Weston Jessie Laidlay
The Three Days' Tournament
But as it happens, our case does not rest upon this evidence alone. We have at hand an important witness; a witness to whose evidence Professor Foerster and his followers shut their eyes and stop their ears, but who nevertheless is slowly, but surely, winning recognition as an important factor in the determination of such problems as those we are discussing. Let us turn to folk-lore, and find if from the lips of popular tradition we can gather evidence that may help to decide the question. We shall find an answer startling in its point and clearness.
THE FOLK-TALE
The Contes Lorrains of M. Cosquin35 contains a story, Le Petit Berger, in which we shall find our tournament adventure in what we may term full fairy-tale form. A princess expresses a desire to own a flock of sheep; her father consents, and hires a lad to guard them, of whom the princess becomes secretly enamoured. On three successive days the shepherd penetrates into a forbidden wood, and on each occasion slays a terrible giant, clad in steel, silver, or golden armour. By the death of these giants the hero becomes master of three castles, of steel, silver, and gold, in each of which he finds a suit of armour and a steed to correspond. He keeps the feat a profound secret, and when later on the king proclaims a three days’ tournament, the prize of which is the hand of the princess, he appears each day in different armour, and mounted on the corresponding steed—steel, silver or golden—wins the tournament, and weds the lady.
Now this is merely the shortest and simplest form of a story, which is found practically all the world over. Let us look at some of the variants.
In the notes to Le Petit Berger M. Cosquin cites a Tyrolean variant, where instead of three giants the hero slays three dragons, thereby winning three castles. The armour corresponds to that of the previous tale; but the horses are black, red, and white, herein agreeing with the Ipomedon and the Prose Lancelot; the compiler refers to other versions from the same country given by Zingerle,36 but cites no details. In an Italian variant the horses are of crystal, silver, and gold.
Now let us turn to another of M. Cosquin’s tales, Jean de l’Ours,37 where the main theme of the story is the release of a princess from an Otherworld prison. Here we shall find a Greek tale given, the details of which are, as we shall see, specially important for our investigation. A prince delivers his sister and three stranger princesses from the prison of a drakos (translated by M. Cosquin as sorte d’ogre) on the summit of a high mountain. When about to descend himself, his brother cuts the cord and leaves him a prisoner on the mountain. In the ogre’s castle he sees three marvellous objects: a greyhound of velvet pursuing a hare also of velvet; a golden ewer which pours water of itself into a golden basin; a golden hen with her chickens. He also finds three winged horses, respectively white, red, and green, and sets them at liberty. In gratitude they transport him to the plain, and each gives him a hair from their tail, bidding him burn it when he needs their aid. The prince takes service with a goldsmith in his father’s city. The eldest brother desires to marry the eldest of the rescued princesses; she demands a velvet greyhound pursuing a velvet hare, such as she has seen in the ogre’s castle. The king offers a reward to any who can make such an object. The pretended goldsmith’s apprentice undertakes to do so, and sends the green horse to fetch the original. At the tournament in honour of the wedding he appears on the horse in a dress to correspond, carries off the honours of the day, and escapes unrecognised. His second brother marries the second princess. She demands the golden ewer—the red horse comes to his aid, and he wins the tournament in his red dress. When the third and youngest princess is to be wedded to the king’s brother he appears in white, on the white steed, slays the would-be bridegroom with a cast of his javelin, reveals his identity, and wins the bride. Here we have the three colours of the Lanzelet.
Again, in the variants of Le Prince et son Cheval, another tale of the same collection,38 we find the Three Days’ Tournament allied to the rescue and escape from the Otherworld motif. In this latter story we have the well-known incident of escape from a giant, or a magician, by means of magical objects which, thrown behind the escaping pair, erect mysterious barriers between pursuer and pursued.
In his notes to Le Petit Berger, M. Cosquin quotes a remark of M. Mullenhoff, to the effect that in one variant of the story collected by him it is combined with ‘le conte bien connu où le héros gravit à cheval une montagne de verre, pour conquérir la main d’une belle princesse.’39 Now the glass mountain is a well-recognised form of the Otherworld prison. Probably, too, we ought to connect with this some variants of the tale where the feat is to attain the summit of a high tower; a version of this is known among the Avares of the Caucasus; here the horses are blue, red, and black.
