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The Bleeding Lance
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 02 December 2020
Extract
Of monographs and studies on the Grail there is no end but as yet an article dealing primarily with the Bleeding Lance scarcely exists. In the following pages the lance will be kept in the foreground, and the object will be to approach the grail problem from this novel point of attack.
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References
page 1 note 1 For references concerning the lance, see Heinzel, Ueber die französischen Gralromane (1891), p. 9.
page 1 note 2 See, however, Heinzel, p. 10; Martin, in his introduction to his edition of Parzival, ii, lx, (1903); and Miss Weston in Sir Perceval, ii, 272.
page 1 note 3 Paris, Journal des Savants, (1902), p. 306.
page 1 note 4 Martin, Parzival, ii, xiii.
page 2 note 1 Baist disagrees, Parzival und der Gral, Freiburg, 1909, pp. 14–15.
page 2 note 2 Wolfram says that Kyot composed “en franzoys”; Guiot is a French, not a Provençal name.
page 2 note 3 Fut for Ert in verse 7545 would be an easy emendation, but I leave the texts throughout as printed by the various editors. The prose of 1530 puts the destruction in the past: “la lance … de laquelle il est escript que tout le royaulme de Logres, dont Orges [sic] en fut roy et seigneur, a jadis par ceste lance esté conquis.” The Montpellier ms. substitutes for the four verses 7542–5 of Mons, two entirely different verses:—
This variant, as I conjecture, may explain the future tense of Mons. The lance caused the destruction and the war, and will (by healing the king's wound) bring restoration and peace. The careless scribe of Mons put the destruction as well as the restoration in the future. Wauchier puts the destruction in the past, see below, p. 15. Compare, however, Heinzel's comments, op. cit., p. 5. At an earlier verse in Perceval, Gawain is told to seek and apparently to fetch the lance:
page 3 note 1 Rhŷs and Evans, The Red Book of Hergest, i, 46 ff., and translation in Loth, Les Mabinogion, i, 100 ff.
In the “Elucidation,” which is not by Chrétien, occurs another reference to the laying waste of Britain:
page 4 note 1 Acallamh na Senorach, ed. Stokes, Irische Texte, iv, i, 47–49. For translation see O'Grady, Silva Gadelica, ii, 142–4.
Macgnímartha Find, ed. Kuno Meyer, § 26, Rev. Celt., v, 203. Translation in Ériu, i, 189, The ms. was written about 1453, but this incident seems at least as old as the twelfth century; for it is referrred to in some detail in a poem by Gilla in Chomded in LL, 145a. (LL = Book of Leinster, a ms. of 1150. LU = Book of the Dun written before 1106. My references are to the facsimiles published by the Royal Irish Academy. The Newberry Library in Chicago, by procuring recently the R. I. A. facsimiles of Irish mss. and Rhŷs and Evans' Welsh Texts, has given a much needed encouragement to Celtic students in this region).
page 4 note 3 Cath Maige Turedh, Rev. Celt., xii, § 80. On the age of this saga see below, p. 36.
page 5 note 1 Echtra Nerai, Rev. Celt., x. 217–219, §§ 6–8, and compare LL, 215a referred to by Kuno Meyer, Cath Finntraga, p. xii (Anec. Oxon., Med. and Mod. Series, i, part 4). Meyer points out that in the greater part of Irish Literature the Tuatha Dá Danaan and the aés síde (“fairies”), are substantially identical.
page 5 note 2 Cf. ed. Martin, 489, 24 ff.
page 5 note 3 “Mit einem gelüpten sper” 479, 8.
Parzival, ed. Martin, i, 169.
Cf. 492, 25 ff.
page 7 note 1 This sword of the grail castle must be identical in origin with the sword “as estranges renges,” concerning which much is said in the Queste, the Huth Merlin, etc. (Such is also the conclusion of Miss Weston, Sir Perceval, ii, 263; and of Professor Nitze, in these Publications, xxiv, 408–9). The passage in which Chrétien mentions this sword is peculiar:
Could it be that the phrase “estranges renges” stood in the original that Chrétien was following, and suggested the rhyme word “estranges” of verse 4337? If so, Chrétien preferred to keep the grail sword apart from the sword “as estranges renges,” making the latter an object of Gawain's quest at Montesclaire, Perceval, vv. 6090 ff.
page 7 note 2 The whiteness of the lance, dwelt on by Chrétien here, connects the object with the fairy weapons of the Celts. See p. 32 below. Compare v. 4370 with v. 4375, and with vv. 6035–6:
In Wauchier's account of the Grail Castle most of the mss. speak of the whiteness of the lance. Ms. Montpellier (Potvin, iii, 369–70) reads: “une blanche lance réonde,” v. 8; and “la blanche lance … dont la pointe saine,” vv. 72–3. Ms. Bib. Nat. 12576, translated by Miss Weston, Sir Gawain at the Grail Castle, p. 22, says: “a lance the blade of which was white as snow.”
page 8 note 1 This is evidently the correct reading. Cf. vv. 4743 ff.
page 9 note 1 Parzival, ii, liv.
page 9 note 2 Cf. Baist, op. cit., p. 17: “Die Hostie, welche von der Graljungfrau dem alten König zur Nahrung gebracht wird, kann nicht konsekriert sein, das wäre eine undenkbare Häresie, sie ist einfach jenes Nachtischgebäck, das man in Deutschland und Frankreich auch Oblate nennt.”
page 10 note 1 Parzival, ed. Martin, 233, 16 ff., i, 82.
page 10 note 2 238, 3 ff.
page 10 note 4 These life-giving powers of the Grail are mentioned in an earlier passage, and are not, like the food-giving properties, said to be due to the “oblât” brought by the dove. May not this omission be a hint that the story about the dove was a late explanation loosely attached to the account of the marvellous stone?
page 11 note 1 470, 21 ff.
page 11 note 2 471, 15 ff.
