Page:Studies on the legend of the Holy Grail.djvu/182

156 Knight of the Red Shield." As the King is with his people and his warriors and his nobles and his great gentles, one of them says, "who now in the four brown quarters of the Universe would have the heart to put an affront on the King?"—then comes the rider on a black filly, and, "before there was any more talk between them, he put over the fist and he struck the King between the mouth and the nose." It is noteworthy that this tale shows further likeness to the Mabinogi-Great Fool series, generally, in so far as it is the despised youngest who out of the three warriors that set off to avenge the insult succeeds, even as it is the despised Peredur who slays the Red Knight, and specially, in what may be called the prophecy incident. With the exception of the opening incidents, this is the one by which the "formula" nature of the Perceval sage is most clearly shown. In the Mabinogi it is placed immediately after the hero's first encounter with the sorceresses of Gloucester: "by destiny and foreknowledge knew I that I should suffer harm of thee," says the worsted witch. The Conte du Graal has only a trace of it in the Fisher King's words as he hands the magic sword to Perceval—

whilst in Sir Perceval a very archaic turn is given to the incident by Arthur's words concerning his unknown nephew—

This comparison is instructive as showing how impossible it is that Chrestien's poem can be the only source of the Mabinogi and Sir Perceval. It cannot be maintained that the meagre hint of the French poet is the sole origin of the incident as found in the Welsh and English versions, whilst a glance at my tabulation of the various forms of the Aryan Expulsion and Return formula ("Folk-Lore Record," vol. iv.) shows that the foretelling of the hero's greatness is an important feature in eight of the Celtic and five of the non-Celtic versions, i.e., in more than one-third of all the stories built up on the lines of the formula. It is evident that