Thus we may note two well-marked classes of the tales, in one of which (a) the hero simply wins the hand of the princess at a tourney; in the second of which (b) he also rescues her from the Otherworld.
But there is a third variant of our story, in which the feat differs somewhat from b. The hero is again a rescuer, but this time he rescues the princess from death at the jaws of a monster, generally a dragon. This we may call class c. In the notes to Leopold,40 M. Cosquin refers to a German variant where the combat lasts for three days, and horses and armour are black, red, and white. In this connection, as member of class c, Mr. Hartland has studied the story in his well-known Legend of Perseus,41 and some of the variants he gives we shall find of interest to us.
In an Irish version, The Thirteenth Son of the King of Erin,42 the hero, who has previously slain three giants, and taken possession of their castles and wealth, comprising three steeds, black, brown, and red, rescues the king’s daughter from a great monster, a serpent of the sea, ‘which must get a king’s daughter to devour every seven years.’ The combat lasts three days; but though the hero appears each day in a different dress, only on the first does it correspond with the colour of his horse. Here the tournament incident is lacking.
A very good example, this time hailing from the Odenwald, contains the conquest of the giants (eight), the three days’ fight with the dragon, and the Three Days’ Tournament. Here the hero is a king’s son, who, seeing the portrait of the princess, falls in love with her and dares the adventure from which his father shrinks.43 This tale, as Mr. Hartland points out, apparently bears traces of literary influence, and it certainly recalls the données of the Ipomedon where the hero, also a king’s son, is attracted by the fame of La Fière’s beauty, before he sees her.
In a gipsy variant from Transylvania, also given by Mr. Hartland, the princess has been carried off by a dragon to the glass mountain (thus apparently combining b and c); and the horse—there is but one—has the mysterious property of appearing red in the morning, white at noon, and black at night.
It must be borne in mind that the legend which Mr. Hartland was engaged in studying was, before all else, a rescue legend—the rescue of Andromeda—consequently the variants of our tale, collected by him, are practically confined to what we have designated as class c, where the feat performed by the hero is the rescue of the princess from a monster. This particular feature he carries back, in insular tradition, to the old Irish story of Cuchullin’s rescue of Deborghill from the Fomori; sea-robbers, whose real character and origin are doubtful. The hero hears sounds of wailing, and finds the maiden, the daughter of the King of the Isles, exposed upon the seashore. He confronts the Fomori, three in number, and slays them one after the other. Thus the triple combat is preserved, but it appears evident that, even at this early date, the story had been modified in the interests of romantic saga.44 With this (class c) form of the story we frequently find combined what is known as The False Claimant ‘motif.’ The hero disappears after the rescue, having either left behind him some proof of his identity, such as, e.g., the binding of the heads of the monster on a withy in such a manner that none but himself can unloose them; or having in his possession such a proof as, e.g. the tongues of the severed heads, or the handkerchief, ring, or ear-ring of the princess. By means of this proof he confutes the cowardly rival who claims to have achieved the feat. This particular form of the story is perhaps, on the whole, the one in which it is best known. There is one group which, as we shall see, is of extraordinary interest and importance for the special study in which we are engaged.
In his Popular Tales of the West Highlands, under the title of the Sea Maiden, Mr. Campbell gives the following story.45 An old and childless fisherman meets with persistent ill-luck in his calling, till one day a sea-maiden rises from the waves and promises him future success, if he in return will give her his firstborn son (assuring him of the birth of three). The fisher consents, and all falls out as the maiden foretells. Grown to manhood, the son, aware of the fate in store for him, resolves to go ‘where there is not a drop of sea-water.’ He sets out, and on his journey finds a lion, a wolf, and a falcon disputing over the carcase of a horse. He divides the spoil between them, and in return they promise him their aid, should he be in need of it. He becomes herdsman to a king, and we have the adventure with the three giants, in which the grateful beasts aid him, and he wins a white, a red, and a green filly ‘that will go through the skies’—obviously the winged horses of the Greek folk-tale46—and three dresses to correspond. Here he also slays the giants’ mother, and wins a comb and a basin, the use of which will make him the most beautiful man on earth. Follows the adventure with the sea-monster, a dragon apparently. The fight lasts for three days, and he appears each day in a different dress, and mounted on a different steed. The princess makes a mark on his forehead as he sleeps, and thus identifies the hero as her rescuer. They marry, but while walking by the seashore, the sea-maiden rises from the waves and carries off the hero as her property. The princess, by the advice of a soothsayer, succeeds in releasing her husband, and with the help of the grateful beasts, destroys the soul of the sea-maiden, which is in an egg. She being slain, the pair live happily ever after.