As Martin has observed op. cit., ii, Ivi, the neutral angels may well be a Christian substitution for the Tuatha Dá Danaan in whose possession, according to the Irish, were the talismans of plenty. According to LU, 16b, the Tuatha were regarded by the learned as of the number of exiles driven out of heaven when Lucifer fell.
page 11 note 3 Cf. the view of Suchier and Birch-Hirschfeld, Gesch. der franz Lit., pp. 146–7, (1900). (But no romance in its extant form could well be earlier.)
page 12 note 1 Haupt's Zt., xxxiii, 148 ff. But Willy Staerk, Ueber den Ursprung der Grallegende, 1903, thinks that development might have taken place in the opposite direction, and instances the, not-to-my-thinking significant, parallel, of the supposed growth of the Yggdrasil myth from the Christian Tree legend.
page 12 note 2 This was supposed to be a rediscovery of an older relic at Jerusalem. On the older relic see Itinera Hierosolymilana (ed. Tobler and Molinier, i, 57), quoting from a Breviarius de Hierosolyma (dating about 530): “Et est in medio civitatis basilica illa (of Constantine), ubi est lancea, unde percussus est Dominus, et de ipsa facta est crux, et lucet in nocte, sicut sol in virtute diei.” Cf. also Tobler and Mol., i, 65, 103, 126, 153, 217; and, for an early mention of Longinus in connection with the lance, the Anglo-Saxon charm “WiÐ gestice,” Cockayne, Leechdoms, i, 393. (The above references I owe to the courtesy of Professor W. H. Hulme). The Longinus legend, because of its appearance in the Evangelium Nicodemi, c. 7, must have been known at an early period in England (Hulme, Middle-English Gospel of Nicodemus, p. Ixix, E. E. T. S., ex. ser., No. 100). But the lance of Longinus never bled, nor had any particular resemblance to the spear of the Grail Castle, C. Kröner, Die Longinuslegende, ihre Entstehung und Ausbreitung in der französischen Literatur, a Münster dissertation, 1899, I have not seen. According to Freymond in Vollmöller's Jahresbericht, viii, 2, 269, it is useless for students of the grail legend.
page 13 note 1 Even in the most Christian forms of the story, the grail ceremony is never identified with the actual celebration of the mass; Heinzel, op. cit., 179.
page 13 note 2 Parzival und der Gral, in deutscher Sage des Mittelalters und der Neuzeit, Munich, 1908 (Walhalla, iv). Cf. K. Burdach, Literaturzeitung (1903) 2821–4; 3050–8; Archiv. 108, 131. Burdach's book on lance and grail announced in Literaturzeitung (1903) 2822, has not yet, to my knowledge, appeared. L. E. Iselin, Der morgenländische Ursprung der Orallegende, Halle, 1909, I have not been able to procure.
page 14 note 1 Cf. Paul Meyer, Romania, xxxii, 583.
page 15 note 1 To this should be compared the following lines of the “Elucidation”:
page 15 note 2 Vv. 20114–20132.
page 15 note 3 The truth perhaps is that the enchantment was caused both by the blow of the sword that killed the grail king's brother, and by the stroke of the spear that left the grail king himself wounded. See the dolorous stroke of a spear in Malory's Morte Darthur, Bk. ii (discussed in Chap. ix below) and that of a sword, Malory, Bk. xvii, Chap. 3.
page 15 note 4 Written about 1220, ed. J. H. C. Scholl, Stuttgart Litt. Verein, Vol. 27, (1852).
page 16 note 2 Vv. 14,776 ff.
page 16 note 5 See p, 15 above. The fairy music of the Tuatha Dá Danaan, which could induce sleep, is described in the ancient Irish sagas. See above p. 4, and compare the Serglige Conculaind, § 8, Windisch, Irische Texte, i, 207, from LU.
page 17 note 1 Hucher, Grand Saint Graal, ii, 311.
page 18 note 1 I quote from Stokes's translation, pp. 299–302. The text is from LU. On the age of the Bruden Dá Derga, cf. Zimmer, Kuhn's Zt., xxviii, 554–585, and Haupt's Zt., xxxv, 13.
page 18 note 2 The luin is evidently identical with the venomed spear of Pezar, “king of Persia,” which Lugh obtained in anticipation of the Second Battle of Mag Tured. The name of this spear was Slaughterer, and its blazing point had to be kept in a great caldron of water. It is also called “the red spear.” See “The Fate of the Children of Tuirenn,” translated in Joyce, Old Celtic Romances (from a ms. of about 1416), pp. 59, 71–4, 80.
page 19 note 1 § 38 of the Bruden Dá Derga, Rev. Celt., xxii, 41–2.
page 19 note 2 Vol. xx of these Publications, pp. 682–5.
page 19 note 3 § 39, p. 42. Cf. the Imram Mailduin, § 17, Rev. Celt., ix, 490, from LU.
