Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 25, 1914.djvu/289

Rh redactor's personal conception of the story. This poem of Eilhart does not, however, correspond in all points with M. Bédier's reconstruction of the poème primitif, and in the points where it differs she considers that the version of Eilhart better represents the lost original.

It appears to us doubtful whether this "lost original" ever actually existed. The long tale of Tristan and Isolt is clearly a composite romance having had probably more than one nucleus; the flight of the lovers to the forest, which is probably one of the oldest portions, being almost detachable by its distinctive characteristics and its correspondence to Irish romances of the Ossianic period, while the combat with the dragon and tribute to the Morholt, with the island combat on the one hand and the incidents connected with Iseult of the White Hands and Brittany on the other, have probably both been fitted in at a later period. It is possible that the double conception of Tristan in the Welsh Triads, as one of the three famous swineherds of Britain and one of its three best lovers, have influenced the various developments of the tale.

That Miss Schoepperle is right in finding the original nucleus of the tale in a Celtic Aitheda or elopement story we have no doubt at all. It is only strange that the correspondances between this part of the legend and the story of Diarmaid and Grainne, have been so long overlooked. The whole atmosphere is distinctively Celtic. The flight of the lovers to the forest and their long sojourn there, dependent only upon nature for their food and utterly absorbed in each other, their open revolt and inward scruples and hesitations, and their tragic struggle between duty and affection are not to be found in French chivalrous romance; they belong purely to ancient Celtic tradition. We see the same struggle enacted in many Irish love stories, such as the wooing of Etain by Ailill, of Liadain by Curithir, and of Deirdre by Naisi. Very characteristic also is the rôle played by the dog Husdent, who is trained by Tristan to bring wild animals for food, as Bran, in the story of Diarmaid and Grainne, seeks out the flying forest-lovers to warn them of the approach of Finn. In both stories the fatal affection in which they find themselves bound is awakened by some cause outside themselves,—in the Tristan tale