In this particular variant there is no False Claimant; but he appears in version number three of this story, and in version four we have the curious detail that the beast ‘was a fresh-water lake when he had killed her.’
Students of folk-lore will note that the tale in this form includes features not found in the majority of the versions, but representing well-recognised folk-tale formulæ. Thus the Life Token is here—incomplete—the maiden gives the fisherman ‘something’ to be given to his wife, his horse, and his dog (obviously a fisherman does not need a horse and a dog—these two features do not belong to each other); the wife has three sons, the horse three foals, and the dog three pups. Horse and dog ought rightly to play a part in the story, but in this special variant they do not appear, though in another they are mentioned in a subordinate rôle. The Grateful Beasts and the External Soul are equally well known in folk-tale, though again, as a rule, in a different connection. But the tournament is lacking; and after examining many variants of the tale, I have come to the conclusion that this feature belongs exclusively to the continental versions. Horses and dresses are found in the insular forms, but, so far, I have not found a single instance of the tournament. On the other hand, no continental variant appears to contain the sea-maiden episodes.
If we now summarise the leading incidents of the various groups, we shall find them somewhat as follows:—
1. Hero—King’s son. Herdsman or shepherd. Fisherman’s son turned herdsman.
2. Slays three giants and wins three castles in which he finds three steeds of different colours with dresses or armour to correspond. The horses are occasionally winged.
3. Appears at a Three Days’ Tournament in these dresses, and thus wins the hand of a princess.
(Incidents 1, 2, 3, which combined correspond to Le Petit Berger, form the shortest version of our story, but probably not the most primitive.)
4. Rescues the princess from an ‘Otherworld’ prison. Form of imprisonment varies, but the ‘rescue’ is most generally found in company with the tournament.
5. Rescues princess from a monster. Here the conflict generally lasts three days, the three disguises are employed, and the tournament is often absent.
6. Is robbed of the credit of his deed by a cowardly rival. This, which is most generally found in combination with 5, is also sometimes found in a modified form combined with 4, and is often lacking altogether.
7. Is carried off by a mermaid, to whom he had been promised before his birth. This appears to be confined to the Celtic group collected by Mr. Campbell.
If the reader will refer to the various examples I have given above, he will see that these seven incidents represent what we may call the perfect skeleton of our story (to use a simile often applied by Mr. Campbell), though the bones are differently placed in different versions.
But, having summarised them, we also become aware of a very curious coincidence. Out of these seven incidents, six are found, and found more than once, in the earlier forms of the Lancelot story. Thus dropping out incident 2, the winning of the armour, to which I know no good parallel, we find that Lancelot was a king’s son (incident 1), which, in itself, of course counts for little, but is of value in combination with other features (Lanzelet—Prose Lancelot); that he appears at a tournament, three days running, in different armour, the colours of which correspond with the prevailing colours of the folk-tale—green, red, white, or black, red, white (incident 3) (Lanzelet—Prose Lancelot); that he frees a princess (queen) from an Otherworld prison (incident 4) (Charrette—Prose Lancelot—Lanzelet, modified form); that he slays a monster (apparently a dragon), and is robbed by a cowardly rival (incidents 5 and 6) (Morien). A second version of the False Claimant story is found in Le cerf au pied blanc. Finally, when a child, he was carried off by a water maiden, meer-wîb (incident 7) (Lanzelet—Prose Lancelot).