page 19 note 4 See these Publications, xx, 678. The passages from the Bruden Dá Derga relating to the three reds are so curious that the main portions may be conveniently quoted: §30. “Conaire marked before him three horsemen … Three red frocks had they, and three red mantles; three red bucklers they bore, and three red spears were in their hands; three red steeds they bestrode, and three red heads of hair were on them. Red were they all, both body and hair and raiment, both steeds and men.” In § 31 Conaire bids his son overtake the three. § 32 “He goes after them, lashing his horse, and overtook them not. There was the length of a spear-cast between them: but they did not gain upon him and he did not gain upon them … He overtook them not but one of the three men sang a lay to him over his shoulder.” [In the Mabinogi of Pwyll is a striking parallel from the Welsh. Pwyll is likewise unable to overtake a fairy lady though well mounted, and she speaks to him from her position in advance. Ehŷs, Red Book, i, 8–10; Loth, Les Mab., i, 42]. § 35 [One of the three reds said] “Weary are the steeds we ride. We ride the steeds of Donn Tetsorach from the elf mounds [a sídid]. Though we are alive we are dead.” § 134 “Red were they all together with their teeth… Three champions who wrought falsehood in the elf mounds. This is the punishment inflicted upon them by the king of the elf mounds to be destroyed thrice by the king of Tara. Conaire is the last king by whom they are destroyed… But they will not be slain.” [Compare my conjecture that the red guardian of the Other World is not really slain, Studies and Notes in Philology and Literature, viii, 98–9].
The ancient Irish regarded the Tuatha Dá Danaan as able to appear in red. The Dagda is called in Cormac's Glossary, p. 144, “rúad rofessa,” “red man of all knowledge.” Windisch to be sure assumes, probably wrongly, another word “ruad” and translates “lord of great knowledge” (see his vocabulary, Irische Texte, sub voc.). A gloss in Harl. 5280, f. 69b, tells us that a red color used to be on Lugh from sunset to morning: “dath derc nobid fair o fuine gréni co matain,” Stokes, Rev. Celt., xii, 127. Bobd Dearg (“B. the Red”) is another well known prince of the Tuatha Dá Danaan. In recently collected Irish folk-tales the magician in charge of the talismans of food and defence is often red. For example in Curtin's Myths and Folk-Lore of Ireland, p. 66, appears a “Red Haired Man,” who owns the Sword of Sharpness, the Table-Cloth of Plenty, and the Cloak of Darkness. In the Cóir Anmann, in H., 3, 18, a ms. written about 1500, Roch (Mother of Fergus) is said to be daughter of Ruad (“Red”), son of Derg Dath-fola (Red-Blood-Hued) from the elf mounds (a sídhaibh), ed. Stokes, Irische Texte, iii, 2, 407 Another ms. of the same date calls the wife of Gobbán the smith, “Rúadsech the Red,” Rev. Celt., xxvii, 285.
page 20 note 1 § 108, p. 284.
page 21 note 1 §§ 132, 133, pp. 306–7.
page 21 note 2 § 87, pp. 187–8.
page 21 note 3 Ed. O'Donovan (1868), p. 123. “Góibniu made a pole that burned those that he touched with it.”
page 21 note 4 Ed. Stokes, Rev. Celt., xii, 89–95.
page 22 note 1 Quoted from Hennessy's translation. Hennessy also prints the text from LL. R. I. A., Todd Lect. Series, i, 37–38.
page 22 note 2 R. I. A., Todd Lect. Series, iv, 79. Quoted from Hogan's translation. Hogan also prints the text from Egerton, 106, a ms. copied in 1715.
page 22 note 3 So Wolfram describes the poison of the bleeding spear as hot:
page 22 note 4 Loth, Les Mab., ii, 59–60; Rhŷs and Evans, Red Book, i, 203.
page 23 note 1 Hennesy makes the identification, Mesca Ulad, R. I. A. Todd Lecture Series, I, part 1, pp. xiv–xvi. O'Curry translates Crimall, “Bloody Spear,” MS. Materials, p. 48. This meaning is confirmed by a passage in LL. 107a8, which gives the name of Cormac's wonderful shield, Croda Cormaic. Stokes translates this “Bloody (shield) of Cormac,” see Ériu, iv, 29 and 35.
page 23 note 2 Later Irish tales call the luin “a red spear.” The description of the marvellous weapons brought to Finn in the Cath Finntraga (edited and translated by Kuno Meyer from a fifteenth century ms., Anec. Ox., Med. and Mod. Series, i, 4, 32) should be compared:
“There arose from them [the weapons] fiery flashes of lightning and most venomous bubbles, and the warriors could not endure looking at those weapons. … For the balls of fire they sent forth no dress or garment could resist them but they went through the bodies of the men next to them like most venomous arrows.”
In the same tale, on pages 38–9, Caisel Clumach's flaming shield is described:
“A venomous shield with red flames which the smith of hell (gabha ifrinn) had wrought for him.” Druimderg son of Dolor slew the owner of this shield with a venomous spear that had been in the possession of the Clanna Rudraige one after another, and Croderg (“the Red-Socketed”) was its name.
page 23 note 3 Táin Bo, ed. Windisch, Ir. Texte, Extraband (1905), p. 872, lines 6020–23.
page 24 note 1 Cf. Maelodrán's lance, K. Meyer, An. Ox. Hibernica Minora, p. 81.
page 24 note 2 Serglige Conculaind, ed. Windisch, Irische Texte, i, 205–6 (from LU., 43a).
page 24 note 3 The “Caindel Chuscraid” in the Táin Bo, ed. Windisch, Irische Texte, Extraband, line 5226, (from LL).
page 24 note 4 The Second Battle of Moytura, R. C., xii, 107, “Ogma the champion found Orna the sword of Tethra a king of the Fomorians. Ogma unsheathed the sword and cleansed it. Then the sword related whatsoever had been done by it; for it was the custom of swords at that time when unsheathed to set forth the deeds that had been done by them—demons used to speak from the weapons.”
page 24 note 5 Reasons exist for thinking that blazing and bleeding were more or less interchangeable attributes of a marvellous weapon. Wolfram speaks of the hot poison of the bleeding spear, p. 22 above. In the Perlesvaux, ed. Potvin, i, 74, the sword of John the Baptist which belongs to King Gurgalon bleeds every day at noon. In Hucher, Grand St. Graal, iii, 217, the sword of Joseph of Arimathea bleeds. The sword among the “thirteen marvels of the Isle Britain” flamed from hilt to point, p. 27 below. In the Perlesvaux, ed. Potvin, i, pp. 15–16, ms. Berne, occurs a blazing spear that can be quenched only in blood:—
Arthur slew a black knight who carried a blazing spear: “Et si estoit li glaives anson gros près du fer et ardant à grosse flambe laide et hideuse, et descendoit la flambe dusque sor le poing del chevalier.” The spear was not extinguished except by the blood of King Arthur when he was wounded by it in the arm.
