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The Irish Framework of Gawain and The Green Knight

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 December 2020

Alice Buchanan
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Extract

Amid the controversial winds that blow about the region of Arthurian studies it is agreeable to have a few solid rocks of irrefutable argument. Professor Kittredge in his Study of Gawain and the Green Knight has demonstrated beyond all question two highly important points: first, that the theme of the Beheading Test, which occurs in Arthurian romances, French, English, and German, from about 1180 to about 1380, is derived from an Irish tradition actually existent in a MS. written before 1106; secondly, that the latest of these romances in date of composition is closer in many ways to the original Celtic form than is the earliest. It is well for students to ponder these facts when the authority of Foerster and Bruce is invoked to deny the presence of a strong Celtic element in Arthurian romance, and when some scholars seem to accept as an axiom the principle that if the same motif occurs in two romances, the later borrowed it from the earlier. Indeed, a whole history of the Grail legend has been constructed on this simple but often delusive formula.

Type
Research Article
Information
PMLA , Volume 47 , Issue 2 , June 1932 , pp. 315 - 338
Copyright
Copyright © Modern Language Association of America, 1932

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References

1 Cf. G. L. Kittredge, Study of Gawain and the Green Knight (Cam., Mass., 1916), p. 47.

2 Histoire littéraire de la France (Paris, 1888), xxx, 77 n.

3 His article, covering many other points, is found in Mod. Phil., xiii, 433–462; 689–730.

4 R. S. Loomis, Celtic Myth and Arthurian Romance (New York, 1927), pp. 39–83.

5 Kittredge, op. cit., 10–14, 17 f. On text cf. pp. 290–293.

6 R. Thurneysen, Die Irische Helden- und Königsage (Halle, 1921), p. 449. This work contains an authoritative analysis and summary of the whole saga.

7 Loomis, op. cit., pp. 59 f.

8 G. Henderson, Fled Bricrend, Irish Texts Society, ii (1899), pp. 116 ff.

9 Manly Anniversary Papers, p. 12.

10 C. Plummer, Vitae Sanctorum Hiberniae (Oxford, 1910), i, 113 n. 1.

11 Thurneysen, op. cit., 462.

12 Kittredge, op. cit., 19.

13 Henderson, op. cit., 97–101.

14 MLN, xlii (1927), 562, Nitze says: “His suggestion that Curoi and Cuchulinn, as well as Gawain, ‘betray the dual nature of sun and lightning god,’ is not to be rejected offhand. The question remains: to what extent? But the ‘beheading game,’ the ‘waxing and waning strength,’ the ‘revolving castle or fort’—so familiar to all readers of the Celtic and Arthurian stories—must have some such explanation.” Year's Work in English Studies, viii (1927), 115 f., Miss Everett says: “Loomis has made use of Kittredge's work on these stories, but has gone behind it to the myth and folklore with which Kittredge refused to concern himself. … His opinions merit long and careful consideration.” Speculum, iv (1929), 120, Patch says: “Loomis's explanation for the story of Gawain and the Green Knight answers more questions than that of any of his predecessors: why the Otherworld material is used; why the green figure, the waste city, the enchantress, the beheading-game (concluded at the end of a year) all appear together in one story; and why Gawain is so steadily the hero of an Otherworld exploit. It is not merely a question of each detail, but of them all appearing together in just this way.”

15 Cf. Loomis, op. cit., 40–43, and 42, n. 11.

16 Plummer, op. cit., i, p. cxxx. Proc. Roy. Irish Acad., xxxiv, C, 128–139. Hastings, Encycl. of Religion and Ethics, iii, 281. Celtic Review, iii (1906), 66 f., 73–75; x (1915), 265, 276.

17 Henderson, op. cit., 41, 164. Cf. Zimmer in Sitzungsberichte der Königlich Preussichen Akademie der Wissenschaften (1911), i, 205: “Ebenso umbefangen wie die Sagenerzähler Druiden und Vaten auftreten, die Helden ‘zu dem Gott, bei dem ihr Clan schwört,‘ schwören lassen, und von Christentum keine Spur in den Erzählungen vorhanden ist, ebenso sind für die Sagenerzähler des 9. Jahrhunderts die geschilderten sittlichen Zustände integrierender Teil der Gesellschaft jener Zeit, die sich in den Sagentexten widerspiegelt.”

18 Rev. Celt., xii, 127.

19 J. Grimm, Teutonic Mythology, transl. Stallybrass, ii, 721. Sébillot, Folklore de France, i, 36. Skene, Four Ancient Books (Edinburgh, 1868), i, 529.

20 E. Hull, Cuchullin Saga, pp. lxxvi, lxv. J. Dunn, Ancient Irish Epic Tale (London, 1914), 78.

21 E. Hull, op. cit., p. lxiii. In the Celtic Review, iii, 139, Miss Hull offers the explanation that Cuchulinn's hair was dyed, but has to admit that she has no evidence of such a practice. This may be contrasted with the abundant evidence for a solar interpretation.

