Page:Studies on the legend of the Holy Grail.djvu/175

Rh Perceval's father, the combat with the witch arising out of Perceval's wearing the Red Knight's armour, and the other adventures which follow eventually from the same cause, the feature that the ring taken by Perceval from the lady in the tent is a magic one, endowing its wearer with supernatural strength, the change made between this ring and his mother's which prepares the final recognition, etc. The original poem probably ended with the reunion of mother and son, the last verse, briefly mentioning the hero's death, being a later addition. To sum up, Sir Perceval may be looked upon as the work of a folk-singer who fitted into the old Breton framework a series of adventures taken partly from Chrestien, partly from the same Breton traditions which were Chrestien's main source, and with remarkable skill avoided all such incidents as would not have accorded with the limits he had imposed upon himself.

Against this view of Steinbach's it might be urged that a writer as skilful as the author of Sir Perceval is assumed to be could easily have worked Chrestien's Grail episode into his traditional framework. A more plausible explanation, assuming the theory to be in the main correct, might be found in the great popularity in this country of the Galahad form of the Quest, and the consequent unwillingness on the author's part to bring in what may have seemed to him like a rival version. Steinbach has not noticed one curious bit of testimony to the poem's being an abridgment of an older work, more archaic in some respects than Chrestien. When the hero has slain the Red Knight he knows not how to rid him of his armour, but he bethinks him—

Now the mother's counsel, given in verses xxv-vi are solely that he should be "of mesure," and be courteous to knights; nothing is said about burning the tree out of the iron, nor does any such counsel figure either in Chrestien or in the Mabinogi, which in this