BOOK VIII

TRADITIONAL EVENTS

Arrival of Gawain at castle; committed to Chrêtien: Peredur. care of lady to whom he makes love; is attacked by her people and defends himself with a chess-board.

The _Perceval_ gives an account of an adventure with a lady and a chess-board of which Perceval is the hero, but the circumstances differ entirely, being similar to those of an episode found in _Gautier de Doulens_ and also in _Peredur_.

Page 229, line 14--'_Askalon_.' The name of this city in Chrêtien is Escavalon, apparently a variant of Avalon. The name in Wolfram may be either a misunderstanding of the French original, or it is not impossible that Askalon, being well known to the Crusaders of that time, was purposely substituted for a similar sounding-title.

Page 230, line 26--'_Æneas and Dido_.' An allusion to the _Æneid_ of Heinrich von Veldeck, to which Wolfram often refers. We learn from line 121 that the writer was already dead. Cf. note, Book VI.

Page 230, line 41--'_Where Mazadan reigned as Monarch_.' Cf. Book I. p. 31, and Book IX. p. 263. There is evidently a confusion here between the fairy and her kingdom. Fay-Morgan is, of course, the fairy-queen, and the name seems later to have been transferred to Arthur's sister, who is called Morgan le Fay in Malory. Terre-de-la-schoie, given in