Page:Studies on the legend of the Holy Grail.djvu/148

122 the one written forty years before the other. The work of Chrestien and his continuators must be looked upon as the oldest we had of the Grail cycle. It was likely that older versions had been lost. A Latin version might well have existed, forms such as Joseph de Barimaschie (i.e., ab Arimathea) pointed to it. Martin followed up this attack in his "Zur Gralsage, Untersuchungen," Strasburg, 1880. A first section is devoted to showing that Wolfram must have had other sources than Chrestien, and that in consequence such portions of his presentment as differ from Chrestien's must be taken into account in reconstructing the original form of the romance. The second and third sections deal with Heinrich von dem Türlin's "Die Crone," and with the earliest form of the tradition. Gawain's second visit to the Grail Castle, as told of by Heinrich (supra, p. 26) has features in common with the widely-spread traditions of aged men slumbering in caves or ruined castles, unable to die until the right word is uttered which breaks their spell. This conception differs from the one found in all the other versions inasmuch as in them the wonder-working question releases, not from unnaturally prolonged life, but from sore disease. Can a parallel be found in Celtic tradition to this sufferer awaiting deliverance? Does not Arthur, wounded well nigh to death by his nephew Modred, pass a charmed life in Avalon, whither Morgan la Fay carried him for his healing, and shall he not return thence to free his folk? The original conception is mythic—the summer god banished by the winter powers, but destined to come back again. The sage of Arthur's waiting, often in some subterranean castle, is widely spread, two of the earliest notices (those of Gervasius of Tilbury, in the "Otia Imperialia," p. 12 of Liebrecht's edition, and of Caesarius of Heisterbach) connect it with Etna—the tradition had followed the Norman Conquerors of Sicily thither—and from Sicily it would seem to have penetrated to Germany, being first found in German tradition as told of Frederick II. Again Gerald (A.D. 1188) in the "Itinerarium Cambriae" (Frankfort, 1603, p. 827, L. 48) tells of a mountain chain in the South-East of Wales: "quorum principalis Cadair Arthur dicitur i. Cathedra Arthuri, propter gemina promontorii cacumina in cathedrae modum se praeferentia. Et quoniam in alto cathedra