Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 9, 1898.djvu/382

348 On p. 18 we read how the Grail appeared at Arthur's court, and all the knights went forth to seek it. "Aber nur Galaad gelangte ans Ziel. Er fand auf einer einsamen Burg seinen Grossvater Bron. Beim Essen erschien der Gral, das Gefäss mit dem Blute des Herrn, und alle vom Hause verneigten sich vor der heiligen Reliquie, aber Galaad verstand das alles nicht, und wagte nicht nach dem Geheimniss des Grals zu fragen. Und am Morgen fand er die Burg öd und leer. Nach langem Umherirren führte ihn Gott zum zweiten Male dahin, und jetzt that er die Frage." u. s. w. On p. 28: "Galaad, der Jüngling welcher seine göttliche Sendung erstverfehlt und spät den echten Glauben gewinnt." On the same page: "den thörichten Knaben Galaad und seine innere Entwicklung."

On p. 29 we have a long account drawn indiscriminately from Chrétien and his continuators, only with Galahad instead of Perceval for hero. Finally, we read (p. 32) that out of the original story only two features survived—the double visit to the Grail castle and Galahad's appearance at Arthur's court, entering Christlike through closed doors (rather an unwarrantable deduction from the text); that the first became the Mitte und Kern of the Perceval story, the latter developed into the final scene of Wagner's Parsifal.

These extracts will doubtless fill all students of the Grail romances with keen admiration for the capabilities of this new combination theory.

It must be admitted that Herr Wechssler apparently has latent misgivings that his methods may be somewhat too drastic; he therefore endeavours to shelter himself behind no less an authority than M. Gaston Paris. In note 60 (p. 144) he quotes the following remark of that scholar: "L'attribution d'un récit à un nom auquel il ne se rattachait d'abord aucunement doit être considérée comme le fait le plus fréquent de la mythologie; il faut le regarder comme toujours possible et ne jamais le perdre de vue." This is of course perfectly true, and I imagine we could all of us without difficulty lay our finger on instances in which a feat performed by one hero has been transferred to another; but we must have the requisite proof that any particular feat or feature was attributed to more than one hero before we decide which of the two or more claimants was the original owner. We are not justified in arbitrarily assigning the characteristics of one hero to