The unusual adjectives for a flame “laide et hideuse” recall the Irish luin, which had to be plunged into a “black and horrible liquid.” See p. 18 above.
The Prose Lancelot contains a version of the Grail Castle story in which is mentioned no bleeding lance, but its place appears taken by a blazing spear. The blazing spear is described immediately after the grail but is connected with the perilous couch on which Gawain was asked to lie. No sooner had he stretched himself upon the couch than “there came forth swiftly from a chamber a lance whereof the blade was all afire, and it smote Sir Gawain so hardly that despite shield and hauberk it pierced his shoulder” (Miss Weston's translation from ms. 123, Bib. Nat., Sir Gawain at the Grail Castle, p. 59). The blazing lance may have found its way here in connection with the “Lit Merveil,” and have nothing to do with the grail talismans (cf. Chrétien's Lancelot, vv. 518–533). It is at least curious, however, that in this grail story no bleeding lance appears.
It is not improbable that the ancient Irish thought of the luin of Celtchar not only as blazing, but also as shedding poison in the shape of drops of blood. Celtchar's death came about through the agency of the luin. The text has been edited and translated by Kuno Meyer, from LL, 118a, in R. I. A., Todd Lect. Series, xiv, 25–31 (cf. Rev. Celt., xxiii, 335):
“Celtchar slew with his luin his marvellous dog that had been a pest to all Ireland. As he held up the spear a drop of the dog's blood ran along the spear shaft and went through Celtchar so that he died.”
It is possible to hold that Celtchar's death was due entirely to the venomous character of the hound's blood, but it seems more plausibly attributed to the poisonous agency of the luin.
The sword of Sivard in the Danish ballad sheds such poisonous drops (Danmarks gamle Folkeviser, no. 3). Hagan has asked Sivard for his enchanted sword. Sivard replies: “My good sword Adelbring may you have, indeed, but keep you well from the tears of blood that are under the hilt, keep you from the tears of blood that are so red. If they run down upon your fingers it will be your death.”
That the same weapon might be described at one moment as wrapped about with blazing fire, and the next moment as dripping with poisonous blood, the lay of Angantheow shows. The sword Tyrfing made by the dwarves had three curses upon it: it ever brought death to its bearer! No wound made by it could be healed; three deeds of dolour should be wrought by it. As it lay under Angantheow's head he declared “Tyrfing is all wrapped about with fire,” C. P. B., i, 166, but only 28 lines later as he gave it to Hervor he said, “Keep it aye sheathed … touch not the edges, there is venom upon them, this doomer of men is worse than a plague,” C. P. B., i, 167. In the preceding lay it is called “the blood-grooved blade tempered in venom,” C. P. B., i, 161: “hvass blóÐrefill herÐr í eitri.”
page 26 note 1 Ed. Rhyŷs and Evans, Red Book of Hergest, i, 105. The translation given is my own. Loth's version of the passage (Les Mab., i, 200) seems to be defective; for, without any apparent reason, he omits the reference to Arthur's ship.
page 26 note 2 Rhŷs, i, 132, 136–7; translation in Loth, i, 267, 272.
page 26 note 3 “Gwrnach gawr,” Rhŷs, i, 125; Loth, i, 256. Nitze in these Publications, xxiv, 408, adopts Rhŷs's idea that the Garlan of the Huth-Merlin, the Garlon of Malory, and the Welsh Gwrgi Garwlwyd, accused of cannibalism in the Triads (see Loth, Les Mab., ii, 288–9), are identical. Nitze further equates Gorlagon “werewolf” (see Kittredge, Stud. and Notes, viii, 205), and King Gurgalon who in the Perlesvaux has possession of the sword of John the Baptist which bleeds at noon and (like Caladbolg, see below, p. 33) expands when drawn from its sheath. Gurgalon has cannibalistic traits. Gwrnach the giant, with his sword, evidently resembles Gurgalon even more closely. No stranger has ever left Gwrnach's castle alive (Loth, Les Mab., i, 257), a fact that suggests him to be also a cannibal. Gwrnach's sword is perhaps identical with “Dyrnwyn” the sword of Ehydderch Hael, which is mentioned in an old ms. as one of the thirteen marvels of the isle Britain. “If any man drew it except its owner it burst into a flame from the handle to the point” (Jones, Welsh Bards, London, 1802, ii, 47; cf. Lady Guest, Mab., ii, 354).
page 27 note 1 Garanhir means “long crane,” and Welsh legend assigned to him a marvellous fish weir. On Gwyddneu Garanhir, and his never failing basket, as a prototype of the Fisher King, see Nitze, these Publications, xxiv, 397–8.
page 27 note 2 Ed. Rhŷs, i, 122; Loth, i, 244. The Basket of “Gwyddno” is one of the “thirteen marvels of the isle Britain.” If food for one were put into it, food for a hundred might be taken out; Jones, op. cit., ii, 47.
page 27 note 3 Ed. Rhŷs, i, 152–3; Loth, i, 302. Arthur's Mantle, which made the wearer invisible, is also one of the “thirteen marvels of the Isle Britain,” op. cit.
