Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 9, 1898.djvu/383

 Reviews. 349

another because such an assignment will suit our pet theories ; still less are we justified in giving this creation of our imagination to the world as a fact. The application of M. Paris' note is logi- cally quite otherwise thanHerrWechssler perceives; e.g. we find the winning of the Grail attributed both to Galahad and to Perceval. It is quite possible, nay probable, that the story was only told of one and then transferred to the other. Which, then, shall we say was the original hero ? The circumstances under which the quest is achieved are entirely different in the two cases. How shall we judge ? We find one story marked by certain features, archaic in themselves, finding widespread parallels in Aryan pre-Christian literature ; we find the other marked by a distinctively Christian, and that not primitive but medieval Christian, tendency. If we see, as Herr Wechssler does, that the one story is so demonstrably older than the other that the balance of probability inclines to that side, and yet on other grounds our sympathies are with the distinctively Christian hero, may we assume that, because the ultimate result of the quest was the same in both instances, we may redress the balance by transferring certain characteristics from one story to another ? Herr Wechssler is logically bound to believe in the priority of the Perceval quest ; he does believe it, but prefers to call the hero Galahad.

Now I firmly believe that the original hero of the Charrette adventure was Gawain and not Lancelot ; shall I be therefore justified in publishing a translation of Chretien's poem in which I have substituted the name of the one hero for the other? Would not German scholars be the first to condemn me if I did ? They would say, and justly, that such a method was misleading, unfair, and entirely unworthy of the traditions of serious scholar- ship. And when Herr Wechssler endeavours to shelter himself behind the high authority of a scholar who would be the first to disavow such an interpretation of his words, he only aggravates his offence. He has quoted M. Gaston Paris ; I will quote him too: "II faut avant tout aimer la verite, vouloir la connaitre, croire en elle, travailler, si on le peut, a la decouvrir. II faut savoir la regarder en face, et se jurer de ne jamais la fausser, I'attenuer, ou I'exagerer, meme en vue d'un interet qui semblerait plus haut qu 'elle, car il ne saurait y en avoir de plus haut " {Disco2irs de Reception). All of us who work in fields where there is a real danger of being led away by prepossessions, blinded by