Book XIII. Here Wolfram seems to imply merely that the king did not eat

in public with his knights, _i.e._ at the Round Table, before they had heard of some knightly venture; in Book XIII. he speaks as if no meal might be partaken of by any of the courtiers till this came to pass. The first rendering seems to be the correct one. [The whole incident is thoroughly in keeping with the conventions of early Irish romance, in which the personages are invariably subject to strict rules and obligations, _geasa_, to use the Irish word.--A.N.]

Page 177, line 585--'_The Grail Messenger_.' This incident occurs in both Chrêtien and Peredur, but the messenger is unnamed, or simply termed 'The Loathly Damsel.' Such a damsel is met with in the _Perceval_, but when she reaches King Arthur's Court she is transformed into a maiden of surpassing beauty. It will be noted that one of the queens imprisoned in Château Merveil also bears the name of Kondrie (p. 189). Mr. Nutt, in his _Studies on the Legend of the Holy Grail_, suggests this was originally the Loathly Damsel released from the transforming spell. (It may be noted that Wagner has kept this idea, and in the first act his Kundrie is the Loathly Messenger; in the second, 'Kondrie la Belle.') Chrêtien's description of Kondrie's appearance is even more repulsive than Wolfram's. In Book X. we have a curious account of the origin of these strange people.

[The 'Loathly Damsel' is one of those personages that most clearly testify to the reliance of the romance-writers upon a traditional popular basis, and also in this instance to the specific Celtic origin of that popular basis. A commonplace of folk-tales of the 'task' class is that the hero is helped by a personage having private ends of his or her own to serve, as, until the hero achieves the Quest (which he never does unaided), the helper cannot be released from a spell, generally of transformation into an animal, but sometimes into a shape of surpassingly hideous ugliness. The oldest European variant of this latter type with which I am acquainted is to be found in an Irish folk-tale imbedded in the so-called Cormac's Glossary, a compilation of the tenth century. I have given this in full (_Argyllshire Tales_, M'Innes and Nutt, pp. 467, 468). In its _outré_ horror the description of the bespelled king's son strikingly recalls that of Kundrie. Such a task story, in which the hero is helped by a transformed personage, who cannot be delivered until the Quest is achieved, is one of the main staples of the Perceval cycle, but it is only in the Welsh tale of _Peredur_ that the incident appears in a straightforward and intelligible form. The sudden transformation from foulness to radiant beauty is met with in another connection earlier in Ireland than elsewhere in Europe: the incident of the Perilous Kiss, in which the embrace of a courteous knight frees a bespelled damsel from loathly disguise, an incident frequently associated with Gawain, is, as I have shown (_Academy_, April 30, 1892), of early occurrence in Ireland. Another element which goes to the complex individuality of Kundrie can be paralleled from early Irish romance. As the female messenger of the fairy dynasty of Mazadan, she corresponds to Leborcham, the female messenger of the semi-mythic King Conchobor, the head and centre of the oldest Irish cycle of heroic romance. Like Kundrie, Leborcham was of startling and unnatural hideousness, and she is brought into special connection with Cuchulainn the chief hero of the Ulster cycle, as Kundrie is with Perceval the chief hero of one group of the Arthur romances.--A.N.]

Page 181, line 697--'_Château Merveil_.' The adventure of this magic castle, achieved by Gawain, is related at length in Book XI.

Page 184, line 806--'_Kingrimursel_.' The name of this character in Chrêtien is Guigambresil, of which this is evidently the German rendering. Here, again, Wolfram either heard or read Gingambresil.

Page 185, line 839--'_Tribalibot_.' This is India.

Page 186, line 859--'_The heathen queen of Ianfus_.' The name of this queen, we find from line 1009, was Ekuba; one of the few classical names we find in this poem.

Page 189, line 977--'_The Greek, Sir Klias_.' This is Cligès, the hero of Chrêtien's poem of that name, son of the Greek Emperor Alexander and Surdamour, sister to Gawain, cf. Book XII. Malory has Sir Clegis, probably the same name.

Page 190, line 1002--'_Twelve spears of Angram_.' Angram was probably in India, and noted for its steel. Oraste-Gentesein seems to be the name of the country from which the reed, or bamboo, was brought. Cf.