page 28 note 1 Rhŷs and Evans, i, 152; Loth, i, 301.
page 28 note 2 “Tri Honeit prytwen yd æth gan Arthur.” See my note in Studies and Notes, viii, 79. Manannán's canoe “Wave-Sweeper” had this power; Joyce, Old Celtic Romances, p. 63, from a ms. of 1416.
page 28 note 3 “Caer Sidi”; see Rhŷs, Art. Leg., p. 301.
page 28 note 4 Quoted from Skene, Four Books, i, 264–266; for the text see ii, 181–2.
page 29 note 1 Super humeras suos.
page 29 note 2 Translated from the text of Mommsen, Mon. Germ. Hist. Auct. Antiq., xiii; Chron. Min., iii, Cap. 56, pp. 199–200.
page 29 note 3 Ed. Phillimore, reprint by Loth, Les Mab., ii, 347.
page 29 note 4 Arthurian Material in the Chronicles, Studies and Notes, x, 32–33.
page 29 note 5 Ed. San Marte, ix, 4, 17–19 (date about 1136). Fletcher thinks it possible that this reading may have stood in Geoffrey's copy of Nennius.
page 30 note 1 ix, 4, 40–41.
page 30 note 2 Chap. 73, ed. Mommsen, p. 217.
page 30 note 3 “Kavall” in Kulhwch, Loth, Les Mab., i, 272, 6.
page 30 note 4 Arthuri Militis.
page 30 note 5 ix, 4, 20–21; ix, 11, 75; x, 11, 16–17 and 30–31.
page 30 note 6 ix, 4, 21–22.
page 30 note 7 Le Roman de Brut, ed. Le Roux de Lincy, ii, 74, v. 9999. Wace's date is 1155.
page 31 note 1 Ed. Madden, ii, 539–540, vv. 22,901 ff., (date about 1200).
page 31 note 2 Vv. 21, 129–34. Here I disregard Madden's version and follow the manifestly correct translation of Professor Kittredge. See p. 5, footnote 4, of my article in Modern Philology, i, 99. The text is:
Of course Professor Kittredge emends “he” in v. 21,133 to “heo,” and “Witeзe” is an easy corruption of Widia, the name in Anglo-Saxon of Weland's son. Weland, the Germanic smith-god, is often in the romances connected with the magic weapons of Arthur and his knights. This has come to pass, I believe, by substitution of the better known smith for unfamiliar Celtic smiths and magicians. I agree with Nitze, therefore (these Publications, xxiv, 407, note 3), as opposed to Brugger (Zt. f. franz. Spr. u. Lit., xxxi, rev. section 132) in thinking “Garlon” to be a more original form of the name of the magician in Huth Merlin than “Gallan,” and explain the latter form as due to confusion with Weland (Valland).
page 31 note 3 V. 21147.
page 31 note 4 Vv. 23, 781–4. Perhaps Griffin is an English distortion of the Welsh gofan, “smith.” Imelmann (Laзamon, Versuch über seine Quellen, Berlin, 1906, pp. 31–33) has certainly not shown that Griffin may not be a corruption of gofan, although, as I indicated in my article referred to, the name Griffin is too common to dogmatize about. Proper names are often the least permanent portions of a plot or story, and their use in investigating the origins of the romances is fraught with danger, as Professor Nitze (Modern Philology, vii, 146–7, 161) has learned.
page 32 note 1 None exist in ancient Breton or Cornish.
page 32 note 2 Mod. Phil., i, 101–111. Pridwen (the ship), means “white form”; Wynebgwrthucher (the shield), “night gainsayer”; Carnwenhau (the dagger), “white haft”; Ehangwen (the hall), “broad white”; Gwenhwyfar (Arthur's wife), “white enchantress.” Also goswhit, Laзamon's name for Arthur's helmet (v. 21,147) is evidently a translation of a Welsh name meaning “goose white.” [Imelmann's suggestion, op. cit., pp. 30–31, that Goswhit might come from a hypothetical Middle-Welsh *gospeit “polished,” may be disregarded as a last straw clutched at by one who is in dread of being forced to admit that the English of Laзamon' s day knew of Arthur, and may have had names for his marvellous arms. But Imelmann is right in saying that this one name did not justify my assumption that Laзamon himself understood any Welsh].
To this I might add that the name of Arthur's mantle, Gwenn, referred to above, pp. 26–7, means “white,” and that the arms of Manannán and of other chieftains of the Tuatha Dá Danaan were, in Irish story, white or luminous.
page 33 note 1 See above, p. 7.
page 33 note 2 Gött. Gel. Anz., 1890, pp. 516–7. Besides the evident relation of name: in Malory Excalibur, in Geoffrey Caliburnus, in Kulhwch and Olwen, Caledvwlch, and in Irish Caladbolg; the swords agree in the possession of three remarkable qualities. Both are drawn at the decisive moment in battle and always bring victory. Both flash or glitter: the sword of Leite might expand into a rainbow (Táin Bo, ed. Windisch, lines 6022–23). Both came from fairy land: Caliburnus was made in the Isle of Avallon: the sword of Leite came out of a sídh, or fairy knoll (“Claideb Fergusa, claideb Leiti a sídib é,” Windisch, l. c., lines 6021–2). Windisch conjectures (Táin Bo, pp. 860 and 869, footnotes) that Caladcholg was perhaps an older form of the name than Caladbolg.
page 34 note 1 “Artegal and Elidure.”
page 34 note 2 See the Voyage of Bran, vol. ii.
page 35 note 1 Keating's History of Ireland, edition and translation by D. Comyn, Irish Texts Society, iv, 203.
