Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 18, 1907.djvu/66

 38 The European Sky -God.

the lord and lady of the castle, but in the morning he is obliged to fight the monsters. He overcomes them, with the aid of his lion, and frees the maidens, Iwain arrives at Arthur's court clad in armor and known as the Knight of the Lion. Gawain, too, is disguised by his armor, and the two friends fight a terrible battle. When night comes on, they grow tired, and reveal themselves to each other. There is great joy, and people are surprised to see how evenly they are matched.

Iwain soon returns to the Fountain Perilous and stirs up such a storm that the castle is almost destroyed. Lunete is sent to find out who is at the Fountain, and by her mediation Iwain is reconciled to Laudine. Now Iwain has peace and through joy the past is forgotten. '

Chretien wrote his Yvain between 11 64 and 1173.^ Hartmann von Aue had completed his Iwein in 1204.^^ But since the latter poet appears to have been wholly- dependent upon the former for his materials,^ his work need not be separately analysed. The same may be said of Ywain and Gawain, a Middle English metrical romance written probably in the first half of the four- teenth century by an unknown author, whose source was undoubtedly Chretien's poem summarised above.*

No such dependence can be proved in the case of The Lady of the Fountain, which is found first in the White Book of Rhydderch, a Welsh manuscript older than the Red Book of Hergest ^ written in the latter half of the fourteenth century.^ Prof Foerster indeed holds that The Lady of the Fountain is merely a prose rendering of Chretien's poem made in the fourteenth century ; "" and that the ' kernel ' of both is the theme of the Easily

^W. Foerster in Romanische Bibliothek vol. v. p. ix ff.

^ Hartmann von Aue Iwein (Der Hitter niit dem Lbwen) ed. by E. Henrici Halle a. S. 1891-1893 vol. ii. p. vi.

' E. Henrici ib. : * nur die geschichte vom raube der konigin ist zuge- kommen, und auch diese wahrscheinlich aus Christians Karrenritter entlehnt.' See further Miss J. L. Weston The Legend of Sir Gazvain p. 67 ff.


 * G. Schleich Ywain and Gawain Oppeln and Leipzig 1887 pp. xxiv, xxxix.

^ Rhys Hibbert Lectures p. 402 n. i.


 * J. Rhys and J. G. Evans The Red Book of Hergest Oxiord 1887 i. p. xiii.

'Christian von Troyes ed. W. Foerster vol. ii. Yvain Halle 1887 p. xix ff., Kristian von Troyes Yvain ed. 2 W. Foerster (Romanische Bibliothek vol. V.) Halle a. S. 1902 p. Ii.