Book VI. p. 176 and Note.

Page 87-88, lines 466-506--'_His doings, Sir Knight, I to thee will tell_.' This history of the magician Klingsor, as noted in Book X., is found in Wolfram only, and the indications seem to point to a _French_ source. Terre de Labûr is undoubtedly a French rendering of Terra di Lavoro, in Calabria. Kalot Enbolot is Kalota-Belota, a fortress on the south-eastern coast of Sicily, well known in the days of the Hohenstauffen. This location of Klingsor's kingdom in Southern Italy may have been introduced in order to lend a colour to his supposed relationship to Virgil, who by the twelfth century was firmly established in popular belief as a magician. The name Iblis, Bartsch refers to the Sicilian town Hybla; Ibert may be a form of the French Guibert. It is difficult to avoid the conclusion that in the lord of the Château Merveil, wounded as a punishment of unlawful love, we have a parallel to the King of Monsalväsch, whose wound is due to a similar cause. (A reference to the original German will show how close this resemblance is); as mentioned before, it seems to be a parallel, rather than a contrast, which Wolfram intended to draw between his two heroes. It may well be that in the original version of the story from which both Chrêtien's and Wolfram's poems are derived the Gawain episodes were unfinished, and that in their original form Gawain, too, was brought to the Grail Castle, but to regard them as unfinished _here_ seems a clear misunderstanding of the meaning of the poem. We are distinctly given to understand (p. 97, line 780) that Gawain's lot in life is finally settled, the Grail Quest, which was originally in the Gawain story, has been quietly dropped, and this adventure of the Château Merveil has taken its place; an alteration which artistically can only be considered an improvement, as it clearly marks Gawain's position as secondary to Parzival. Whether the story of Klingsor was introduced for the purpose of emphasizing the parallel between Monsalväsch and Château Merveil it is difficult to say. Certainly, the incident of Parzival's missing the adventure of the Magic Castle, as he did that of Monsalväsch, by failing to ask the question must, as noted above, be due to this idea. With the end of this book Gawain's adventures are practically concluded; Wolfram promptly clears the stage for the winding-up of the history of his real hero, Parzival, by bringing the two knights into contact, when Gawain is naturally worsted, and takes the second place. Whether it be due to Wolfram or to his source, it is certain that the _Parzival_ is far simpler in construction than the majority of the Grail Romances, in which the adventures of various heroes succeed each other with such bewildering rapidity and similarity of incident that it is difficult to tell who is the real hero of the tale!

Page 89, line 519--'_A child was born of a mother_.' A well-known mediæval riddle, which Wolfram might easily have derived from a German source.

Page 90, line 531--'_Of joy had I once full measure_.' It is somewhat curious that in Chrêtien Gawain eulogizes _Guinevere_ in similar terms. It rather looks as if the original passage had been the same in both instances, though it would be difficult to tell to which queen it originally referred.

Page 91, line 566--'_Maurin_.' This name occurs in the _Lancelot_ of Ulrich von Zatzikhoven, from which it was probably borrowed.

Page 92, line 601 _and seq._--'_And either side had suffered_.' Garel and Gaherjet: cf. Note to Book XII. Iofreit, son of Idol: cf. Book V. p. 155 and Note. Though this character only plays an unimportant part in the poem, he is yet very frequently mentioned, it may be that in the original French source he was more prominent. Friam is probably the same name as Urian, in Book X. Vermandois and Nevers point to a French origin.

Page 94, line 658--'_Save the tent of Eisenhart only_.' Cf. Book I. p. 16 and Note. Tents seem to have been favourite love-gifts at this time, note the Booth in Books XI. and XII. given by Anfortas to Orgelusé, and, as we know from _Willehalm_, sent to that king in the first instance by Sekundillé.

Page 96, line 733--'_Meljanz of Lys_.' How Meljanz of Lys came to be there is not explained. It is worthy of note that in Book VII. we find the King of Lirivoin fighting against Meljanz, and taken captive by Parzival; _here_ the men of Lirivoin are evidently on the same side.

Page 97, line 763--'_The wounds of Kay had been healed_.' Cf. Book VI. p. 169 and Note to Book III.

Page 99. line 819--'_A knight his bridle drew_.' This knight is, of course, Parzival, though how he came to be there is not explained. In the _Conte del Graal_ Perceval does not appear on the scene for some time, and passes through a variety of wild and fantastic adventures before finally winning the Grail. The poem, as we possess it, is more than twice as long as Wolfram's.

[With reference to the Klingsor and Iblis story, it is noteworthy that Chrêtien's first continuator relates a long story of King Carduel of Nantes and his reputed son Carados. The wife of King Carduel is beloved by a magician, Garahiet, who is in truth the father of Carados. The latter grows to manhood and goes to King Arthur's court to receive knighthood, there a stranger knight appears and offers to allow his head to be cut off provided the knight who accepts the challenge will submit to the same ordeal a year later. Carados accepts, and strikes off the head of the knight who picks it up and walks off. Returning after a year he finds Carados ready to fulfil his part of the bargain, and then acquaints him with the fact that he, and not Carduel, is in truth his father. Carados returns to the court of Carduel and tells him what he has learnt from the magician; the king in anger imprisons his wife in a tower; she is nevertheless still visited by her lover, whom the king eventually surprises and punishes in a manner appropriate to his crime. This story, in its outline, appears to be the basis of the Klingsor and Iblis episode, but it has been very freely handled by the compiler, and, as suggested above, not improbably altered so as to draw out the parallel between Klingsor and Anfortas.

A feature of importance in this connection is that the episode of Carados and his magician father, a most famous story of the Arthurian cycle, is elsewhere invariably associated with _Gawain_; _e.g._ in the well-known Middle-English poem of 'Sir Gawain and the Green Knight,' and it is difficult to understand why, in a part of the poem specially devoted to the adventures of this knight, the French poet should have attributed this, one of his greatest and most famous feats, to another hero.

Here again we find a parallel in Irish literature; in the 'Fled Bricrend,' Bricriu's feast, the feat by which Cuchulainn establishes his claim to be regarded as the chief Ulster hero is precisely this one; though the French poem in making the magician the father of the hero seems to have retained an archaic trait which has disappeared from the, in point of redaction, centuries older Irish story. But from other Irish stories we know that Cuchulainn was the son of a god who is sometimes represented as carrying off the mortal mother to his fairy home, sometimes as visiting her in animal shape.

The foregoing facts warrant, I think, the conclusion that Gawain originally occupied in the Brythonic hero-saga of Arthur much the same position as Cuchulainn in the Goidelic hero-saga of Conchobor, both being par excellence _the_ adventurous hero. Both, too, it should be noted, are sister's son to the king of the cycle; the same position being occupied by Diarmaid, _the_ adventurous hero of the Finn or Ossianic cycle.

The nature of the connection between these cycles of romantic legend cannot be dealt with here. It is sufficient to show that in the French Arthurian poems of the twelfth century (which in one form or another undoubtedly form the basis of the _Parzival_) we have piecings together of originally disconnected narratives about separate heroes, many of which are found in more archaic form in the stories told of the Irish hero Cuchulainn and his compeers. In the process of piecing together, adjusting to the genealogical requirements of the cycle and to the social conceptions and literary modes of the twelfth century, the early Celtic narratives suffered sadly as far as order and significance are concerned, though gaining immensely in other respects. The changes are of course greatest where such far-reaching new ideas as the symbolical representation of Christian doctrine, or the exemplification of lady-service, affect the original narrative.--ALFRED NUTT.]