page 35 note 2 Op. cit., pp. 205–6.
page 35 note 3 Op. cit., p. 209. On the Irish talismans cf. Nutt, Voy. of Bran, ii, 171, and his footnote in Miss Weston's Leg. of Sir Perceval, ii, 314–5. To Mr. Nutt belongs the credit of having brought a comparison between the Irish talismans and the treasures of the Grail Castle into prominence.
page 35 note 4 That Wolfram combined two objects in his grail, which is both a stone and a source of food, is perhaps indicated by the peculiar phrase which he employs: “der stein ist ouch genant der grâl.” 469, 28.
page 36 note 1 Nutt, Voy. of Bran, ii, 171.
page 36 note 2 Nutt, Voy. of Bran, i, 186–8.
page 36 note 3 See LL, 132a, lines 17–48; Irische Texte, iii, 229, and Nutt, op. cit., i, 189.
page 36 note 4 Edited and translated from ms. Harleian 5280 by W. Stokes in Revue Celtique, xii, 52–130 (1891). The Irish text of the above passage is: “An Lia Fail bui a Temraig. Nogesed fo cech rig nogebad Erinn. … An tsleg boi ac Lug. Ni gebtea cath fria no frisinti an bidh il-laimh. … Claidiub Nuadot. Ni terládh nech dei o dobirthe asa idntiuch bodhuha ocus ni gebtai fris. … Coiri an Dagdai. Ni tegedh dam dimdach uadh” (pp. 57–58).
page 37 note 1 The Echtra Condla; Windisch, Kurzgefasste Irische Grammatik, pp. 118–120, prints the text from LU.
page 37 note 2 Irische Texte, i, 197–227, from LU.
page 37 note 3 Cours de litt. Celtique, ii, 361, from LL.
page 37 note 4 On the shape-shifting of the Fisher King see the “Elucidation,” v. 222.
page 38 note 1 Quoted from the summary by d'Arbois de Jubainville, Cours, ii, 270 ff. The text is in LL, 245b, 41–246a, 14.
page 38 note 2 From Todd's summary, R. I. A., Irish MS. Series, i, i, 46.
page 38 note 3 Translated by O'Beirne Crowe, Proceedings of Royal Hist. and Arch. Assoc. of Ireland, fourth series, i, 387 (1871)).
page 38 note 4 In LL, 169b, lines 42 ff. Printed by O'Grady, Silva Gadelica, ii, 482, (translation at p. 530).
page 39 note 1 Manners and Oust., ii, 338–9. Cf. Crimthann's treasures, Cours, ii, 364.
page 39 note 2 Translated by Joyce, Old Celtic Romances, pp. 37 ff., from the Book of Lecan, compiled about 1416.
page 39 note 3 Duanaire Finn, Irish Texts Soc., vii, text, pp. 21–2; translation pp. 118–9, ms. of 1627. Cf. Magnímartha Finn, Rev. Celt., v; translation in Ériu, i, 180–5.
page 40 note 1 M. d'Arbois de Jubainville attributes this list to the tenth century: Cours, i, 355.
page 40 note 2 Voyage of Bran, i, 192.
page 40 note 3 Text and translation by W. Stokes, Irische Texte, iii, 189–229, from the Book of Ballymote and the Yellow Book of Lecan.
page 40 note 4 L. c., p. 216, text 198.
page 41 note 1 L. c., pages 205–6.
page 41 note 2 L. c., pages 218–20; text 199–202.
page 41 note 3 Ossianic Society, iii, 212–229 (1857).
page 42 note 1 The opinion of Hennessy, R. I. A., Todd Lect. Series, i, 1, xiv. (The blazing spear of Lugh named Slaughterer was also called “the red spear,” see above, p. 19).
page 42 note 2 Ed. Paris et Ulrich, Société des Anciens Textes (1886).
page 42 note 3 Op. cit., i, 213–5. This precise phrase is not in the text but we are told, “n'iot nul qui les renges [de l'espee] peust desnoer.”
page 42 note 4 As the story stands, the sword “as estranges renges” is not connected with the Dolorous Stroke; for we are expressly told that Balin did not use that sword in the adventure of the Dolorous Stroke, but his own weapon. (i, 253, ii, 27.) However, anyone who has observed how constantly a sword corresponding to the sword “as estranges renges” is associated with the bleeding lance of the Grail Castle cannot doubt that its presence here in a story of the lance is not accidental. In a more primitive form of the story it must have been this sword which broke in Balin's hand. Then the condition of things at the Castle of Pellam (Pellehan) when Balin left it would be exactly as described in Wauchier, viz.: the sword of “estranges renges” broken, the king's relative dead, the king himself wounded, and his land laid waste.
page 43 note 1 i, 231. In an episode, which I omit at this place, Balin slays “Lancer, fius au roi d'Irlande.” The mention of Ireland may have a bearing on the question of a Celtic source.
page 43 note 2 i, 275.
page 43 note 3 i, 277.
page 43 note 4 i, 279.
page 43 note 5 ii, 6, Garlan, like the Irish Cuchulinn, could evidently be slain only by his own weapon.
page 43 note 6 ii, 9.
page 43 note 7 In the Spanish version, Nueva Biblioteca de Autores Españoles, ed. Bonilla, Madrid, vi, 103, we are told that Merlin was clad in white “por ser desconocido.” The appearance at crucial points in the story of an important character (a magician) in different manifestations is a well known feature of Irish tales. See Studies and Notes, viii, 100 ff. and cf. 201. The successive appearances of Merlin in different disguises and unrecognized by Balin goes far by itself to prove the Celtic character of the story.