22 Henderson, op. cit., 33.

23 F. M. Luzel, Contes Populaires de Basse-Bretagne (1887), i, 69–73, 99–107, 49.

24 Loomis, op. cit., 45 f.

25 Ibid., 47.

26 Krappe offers a solar interpretation of lamhfada in Rev. Archéologique (1931), p. 102.

27 D'Arbois de Jubainville, Cours de littérature celtique, v (1892), 207. Dottin's tr.

28 Such confusion has been recognized by Thurneysen in the descriptions of Cuchulinn's feats. Cf. Irische Helden- und Königsage, 91.

29 J. Dunn, op. cit., 190–192.

30 Malory, Morte d'Arthur, ed. H. O. Sommer (London, 1889), i, 142 f.

31 Ed. Foerster, ll. 2398–2403.

32 Vulgate Version of the Arthurian Romances, ed. H. O. Sommer (1908), ii, 367.

33 Henderson, op. cit., pp. 44, 48, 50.

34 Eriu, xi (1930), 89.

35 E. O'Curry, Lectures on the MS. Materials (Dublin, 1878), 388.

36 Henderson, op. cit., 101, 103.

37 Revue des Traditions Populaires, x (1895), 571. Cf. ibid., xvi, 119 f.; Luzel, op. cit., 6, 17, 33, 58.

38 Kittredge, op. cit., 11.

39 Loomis, op. cit., 49.

40 Malory, op. cit., i, 247 ff.

41 Henderson, op. cit., 119–121.

42 Ibid., 127.

43 Luzel, Contes Populaires de Basse-Bretagne, i, 40–65. Cf. P. Saintyves, Contes de Perrault (1923), 254.

44 A. C. L. Brown, Iwain, [Harvard] Studies and Notes in Philology and Literature, viii (Boston, 1903), 55 n.

45 C. Plummer, Miscellanea Eagiographica Hibernica (Brussels, 1925), 8.

46 Lad of the Ferule, ed. D. Hyde, Irish Texts Soc., viii-x. Stories in which a series of figures whom the hero meets are later explicitly said to be one person are the Welsh Peredur and the Highland Lay of the Great Fool. Cf. Loomis, op. cit., 111.

47 Ll. 844–847.

48 Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, ed. Tolkien and Gordon (Oxford, 1925), 96. Cf Rev. of Engl. St., v (1929), 271.

49 Ll. 2201–2204.

50 J. Loth, Mabinogion (1913), ii, 6–17. Loth's translation of melyn, “blond,” is not obligatory since the man is clad in yellow as well as having yellow hair.

51 On these motifs cf. Rom. Rev., ii, 355; v, 213; Beiheft, Zeits. für Rom. Phil., lxx, 229–54; Loomis, op. cit., 118 ff.; MLN, xliii, 215 ff.

52 Henderson, op. cit., 101–113.

53 Loomis, op. cit., 159–175.

54 Cf. the account in Arthur of Little Britain summarized on pp. 172–175 with Crestien's summarized on p. 166.

55 Mod. Phil., xiii, 691 ff.

56 Sitzungsberichte d. Kön. Preuss. Akad. d. Wiss. (1911), i, 205.

57 Rev. Celt., ii (1873–75), 289 ff.

58 Loomis, op. cit., 12. Two variants of the Blanchefleur episode in Peredur suggest that the host's absence on the chase was traditional. Cf. Loth, op. cit., ii, 107, 111.

59 Zeits. für Celt. Phil., ix, 189 ff. Thurneysen, op. cit., 431–446. For a critique of Thurneysen's theory of development cf. Mitra, i, 263.

60 Henderson, op. cit., 46, 116.

61 Eriu, ii (1905), 20; Zeits. f. Cell. Phil., ix, 191; xiii, 11; Keating's History (Irish Texts Soc.), ii, 222.

62 Loomis, op. cit., 59. The words glas and odar are applied respectively to two horses in the Voyage of Maelduin (Rev. Celt., ix, 466).

63 Kittredge, op. cit., 197. Curadh Glas an Eolais, ed. S. M. O'Raghallaigh (Browne and Nolan, Dublin).

64 Kittredge, op. cit., 196.

65 O'Curry, Lectures on the MS. Materials, 583.

66 Kittredge, op. cit., 107.

67 Ibid., 86.

68 F. Madden, Sir Gawayne (1839), 188–206, 256–277.

69 Kittredge, op. cit., 103.

70 Ibid., 267 f.

71 Mod. Phil., xiii, 697.

72 Loomis, op. cit., 110 ff. Ed. B. Orlowski, La Damoiselle à la Mule (1911).

73 Loomis, op. cit., 100.

74 J. Loth, Mabinogion (1913), i, 289.

75 Mod. Phil., xiii, 697.

76 Kittredge, op. cit., 239.

77 Mod. Phil., xiii, 698.

78 Kittredge, op. cit., 44, 63.

79 Ibid., 56.

80 Potvin, Perceval le Gallois (Mons, 1866), i, 103.

81 Madden, op. cit., ll. 384 ff.

82 Ll. 941 ff. (ed. W. Foerster, Karrenritter).

83 Malory, Morte d'Arthur, Ek. vii, chaps. 22, 23.

84 On the Lit Merveilleux cf. Loomis, op. cit., 160 ff.