Page:Studies on the legend of the Holy Grail.djvu/124

98 the Saxon, disappears in the Mabinogi, the tone and character of which are purely romantic. Composed among a people comparatively unused to the chivalrous ideal, it breathes, however, a rude and harsh spirit. But such as it is, it forms the groundwork of Chrestien's poem. Comparison between the two demonstrates the simple character of the Welsh romance, and shows how the French poet sought to transform it by an infusion of feudal courtliness and religious mysticism. In its last stage of development the story reverts to its pristine, occult, and mystic character.

Much of what M. de la Villemarqué says is sound and telling; but, unfortunately, although well aware that the French poem is the work of three men and not of one, he yet treats it as an organic whole, and thus deprives the larger part of his comparison of all value. Moreover, he supports his thesis by arguments based upon a Breton poem (the story of which is similar to that of Perceval's youth), ascribed without the shadow of evidence to the end of the tenth century.

In 1861 M. de la Villemarqué reprinted his work with extensive additions, under the title of "Les Romans de la Table Ronde et les Contes des Anciens Bretons." The section summarised above remained substantially unaltered, but considerable extension was given to the author's views concerning the mode of development of the romances. The points chiefly insisted upon are: the similarity of metre between the Welsh poem and the French metrical romances; the delight of the Plantagenet kings in the Welsh traditions and the favour showed them; and the early popularity of the Welsh and Breton singers. Villemarqué's last word upon the subject is that the Welsh storytellers received from the ancient bards a pagan tradition, which, changed in character and confounded with the Mystery of the Sacrament, they handed on to the romance writers of Northern France and Germany, who gave it a fresh and undying life.

Villemarqué's views were worked up by Mr. Baring Gould in his essay on the Sangreal ("Curious Myths of the Middle Ages," 1867) and in this form or in their original presentment won wide acceptance as the authoritative exposition of the Celtic origin of the cycle.