page 43 note 8 ii, 7. The Huth Merlin here reads “Gallan,” a form evidently due to the Germanic Weland (Valland). But in most places the French reads “Garlan,” cf. ii, 21, 22, 24, 26; and Malory has always “Garlon.” The latter form seems to me more original, and I should identify him with Gwrnach the giant, see above, pp. 26–7; and, as Nitze suggests, with King Gurgalon who in the Perlesvaux owns the bleeding sword. Garlan is a magician and goes invisible like Góibniu, the Irish smith. The name of such a magician might easily be changed by French romancers to Gallan. Cf. my remarks on the variation between Gabon and Galan, in the Polistorie, as the maker of Gawain's sword: Modern Philology, i, 100.
page 44 note 1 ii, 13–14. No one would urge that this forcible bleeding of guests is a distinctively Celtic feature. Yet it may well have formed a part of the Celtic Tale of Balin. The use of blood to dispel enchantment is common in Celtic tales. See the favorite Irish story called The Fairy Palace of the Quicken Trees, where the blood of the sons of a king is required to release Finn and his warriors: MacDougall, Folk and Hero Tales, 58 and 270–5. A list of versions of this story is in Studies and Notes, viii, 209–10, footnotes. General references to cure by the use of blood are collected by Mead, Selections from Malory, p. 266.
page 44 note 2 ii, 15. The basis of this incident is perhaps the Celtic “hero's leap,” well known in ancient Irish story. See Thurneysen, Keltoromanisches, p. 19; and for Cuchulinn's cor n-íach n-eirred or “salmon-leap” executed over castle walls, cf. Fled Bricrend, ed. Henderson, Irish Texts Soc., ii, §§ 87, 88, from LU.
page 44 note 3 ii, 19.
page 45 note 1 ii, 22. Balin's journey to this perilous castle is evidently patterned after the Celtic Otherworld Journey (see my “Knight of the Lion,” in these Publications, xx, 676 ff.). The damsel messenger and guide, the journey to a very distant land, the Hospitable Host, who entertains the adventurer for the night, and points out the way to the mysterious castle; and the combat with the Red Magician, are stock incidents of the Otherworld Journey. Garlan the Red Magician, called “cel rous chevalier” and “Gallans li rous,” should be compared with the red “riders of the sídh” in Dá Derga's Brugh, p. 20, above. “Red were they all together with their teeth.” “We ride the horses of the sídh, and though we are alive, we are dead.” The thoughtful student of Celtic story will perceive that the Hospitable Host and the Red Magician were originally fairy chieftains at war with each other. The Host had been worsted and was seeking the help of a mortal hero to slay his foe. Such is the situation in the Serglige Conculaind (in LU), where Cuchulinn slew three fairy usurpers; in the Echtra Lóegaire (in LL), where Lóegaire slew a fairy adversary, Goll, and restored his Hospitable Host, Fiachna, to the dominion of fairy-land; in the Welsh “Pwyll and Arawn” one of the four ancient Mabinogion, and in the mediæval Irish story In Gilla Decair. Such, as I sought to demonstrate seven years ago (“Iwain,” Studies and Notes, vol. viii), must have been the original situation in Chrétien's Yvain, where the Hospitable Host and the Red Champion of the Fountain were evidently foes. But I hope to return to this matter in another article.
page 45 note 2 Such was the custom of the ancient Irish. When Eochaid Airem became high king of Ireland, and invited his subjects to a feast, the men returned this answer: “They would not come till he had a wife, because no man went to a feast at Tara without his wife.” Zimmer, Gött. gel. Anz., 1890, p. 519, note, quoting from LU, 129b, 25 ff.
page 45 note 3 It was the rule in Conchobar's palace at Emain Macha to pile the arms of the chiefs out of reach at a feast, lest during the revel somebody should run amuck for a rough word. “Cech ní gargg ro-chluintís,” see LL, 106b, 49.
page 46 note 1 Moral pressure exerted upon a host to extort a favor is common in Celtic tales. See Kittredge, Studies and Notes, viii, 210–11.
page 46 note 2 ii, 24. The suggestion that this arrangement at table was a Celtic custom, is due to Miss Lillian Huggett, a graduate student at Northwestern University, who is preparing a paper on the Celtic elements in the Tale of Balin.
page 46 note 3 ii, 27.
page 46 note 4 “Demanda del Sancto Grial,” or as the editor has entitled it “El Baladro del Sabio Merlin,” Nueva Biblioteca de Autorts Españoles, ed. Bonilla, Madrid (1907), vi, 91–120.
page 46 note 5 Op. cit., p. 109: “E miro por todo e vido otra camara abierta, y entro dentro, pensando de ay fallar alguna cosa con que se defendiesse, y el rey, que lo seguia muy ayna, quando quiso entrar oyo una boz que le dixo: ”Por tu mal ay entraras, que no eres tal que deuas entrar en tan alto lugar santo,“ y entendio bien la boz, mas no dexo de entrar; e vido la camara tan hermosa e rica, [p. 110] que no penso que en el mundo no pudiesse auer su par: e la camara era muy grande y quadrada, de muy buen olor, assi como si todas las buenas especies del mundo ay fuessen, y en medio de aquella camara aula una gran mesa e de piata por razon, puesta en quatro pies de piata; y sobre aquella mesa avia un gran bacin de oro, e dentro en aquel bacin estaua una lança derecha, la punta ayuso, y quien arriba la mirasse, marauillarse ya, ca no estaua fincada, ni acostada, ni assentada a ninguna parte. Y el cauallero de las dos espadas [Balin] vido la lança, mas no la miro bien, e el fue por la tornar, e dixole una boz: ‘¡No la tomes, peccador!‘ mas no dexo de tornarla por esso con anbas manos, e firio con ella a Pelean, que contra el venia, tan rezio, que le passo anbas las cuxas, y el rey se sintio mal ferido, cayo en tierra; y el cauallero torno la lança do la tomara, e tan ayna como la puso se tuuo como antes.”
