The Legend of Sir Lancelot du Lac

the Lancelot tradition, and one which, though it has already been the subject

at it is unnecessary to do more than summarise the leading features. It is, as we all

o, meeting a dwarf driving a cart, mounts after a momentary hesitation, and the two continue the pursuit together. Meleagant's land (or rather that of his father Baudemagus) is surrounded by deep water, crossed by two bridges, one of a sword-blade, the other under the water. Lancelot chooses the first, crosses in safety, fights with Meleagant, and frees Guinevere, who, however, receives him coldly, being offended at his momentary hesitation before mounting the cart. Lancelot, in despair, tries to commit suicide; Guinevere, hearing a rumour of his death, is overwhelmed with grief, and on his next appearance receives him with the greatest favour. They pass the night together, Lancelot gaining access to the queen's chamber by means of a heavily barred window, and severely wounding his hands in wrenching asu

nt a part of the completed Arthurian legend. Are these relations, then, an invention of Chrétien, or were they already familiar to the public for whom he wrote? Here I shall only treat this question inci

pplied a verbal outline of the story, and left it to Chrétien to fill in details. Thus, as regards source, Chrétien stands in a different position in this poem than in his other ro

place. These conflicts with a valiant knight do not as a rule terminate so quickly, even though the odds be unequal! Gawain, who of course knows Lancelot well, apparently fails to recognise him, even when he unhelms for supper. The maiden of the castle warns them against sleeping in a certain bed; whoever does so will scarce escape with his life. Lancelot braves the adventure, but the next morning when he is found safe and well, the lady expresses no surprise. We are told that the maiden whom Lancelot frees from the knight at the ford knows him and is afraid he will know her, but no explanation of this is vouchsafed, and her identity is not revealed. We are expressly told that the kingdom of Gorres is surrounded by a water which none may pass, but before Lancelot even arrives at the water and

Chrétien could put it into charming language, and make a finished and artistic piece of work out of a simple original. I should express the charm of his work as being that he clad the folk-tale in the garments of the court, and taught it to move easily in its foreign trappings. But when his materials were scanty, and he was called upon to supplement them from his own imagination,

le more than lay figures; they talk at great length, and indulge in analysis o

drue, Is

mort, en vo

nful, frantically jealous, and repentant of her jealousy; Lancelot is courteous, humble, despairing, hopeful: their relation to each other is all that Minne dienst can require between a knight and his lady, but nowhere in the whole wearily drawn-out story does the real, pent-up human feeling break through. We can never imagine these two taking one another by the hand and wandering off into the wilderness

on. Certain episodes of the poem, the finding of the comb, the testing of the knight's fidelity to the queen by the lady in whose castle he passes the nigh

Of this story we have at least three distinct accounts: (a) that given by Ulrich von Zatzikhoven, where the 'other-world' character of the imprisonment is strongly marked, but the rescue is the work of an enchanter, and not of Arthur or any of his knights; (b) that given in the Vita Gild?, when the abductor is Melwas, king

ffort at localisation.[45] The other two variants fall together, Melwas, the king of ?stiva Regis, which is admittedly Somerset=Meleagant of Gorres, whose chief city is Bade=Bath, al

Valer?n's thorn-girt dwelling and Meleagant's water-circled castle meant one and the same thing, i.e. that both were recognised methods of describing the 'other-world.' In this connection it is instructive to recall the versions of Brynhild's wooing by Siegfried; her residence is universally admitted to be an 'othe

ble. We must remember who Marie de Champagne was: she was a princess of France, the daughter of King Louis VII. and Eleanor of Aquitaine, who, on her divorce from the French king, married Henry of Normandy, afterwards Henry II. of England. That is, at the time Chrétien wrote, the mother of his protectress was Queen of England and wedded to a sovereign who took a keen and personal interest in all that concerned King Arthur. The possibility of transmission is as clear as daylight; the question of course is, Would Marie be inclin

rrette question unsolved. Of direct evidence there is none; the indirect and inferential evidence tends to show that Malory's source was not the poem of Chrétien de Troyes. The two points on which we can be certain are, (a) that Malory did not know the earlier part of the prose Lancelot at all, that his manuscript began at a point subsequent to the Charrette adventure; and (b) that he does not invent adventures, and but rarely details. Dr. Sommer's conclusions, as set forth in his Study on the Sour

ded (anbricona) the king into putting the queen in his charge (ll. 3916-39). In another place, he says that the king, 'Fist que fors del san Quant aprés lui l'an anvoia. Je cuit que keus la convoia Jusqu'au chevalier qui l'an mainne' (ll. 3706-11). Now, let us suppose that, as Professor Foerster insists, Hartmann had not read the Charrette and knew no other version of the story, what would he, who knew French well, and translates without blunders and confusion, understand by this? We must note particularly what Chrétien

. The knights armed and followed. Kay was the first to overtake him, and was struck from his horse with such violence that his helmet caught in a tree and he hung suspended. He was not carried off captive. One after another

ccount: i.e. if Gawain were not present at the time, and all the knights followed one after the other and were defeated by Meleagant, we can quite understand that when Gawain returned the next day and followed on the trail, he would find traces of the severe and bloody conflict for which Chrétien's version leaves no room. On the face of it, Hartmann's version is much the more logical and coherent of the two. I have remarked above on the extreme awkwardness of the act

ts are fighting at the tournament of Beaur?sch.[50] Indeed, Wolfram appears to know far more of these latter than can be gathered from Chrétien's poem. Of course, we cannot here say whether these references are due to Wolfram or to his source, which, as recent research has clearly shown, was certainly the work of a man of varied and extensive learning.[51] Nor is it at all clear that Wolfram knew Lancelot as Guinevere's lover; he simply says that her imprisonment grieved him 'im was gevancnisse leit, die frou Ginòvêr dolte,' which might be postulated of any loyal servant of

tien's (proved by the Lanzelet); and that Chrétien's source was avowedly an informal one, I do not think it impossible that in the poems of Hartmann and Wolfram we have references to the origin

as satisfactorily settled: the original character of the story, and