Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 18, 1907.djvu/77

 The European Sky -God, 49

Fountain). Comparison with The Voyage of Bran} The Adventtires of Connla^ and the tale of Oisin and Niamh^ leads me to believe that the messenger sent to the hero was originally the goddess herself, in fact that Lunete is merely a doublet of Laudine. If so, her name may be significant. In the early Celtic tales the fairy mistress was, if I am right, a sun-goddess, the sun being feminine in Irish and in Old Welsh. The Anglo-Norman romance- writer, to whom the sun was masculine, the moon feminine, naturally changed the sun-goddess to a moon-goddess. Thus it comes about that, whereas Diarmuid's partner was properly Grainne, I wain's partner was re-named Lunete from la hme, ' the moon.' Chretien expressly describes Lunete and Gauvain as la lime et le soloil} thereby confirming at once my present contention that Lunete represents the moon and my past contention that Gawain represents the sun.^

The tree defended by the Knight of the Fountain in TJie Slothful Gillie was ' a great tree laden with fruit,' ^ probably an apple-tree.'^ In Yvain it is said to be a pine, the most beautiful that ever grew on earth :

Bien sai de I'arbre, c'est la fins, Que ce estoit li plus biaus pins, Qui onques sor terre creiist. ^

The Lady of the Fountain makes it ' a tall tree, whose branches are greener than the greenest pine-trees.' ^ Huon de Mery, who wrote his poem Li Tornoiemenz Antecrit shortly after the year 1234,^^ takes his cue

^Folk-lore xvii. 144 f. '^ lb. xvii. 146 f. "^ lb. xvii. 147 f.

^ Chretien Yvain 2398. ^ Folk-lore xvii. 343.

^ Supra p. 28. ' Supra p. 32.

^Chretien Yvain 413 ff. In 414 cod. G reads hauz ('tall') for biaus ('beautiful'), a reading adopted by Prof. A. C. L. Brown Iwain p. 83 n. i.

9 Supra p. 35.

^"Huon de Mery Li Tornoiemenz Aniecrit ed. by G. Wimmer (E. Stengel Aicsgaben und Abhandlungen aus dem Gebieteder ronianischen Philologie Ixxvi.) Marburg 1888 p. 11.