page 47 note 1 “Agora comiençan las aventuras del reyno auenturado, que jamas nunca falleceran, fasta que sea caramente conprado el fecho de aquel que la santa lança tomo con sus manos lixosas e viles, con que llago al mejor hombre de los principes, y el gran maestro tomara dende venganca, assi que lazeraran por ende [de sic] los que lo merescieren.”
page 48 note 1 At this point the Huth ms. recommences.
page 48 note 2 Paris et Ulrich, Huth Merlin, ii, 29–30.
page 48 note 3 ii, 57–60.
page 48 note 4 Romania, xxxvi, 573–9, (1907).
page 51 note 1 Merlin, ii, 4, “Llogres,” (see p. 44 above), elsewhere “Listinois.”
page 51 note 2 See pp. 14–5 above, and for the last phrase Miss Weston, Sir Gawain at the Grail Castle, p. 22, translating from ms. 12,576, Bib. Nat.
page 52 note 1 In a previous article, Mod. Philology, vii, 203–6.
page 53 note 1 See p. 23 above.
page 53 note 2 See Zimmer, Haupt's Zt., xxxv, 85–87.
page 53 note 3 Unlike Cormac stories of later origin it does not connect Finn with Cormac.
page 53 note 4 The Senchas Mór, etc., iii, 82–84.
page 53 note 5 “Airi echta in tAengus Gabuaidech, ac dígail greisi ceniuil atuathaib Luigne” (op. cit., p. 82).
page 53 note 6 Ms. Materials, pp. 48, 512; Manners and Customs, ii, 325–6.
page 53 note 7 Compare, in the Acallamh na Senórach, (ed. Stokes. Irische Texte, iv, 1, 47; translation in Silva Gad., ii, 142), how Ilbhrec took down from its rack, at a time of need, the venomous spear of Fiacha which came originally from the Tuatha Dá Danaan; see p. 4 above.
page 54 note 1 “Oous geis do Temraig airm laich do breith indte iar fuined ngreine, acht na hairm do ecmaitír indte [budein]. Ocus ro gab Aengus in crimall Cormaic anuar da healchaing ocus tuc buille di a Cellach mac Cormaic, cor marbustar he; cor ben a heochair dar suil Cormaic co ro leth chaech hé; ocus ro ben a hurlunn a ndruim rechtaire na Temrach aca tarraing a Cellach, co ro marbustar he. Ocus ba geis rig co nainim do bith a Temraig” (op. cit., p. 82).
page 55 note 1 The Laud text is printed in Ériu, iii, 135–142 (1907); the Rawlinson text has been printed and translated by Kuno Meyer in Y Cymmrodor, xiv, 101–135 (1901).
page 55 note 2 Haupt's Zeitschrift, xxxv, 121 ff., (1891).
page 55 note 3 The text from the last two mss. has been printed in Anecdota from Irish Mss., i, 15–24 (1907).
page 56 note 1 See p. 53 above.
page 56 note 2 “Fear garg amnus,” Anecdota, i, 15, l. 15.
page 56 note 3 “laech garb,” LU, 53a.
page 56 note 4 “gaibuafnech idon nemnech,” ibid.
page 56 note 5 “ Ar ba hécen fer cechtar a da slabrad side dogres” (Rawlinson B. 502), Y Cymmrodor, xiv, 104, and footnote on p. 105.
page 56 note 6 “ Triar fer cacha slabraidh ig a tarraing” (H. 2. 15), Anecdota, i, 15, ll. 17–18.
page 56 note 7 “Is arna slabradaib tra ba Hoengus Gæbuaibthech a ainm-seom,” Y Cymmrodor, xiv, 106–7.
page 56 note 8 P. 18 above.
page 56 note 9 “Immalle dorochratar in mac ocus in rechtairi ocus romebaid súil Cormaic ocus ni roachtas greim fair corrócht a theg ocus romarb nonbur do churadaib Cormaic occá thafund” (Érin, iii, 136. The translation is my own).
page 57 note 1 See “The Adventures of Cormac,” p. 40 above, and especially “The Fate of the Children of Tuirenn,” Joyce, op. cit., pp. 36 ff.
page 57 note 2 An apparent exception is the curious grail episode in the Sone de Nausay, ed. Goldschmidt; Stuttgart Litt. Verein, vol. 216, (1902).
page 58 note 1 See above, p. 49.
page 59 note 1 This article was written before I received Professor Nitze' s interesting study of the Fisher King (these Publications, xxiv, 365–418), to which, however, I have been able to insert several references. Nitze's idea that the procession of the Grail Castle shows traces of a heathen ritual or cult is plausible, always premising that the traces of this ritual must have reached the French from the Bretons or Welsh. Nitze with excellent judgment, in my opinion, holds aloof (pp. 380, 395, note 1) from Miss Weston's attempt to explain Grail and Lance as phallic symbols, and from her appeal to practising mystics (see her Legend of Sir Perceval, ii, pp. 253–4 ff.). Miss Weston's studies have been of value to all workers in the Arthurian field. She has held to what I regard as the common sense position that the Arthurian legends developed in Wales as well as (although not to the exclusion of) Brittany, and that they are the outcome of long growth rather than of literary invention. It is disappointing, therefore, to find her credulous of explanations furnished by modern occultists. This line of research seems as little likely to lead to scientific results as the discredited solar myth theory, upon which, by the way, Miss Weston has also cast a lingering eye.
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