Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 23, 1912.djvu/138



is a concise and, on the whole, up-to-date outline of the Arthurian tradition in its historic and romantic aspects. It is more satisfactory from the former point of view than from the latter. Professor Jones appears to be decidedly more at home in the comparatively limited field of the pseudo-historic chronicles than in the wider, and more perplexing, area of romance. With the general conclusions drawn as to the historic element at the base of the Arthurian tradition most authorities to-day will agree, though perhaps more stress might have been laid on the marked fairy element in the story, e.g. to the author of Brun de la Montagne Arthur is lord of all fairy-haunted spots, wherever they might be found, and to him Oberon, the well-known fairy king, should, of right, bequeath his possessions.

Certain of Professor Jones' statements with regard to the romantic literature are by no means in accord with the results of modern research. On p. 9 he speaks of the "ecclesiastical exploitation of Arthurian romance." It is true that certain of the later forms of the Grail Quest have been used for the purpose of moral edification, but it is a very curious and significant fact, often overlooked, that the Church never adopted the Grail legend, nor acknowledged it in any way; in fact, it is more than probable that it was officially discouraged, the sudden, and complete, cessation of literary activity in that field being a remarkable and suspicious phenomenon. Arthurian romance, as a whole, was never exploited by ecclesiastical writers. Its whole character