Page:Journal of American Folklore vol. 12.djvu/215

 The Legend of the Holy Grail. 203

with which the witches of Gloucester had slain the cousin whose head he had seen on the platter ; the same enemies had also maimed his uncle. On the hero, therefore, devolves the duty of blood-ven- geance, accomplished with the aid of Arthur. It is further explained that the various enemies encountered by Peredur, including the black maiden who had denounced him, were in reality the transfor- mations of a cousin (who, as is implied, had thus acted the part of a benevolent fairy desirous to move the youth to perform his duty as avenger).

The sketch now given shows that the story consists of the plot of Crestien and his continuator as the groundwork into which is in- jected unrelated matter. According to an observation above made, such process of intercalation is an invariable mark of the expan- sion of a narrative.

The inference thence arising is converted into certainty by the consideration that the work throughout contains numerous and long verbal renderings from the French poem. Mistranslations occur; in several places it is obvious that the Welshman had in mind the longer and clearer French original, which his abbreviation has confused.

As to the names of the principal characters, the writer merely followed the usual Welsh practice in assigning to personages pre- sumed to be of British origin appellations suitably British in sound. This process is naively illustrated by the remarks of the Welsh translator of the Pellesvaus : " And let the readers of this book excuse me for not being able to find Welsh names for the French ones, or for putting them as I am able ; but this I know, that the name of the warrior that is commended here in French is Penef- fressvo Galeif, which is equivalent in Welsh to Peredur."

As for the interpolated matter, the greater part consists of chivalric fancies quite out of the line of old Welsh saga, while some portion is genuinely ancient. Thus the idea that the obstacles encountering the hero may turn out to be the creation of benevolently disposed fairies, or other supernatural personages, is a feature frequently appearing in Irish literature and folk-lore. But as these features are obviously insertions of the Welsh author, the origin of such additions is a question perfectly irrelevant to the present issue.

The language, costume, and character of the tale belong to Welsh romantic literature of the fourteenth century, penetrated as that literature was with the spirit of French romance. The treatment exhibits that increasing extravagance already noted as belonging to the later taste. The advice of the mother to seize food, steal jewels, and court a woman against her will, is merely a travesty of the

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