. Giraldus may be using the editorial 'we,' and may mean 'a little before my time,' which, as he