Page:Studies on the legend of the Holy Grail.djvu/208

182 belonged, in all probability if not wholly, chiefly to the first class, and accordingly we find that Manessier, certainly more faithful than Chrestien to that original, lays no stress upon the question. But in Chrestien himself there is a mixture of the two formulas; the question and the food-producing qualities of the magic vessel have been incorporated in the feud formula. Once started upon this track the legend continues to mingle the formulas. The mystic procession, which probably owes its form to Chrestien, is repeated with monotonous sameness by his continuators; the machinery of the feud quest almost invariably doubles that of the visit to the Bespelled Castle, and vice versâ. Thus Heinrich von dem Türlin, along with the most archaic presentment of the unspelling quest, has that procession of the talismans which properly belongs to the feud quest; and, to complete his conception, we must turn to incidents at present set in the framework of the other formula. For the effect upon the land produced by the hero's action at the Castle of Talismans is obviously analagous to, though of directly contrary nature to, that produced upon the inmates of the Bespelled Castle. They are dead though they seem quick, the land is full of life though it seems waste. The question which frees the one from the spell of life-in-death, frees the other from the spell of death-in-life. The Didot-Perceval has the complete conception. Perceval's question not only releases Brons, who may not die until then, but it also ends the enchantment of Britain.

The identity of hero in stories originally dissimilar was one reason for the confusion between the two formulas; the nature of the Grail was another. Its attributes were in all probability not very clearly defined in the immediate models of the French romance writers; these found it enveloped in mysterious haze, which simple story-tellers, such as Gautier, did not try to clear up, and which