Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 2, 1891.djvu/59

 Rh work is the same, but the contents vary almost in every version.

At the head of the whole literature stands Chrestien de Troyes, the famous minstrel, who, as far as our present knowledge goes, was the first to sing the praise of the Grail, and of the hero in search of it. Next in point of time, and, as I may at once add, first in importance, is the German follower of Chrestien, Wolfram von Eschenbach. In spite of the likeness, there is also a very great diversity in the treatment of the Grail by both these writers. Besides, Wolfram claims an independent source for his poetical composition, ridiculing Chrestien for not following the original closely.

Everything tends to make us believe that there must have existed a common primary source whence both Chrestien and Wolfram drew their tale. Of what kind was this primary source, and how much did it contain? Were both those parts which we find afterwards united, or was only one of them contained in the original? Did Chrestien and Wolfram know the Early history of the Grail or not? I entirely agree with Mr. Nutt that they, or even the original they followed, did not know much of it, the origin and properties of the Grail being only vaguely indicated. It is chiefly the Quest which plays the most important part in their poems. Whence did they take it from? It is round this question that a literary battle has now been fought for over fifty years. I do not flatter myself that I shall be able to bring the battle to an end, but I intend attacking this question from a different point of view altogether.

It is a futile attempt to reduce every incident of these poems to one and the same source. Every work of art, every poetical production is, to some extent, a kind of mosaic, a kind of blending in one of a mass of different, sometimes widely divergent, elements. Composite as our modern knowledge is, so must also have been that of the ancient or mediæval author who drew the elements of the