Page:Journal of American Folklore vol. 12.djvu/219

 The Legend of the Holy Grail. 207

Crone. The work of Heinrich vom Tiirlin is edited by H. T. Scholl, Stuttgart, 1852. Of the portion relating to the Grail, an abstract is given by Nutt.

Titurel. Edited by K. A. Hahn, 1842. (For the Grail, see stanza 6172 ff.)

Peredur. See the treatises of A. Nutt and of W. Golther. As an example of mistranslation on the part of the Welsh writer may be mentioned that of the advice given to Perceval by his mother, to be constant in praying to Our Lord in church: Sor toutes riens vos voel firoier — Que a glises et a moustier — Aids proier Nostre Segnor (Potvin, 1 761-1763). The Welshman renders : lie y givelych eglwys, kan dy pader urthi (where thou seest a church, sing thy pater at it). Crestien makes Perceval see the red and white of his lady's complexion in the blood-stained snow ; the Welshman adds black (following, no doubt, a situation of folk-tales) by introducing a raven as type of her black hair ; for this feature he made preparation at an earlier point by noting the red spots on the cheek, and the jet-black hair. But in his passage relating the revery, translations from the French are numerous and literal ; it is therefore evident that he set out deliber- ately, pen in hand, to improve his source. He attributes lameness to Peredur's teacher ; afterwards we find this characteristic assigned to another personage, the uncle in whose house is seen the bleeding spear (the Fisher King of Crestien). Again, he identifies the castle of the lady who owns the self-playing chessmen with the Castle of Wonders, but presently corrects himself by noting the latter as the mansion of the maimed king. I should regard these slips as the work of an author who wrote currente calamo, and did not revise. He thinks it necessary to provide the stag whose head the hero is required to obtain with a single unicorn- like horn as long as a lance, with which he slays all the beasts he meets. The addition belongs to the usual extravagance of the recaster. The member of Arthur's household who aids Peredur in putting on the arms of the slain knight, in Crestien, is Yonet, page of Gawain ; in the Peredur, it is Owain, an evident •misunderstanding, being an example of the process above mentioned by which a well-known personage is substituted for an obscure one. Wolfram falls into the same mistake. In the Percevelle, the aider is Gawain. Just so the Welsh tale makes Gwalchmei and Owain figure among the knights met by the youth in the forest, while the English poem introduces Ewain, Gawain, and Kay. That the Welshman makes the teacher of Peredur an uncle is, according to the general principle, already remarked, of connecting the tale by family alliances ; so, again, in the English verse, where the agreement is once more in virtue of a principle of evolution common to recasts. As the outlines of the plot altogether vary, it is clear that no attention is due to such minor agreements, explicable on usual logical rules of development. In the language, costume, and scenery there is nothing to indicate for the Welsh work a date much earlier than the MS. assigned to about 1380.

Sir Percevelle. For examples of correspondences to Crestien, see the work of W. Golther, above cited. In the English poem the name of the hero is spelt Syr Percevelle the Galayse (1643), Sir Percevelle de Galays (1990). The subscription has Syr Perceval de Gales, which led the editor to the name Sir Perceval of Galles. It does not appear that the poet had any definite idea about the adjec- tive ; just as did Wolfram, he only transliterated Perceval li galois. That neither comprehended the epithet galois is only one of the instances of misinterpretation which show the priority of Crestien.

W. W. Newell.

�� �