Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 21, 1910.djvu/281

 Reviews. 245

will champion the first alternative. Does Dr. Evans' contention follow then ? Well, I must avow hesitation. Is it quite certain that the epithet /^«Z£;g//(rnecessarily implies all that he maintains? I reserve my adhesion, pending further criticism of the passage in the Verses of the Graves.

Dr. Evans alleges other reasons for holding Peredur to be earlier than Crestien or Kiot-Wolfram ; some of these, e.g. the greater preponderance in the Welsh tale of an ascetic element, I must frankly say, strike me as fanciful, nay, rather to plead against priority. One argument, developed at length, though of interest and value in itself, is inconclusive ; it is that the episode of the Witches of Gloucester is misplaced. The hero should receive the training the lack of which is apparent when he first visits Arthur's court from these mistresses of magic and war-craft, Welsh counterparts of the Irish Scathach, or Bodhmall. In other words, the episode should immediately follow the slaying of the Red Knight and the departure of the untrained hero, smarting under the insults of Kai, and precede the visit to the realm of the Fisher (Grail) King. But this is not so in the Welsh tale, which thus shows itself, in its present form, secondary, although it has retained the pivotal Witches episode of the original legend, and conclusive arguments for the priority of Peredur can only be based upon its present form. Pleas based upon what may have existed in an earlier and purer Welsh form, great as may be their measure of probability, cannot convey certainty.

Dr. Evans compares his primeval Peredur legend with the Achilles story. I quote his words : " Both heroes are carried early to retreats through the anxiety of their mothers to keep them from taking up arms ; both are associated with females ; both very early in life catch stags or hinds without help of any kind ; both are introduced to the sight of arms by accident or stratagem ; both immediately after take up arms ; both receive careful training ... by preternatural agencies; both sulk deter- minedly ; both are unrelenting in their anger and revenge ; both have embassies sent to them in vain ; both listen to the gentle persuasion of a comrade ; both are pre-eminent in the use of the lance ; and the lance of each is distinguished by its size."

I am not clear in what sense Dr. Evans would interpret this