Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 8, 1897.djvu/324

 300 Notes on Orendel and other Stories.

variety of emphasis in the rendering than of constituent elements in the matter.^

The story of The Wooing of Emer has an arrangement of theincidents different from those already named. Cuchulainn has met Emer before setting out on the adventures which seem to correspond to those of Kulhwch and other heroes.

The first part of Orendel agrees with many of these stories ; and a comparison of them might lead to the con- clusion that Ore?idel is based upon a definite traditional story which keeps together certain definite constituents. Then Orendel (in the first 2,000 lines) would be a romantic literary version of one popular tale, just as Walewein is of another and Sir Amadas of a third. It may be remarked that these three romances give examples of three varieties of quest. Wale^vein has been noted above ; and in the story of the Travelling Co7np anion [Sir Amadas) the deliverance of a princess from an enchanter, or, as an alter- native, the winning of a princess from rival suitors, is obligatory. In the Orendel type, as it may be called provisionally, the sequence of events is this —

1. The King's Son goes out to win the unknown Queen, on the report of her excellence.

2. He is hindered on the way in the sluggish sea : com- pare Alf (Saxo), King^s Son of Ireland (MacDougall).

3. He is helped by uncouth helpers : compare Emer, S CO log, Red Cap, Hjdlmter.

4. He rescues the Queen from her besetting enemies. The common incident — common to the Jason variety and

' The most famous of all such tales, the story of the rescue of Guinevere from her captor Melwas (or Meleagraunce), is the most remarkable example of this change of interest, if it was in this story first of all that Lancelot, the rescuer, came to be represented as the lover of the queen See Rotnania, x, (M. Gaston Paris on the story of Lancelot in Chrestien's Chevalier de la Charrette, &c.) It is shown that some of he versions of this story, e.g., the first part of Malory's version— J/c'/Ye DArtlmr, xix., 1-9— know nothing of the love of Lancelot and the queen, and that the Lancelot of all later romantic tradition, the lover of Guinevere, is first known to Chrestien of Troyes.