Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 2, 1891.djvu/58

 THE LEGEND OF THE GRAIL.

N the history of mediæval romances there is none so complicated as that of the romance of the Holy Grail. Many a scholar has tried to solve the problem of its origin, and yet a final solution is still wanting.

No one who has ever trodden the enchanted land on which the castle which contained the Holy Grail stood could entirely escape the charm that overhangs it. Just as difficult as was the ancient quest in romance, is the modern quest after the origin and sources of this remarkable and weird tale.

This romance now exists in various forms, more or less akin to one another. These have been subdivided into groups, according to the affinity in which the incidents narrated therein stand to one another, and also in how far one tale is developed more than the other: a work which has been successfully carried out by Mr. Nutt, who, in his admirable Studies on the Grail, has endeavoured to disentangle the skein of this complicated problem, and to make some order in the mass of versions, texts, and alterations in which this legend has been preserved. Mr. Nutt rightly distinguishes between an Early history of the Grail and the Quest; the former containing the origin and source of the Grail, and the Quest, on the other hand, consisting of the description of the adventures the expected hero had to undergo until he finally reached his goal. Stripped of all the embellishments which made out of these simple facts the most renowned of mediseval romances, the numerous versions of it are practically one. The differences begin with the detailed accounts given in the Early history, and still more with the peculiarities of the Grail, of the hero and his achievements, The