Page:The Folk-Lore Journal Volume 4 1886.djvu/319

 Rh Lear. But he is surrounded by a totally different set of circumstances from those by which Geoffrey had encircled him; and if Cordelia is referred to, her wicked sisters have departed nobody knows whither. The tales of the Mabinogion are in fact on a distinct plane from those of Geoffrey of Monmouth. It is not only that they have a less historical and more chivalric air, but they are not the same tales. On the other hand, if we turn to the Welsh, to the Cornish, or to the Breton folk-lore of the present day, we are equally at fault in our searca for anything corresponding to Geoffrey's originals. No story has, so far as I am aware, yet been discovered in the mouths of the people which can be identified with the contents of those mysterious manuscripts. What makes this the more strange is that Geoffrey of Monmouth's tales have in several instances been shown to be part of the general Aryan inheritance, if not of the common property of mankind. In Wales, indeed, the märchen has to all appearance been almost destroyed: it would be remarkable to find any indigenous example of that form of folk-tale there at all. But stories often become affixed to the soil, or cluster round the names of historic dead, and thus in saga-form preserve their vitality for many centuries. Some transformation of this kind seems to have been imminent, if it had not actually taken place, in these tales when they fell under Geoffrey's hands and received from him a literary shape and immortality. And if the märchen no longer exists in Wales, sagas, at any rate, are happily not wanting. But I do not think I am going beyond the facts in saying that no research has yet found, even in saga-form, any of Geoffrey's narratives. I speak with some diffidence, as I do not, of course, pretend to have seen or heard all Welsh, Breton, and Cornish tales; nor is it important now to determine whether any of these narratives have been met with. The one fact with which we have now to concern ourselves is that the story of king Lear and his three daughters has never been met with.

The Gesta Romanorum was probably compiled originally in England at the end of the thirteenth century, or about one hundred and thirty to one hundred and fifty years after Geoffrey of Monmouth's Romances. This work was composed of tales having a more or less remotely popular origin, fitted with applications which treated them as parables