Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 9, 1898.djvu/385

Reviews. 351 verstehen wir die Wahl eines lateinischen Wortes" (p. 22). In a note to this passage, note 34 (p. 123), he sums up his arguments as follows :

a. The above notices of Helinandus and the writer of the Queste. Here Herr Wechssler begs the question by saying, "Die ältesten französischen Grallegenden berufen sich auf eine lateinische Quelle." This is just the point. Are these the oldest Grail legends? The writer himself admits they are not the oldest MSS.

b. That legends in general were first written in church-language, later translated into the vernacular. This again begs the question; the statement is true of ecclesiastical legends, but we are asking for proof that the original Grail legend was of this character.

c. That the writer of the Peredur, which Herr Wechssler considers to be a translation of Chretien's poem, does not understand the Grail part of the story, and substitutes a dish with a bleeding head for Chretien's Grail, But Herr Wechssler himself admits (a) that the Perceval story was Welsh in origin; (b) that it was independent of the Grail legend. For this argument to have any force he must prove to us that the dish with the head was not a part of the original tale. If the Dish = Grail, and was introduced under the influence of the Grail legends, one would expect it to play a similar part in the story, to be a motive power of Peredur's achievements, which it is not. I often wonder whether the scholars who talk so glibly of the Welsh translations from Chrétien have ever more than superficially read the Peredur, to say nothing of comparing the two stories. That the hero of the two is identical is manifest; but the stories, save for certain incidents, differ widely, and the motif is radically opposed.

d. That the Welsh romancers altogether did not understand the word. Their own Latin versions had been so completely forgotten by them that when they met with the word in its French dress they did not recognise it.

Now this last argument is simply absurd, and carries its own refutation with it. We must remember first of all the character of these first romances, as Herr Wechssler represents them. They were distinctively Christian, the vessel was the vessel of the Last Supper. Now, supposing the existence not merely one romance but of a body of romance in which the word Gradale was closely and distinctively connected with this sacred vessel, be it dish or