Page:Journal of American Folklore vol. 12.djvu/288

 2 j6 Journal of American Folk- Lore.

and insists on leaving the wood ; his mother gives him the arms of his father, and advises him to seek Arthur. Here he is unable to name his father, but is retrained by the king. Then follow adventures somewhat answering to Renaud's tale. In the end, Carduino avenges his father by killing his poisoners, who are none other than Gaheries and his brother Gawain. After receiving knighthood, the hero continues to use throwing-spears as his only weapon : such extravagant representation is quite out of the old manner, as is the character of traitor assigned to Gawain. I can therefore see no reason for supposing the tale to be anything else but a freely imaginative treatment of ideas obtained at second-hand from Renaud and Crestien.

(c.) Tyolet. A French poem contained in a collection of lais recites how Tyolet, the son of a widowed dame of the forest, has skill in calling beasts by whistling. While pursuing a white stag, the latter turns into an armed knight, from whom he inquires the uses of hauberk, sword, and so on. He asks what kind of an animal is a knight, and is told that it is a beast who eats others. Accord- ingly he resolves to become a knight-beast ; his mother is at first troubled, but provides her son with his father's arms, and sends him to Arthur's court, where he rides rudely into the hall, and announces himself as a knight-beast ; he says that his mother has sent him to learn courtesy, and is retained by the king. A lady appears, the daughter of the king of Logres, who offers her hand to the knight who can get the foot of the white stag guarded by seven lions. This adventure is accomplished by Tyolet, who weds the princess and becomes king.

The language and rhythm of this poem, in conformity with the plot, indicate it as relatively late. The writer supposes Logres (Loegria, Arthur's kingdom) to be some outlying district. He knows that Evain (i. e. Yvain) is the son of the fairy Morgain, as represented in the later Arthurian romance. The idea that a stag turns into a knight, and offers instruction to a youth, seems charac- teristic of later extravagance. I see no reason to regard the story as anything more than a romantic invention of the thirteenth century, in which the writer has imitated certain features of Cres- tien's poem.

The compositions mentioned do not exhaust the number of those in which the youth of the hero exhibits some analogy to that of Perceval. Thus Meriadeuc, a youth educated in solitude, is ignorant of his father's name, and has been called only le beau valet. Hav- ing learned from his mother of his father's death at the hand of Gawain, he seeks to avenge that injury. Through the mother a

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