Now these are characteristics which, in their ensemble, he shares with no other Arthurian hero. True, Gawain visits the Otherworld, but he does so rather in the character of lover of the queen of that world than as rescuer of one confined within its precincts. In the Dutch Walewein alone, so far as I know, is his rôle definitely that of the deliverer. But none of the other incidents belong to his story. So, too, Tristan is the hero of a very fine version of the Dragon Slayer and False Claimant story, and it is moreover probable that the Morien version has borrowed certain details from the Tristan, but he too can claim no share in the other incidents. The close correspondence, point by point, with a folk-tale of so widespread and representative a character, is, I submit, a peculiarity of the earlier Lancelot story, which is of extraordinary interest as throwing light upon the genesis and growth of Arthurian legend.
In this connection I have by no means forgotten the energetic protests which, in certain quarters, were evoked by Mr. Nutt’s attempt to show that the story of Perceval might in this way be connected with popular tales; and I am quite prepared to be told that tales collected in the nineteenth century are not to be trusted as indications of the sources of twelfth century romance. But in the instance before us the evidence, while of precisely the same nature as in the case of Perceval, exceeds it, both in bulk and extent. The story is not one story, but a large and well-marked group of tales; the folk-lore parallels affect not one, but many incidents of the romance. How large and how widely diffused is that story-group can only be appreciated by those who will examine the lists of variants appended by M. Cosquin to the four stories I have named above and those cited by Mr. Campbell under the heading of the Sea Maiden, and then compare these stories with the numerous examples given by Mr. Hartland in his exhaustive study of the Perseus legend. The incidents are, as I have shown, six out of a possible list of seven. If, further, we remember that the group, with all its varying forms, is connected with such pre-historic heroes as Perseus and Cuchullin, we have, I think, a sufficient answer to those critics who would reject the evidence en masse on the ground of modernity.
But supposing, for the sake of argument, that we accept the possible priority of the romantic over the popular form, what, with regard to the criticism of the Arthurian literary cycle, is the logical result? This: if the folk-tale be dependent upon a romance, that romance must of necessity be the Lancelot, as no other hero offers the same combination of incident. But a version of the Lancelot story, from which all these incidents could have been borrowed, must have been older than any form of the story we now possess. As we have seen above, the correspondence is sometimes with one, sometimes with another version; and a very famous incident of the tale, the False Claimant, only exists now in two romances, each of them preserved in an isolated and unique form. Therefore, if this be not a fully proven instance of the conversion of a popular folk-tale into an Arthurian romance, it must be a case of the development of a folk-tale from a fully organised and coherent Lancelot story in a form anterior to Chrétien. The adherents of the theory which ascribes independent invention to Chrétien de Troyes, and a literary origin to the Arthurian stories, can make their choice between these two solutions of the problem—one or the other it must be.
For myself, I unreservedly accept the verdict pronounced by Mr. Campbell upon the Sea Maiden as representative of the entire story-group. ‘Is it possible that a Minglay peasant and Straparola47 (or we may add Hue de Rotelande and the peasants of the Odenwald and Lorraine)—neither of whom can have seen a giant, or a flying horse, or a dragon, or a mermaid—could separately imagine all these impossible things, and, having imagined them simultaneously, invent the incidents of the story and arrange so many of them in the same order?
‘Is it on the other hand possible that all these barefooted, bareheaded, simple men, who cannot read, should yet learn the contents of one class of rare books and of no other? I cannot think so.
‘I have gone through the whole Sea Maiden story, and all its Gaelic versions, and marked and numbered each separate incident, and divided the whole into its parts, and then set the result beside the fruit of a similar dissection of Straparola’s Fortunio, and I find nearly the whole of the bones of the Italian story, and a great many bones which seem to belong to some original antediluvian Aryan tale. The Scotch (insular) is far wilder and more mythical than the Italian (continental).48 The one savours of tournaments, kings’ palaces, and the manners of Italy long ago; the other of flocks and herds, fishermen and pastoral life; but the Highland imaginary beings are further from reality and nearer to creatures of the brain. The horses of Straparola are very material and walk the earth; those of old John MacPhie are closely related to Pegasus and the horses of the Veda, and fly and soar through grimy peat-reek to the clouds.’49
