Note on the Tale of “Peronnik the Idiot.”
It seems almost impossible not to recognise in the story of Peronnik the Idiot traces of that tradition which has given birth to one of the epic romances of the Round Table. Disfigured and overlaid with modern details as is the Breton version, the primitive idea of the Quest of the Holy Graal may still be found there pure and entire.
Some explanation must be given of this. So early as the sixth century, the Gallic bards speak of a magic vase which bestows a knowledge of the future, and universal science, on its owner; in later times a popular fable tells of a golden vase possessed by Bran the Blessed, which healed all wounds, and even restored the dead to life. Other tales are told of a basin in which every desired delicacy instantly appeared. In time all these fictions become fused, and the several properties of these different vases are found united in one; the possession of which is of course naturally sought after by all great adventurers.
There is still extant a Gallic poem, composed in the beginning of the twelfth century, of which the whole burden is this quest. The hero, named Perédur, goes to war with giants, lions, serpents, sea-monsters, sorcerers, and finally becomes conqueror of the basin and the lance, which is here added to the primitive tradition.
Now there can be no doubt that this Gallic legend, which found its way throughout Europe, as is proved by the attempts at imitation which have been made in every language, must have been known in Brittany above all, united as it is to Gaul by a common origin and language. It must have become popular in the very form it wore when taught by the bards to the Armoricans.
But besides the successive alterations which are the speedy result of oral transmission, French imitations by degrees incorporated themselves with all the primitive versions. M. de la Villemarqué has in fact observed, in his learned work on the Popular Tales of the Ancient Bretons, that when the Gallic legends were developed by the French poets, they appeared so beautified in their new costume, that the Gauls themselves abandoned the originals in favour of the imitations. Now that which is true of them is equally so of the Armoricans; and it seems to us beyond a doubt that the tradition of Perédur, which they had originally received, must have been seriously modified by the later poem of Christian of Troyes.
In order to elucidate our idea, we will give a hasty analysis of this poem, which is little known, being only extant in manuscript.[8]
Perceval, the last remaining son of a poor widow, whom the miseries of war had left destitute, is simple, ignorant, and boorish. His mother carefully conceals from his sight every thing that might turn his attention to the idea of war; but one day the lad meets King Arthur’s knights, learns the secret so long hidden from him, and, his mind filled with nothing now but tournaments and battles, abandons his maternal roof and sets off for Arthur’s court. On the way he sees a pavilion, which, taking in his simplicity for a church, he enters. There he eats two roebuck pasties, and drinks a large flagon of wine; after which he goes once more upon his way, and soon arrives at Cardeuil, ill-clad, ill-armed, and ill-mounted. He finds Arthur buried in profound meditation, a treacherous knight having just carried off his golden cup, defying any warrior to take it from him again. Perceval accepts the challenge, pursues the thief, kills him, recovers the cup, and seizes on the slain knight’s armour. He is at length admitted into the order of chivalry.
But the recollection of his mother haunts him every where. What is he in quest of? He himself knows not; he wanders at random and without a purpose wherever his wild courser carries him. Thus one day he reaches a castle, and enters. A sick old man reposes there upon a bed; a servant appears with a lance from which flows one drop of blood, and then a damsel bearing a graal, or basin, of pure gold. Perceval longs to know the meaning of what he sees, but dares not ask. The following day, on leaving the castle, he is informed that the sick old man is called the fisher-king, and that he has been wounded in the thigh; Perceval is at the same time reproached for not having questioned him.
He continues onwards, meeting by chance Arthur, whom he follows to court; but the day after his arrival a lady clad in black appears to him, and warmly blames him for being the cause of the fisher-king’s sufferings.
“His wound,” said she, “has become incurable, because thou didst not question him.”
The knight, wishing to repair his fault, seeks in vain to find once more the king’s palace; he is repulsed as by an invisible hand, until the moment when he resolves to go and find a saintly hermit, to whom he makes his confession. The priest shows him that all his errors are owing to his ingratitude towards his mother, and that sin held his tongue in bondage when he ought to have inquired the meaning of the graal; he imposes a penance on him, gives him advice, reveals to him a mysterious prayer containing certain terrible words, which he forbids him from making known; and then Perceval, absolved from his sins, fasts, adores the Cross, hears Mass, receives Holy Communion, and returns to a new life.
He now sets forth in quest of the graal, and meets with a thousand obstacles. A woman, whom he has loved, White-Flower, appears, and endeavours to detain him; but he escapes from her. He fastens his horse to the golden ring of a pillar rising on a mountain called the Mount of Misery, arrives at length at the castle for which he sought, and this time fails not to inquire into the history of the lance and the graal. He is told that the lance is that with which Longus pierced the side of Christ, and that the graal is the basin in which Joseph of Arimathea received His divine blood. This has come down by inheritance to the fisher-king, who is descended from Joseph, and is Perceval’s uncle. It procures all good things, both spiritual and temporal, heals all wounds, and even restores life to the dead, besides becoming filled with the most delicious dainties at its owner’s desire.
After the lance and the graal, they bring out a broken sword; the fisher-king presents it to his nephew, begging him to reunite the fragments; in which he succeeds. The king then tells him that, according to prophecies, the bravest and most pious knight in the whole world was to perform this act; that he himself had attempted to weld the pieces together, but had been chastised for his rashness by receiving a wound in the thigh. “I shall be healed,” he added, “on the same day that sees the knight Pertiniax perish,—that treacherous knight who broke this wonderful sword in slaying my brother.”
Perceval kills Pertiniax, thanks to the aid of the holy graal, cuts off his head, and brings it to the fisher-king, who gets well, and abdicates in favour of his nephew.
The points of accordance between this poem and the Breton story are not very difficult to trace. In the two recitals we hear of the conquest of a basin and a lance, the possession of which ensures corresponding advantages; the heroes both of the French and Armorican version are subjected to dangers and temptations, and success assures to them alike—a crown. Some points of resemblance may even perhaps be discovered between the idiot Peronnik, going ever onwards he knows not whither, and extracting from the farmer’s wife his rye-bread, his fresh-churned butter, and his Sunday dripping; and this Perceval, simple, ignorant, boorish, who begins by eating two roebuck pasties, and drinking a great flagon of wine.
Certainly the different details, and the trials imposed on Peronnik, are not in general much like the probation to which Perceval was subjected; but, on the other hand, they closely resemble those to which Perédur, the hero of the Gallic tradition, was exposed. It would seem, therefore, that this Armorican story has drunk successively from the two fountains of French and Breton legendary lore. Born of the Gallic tradition, modified by the French version, and finally accommodated to the popular genius of our province, it has become such as we have it at this day.
Peronnik the idiot seems, moreover, to us worthy of being studied by those who seek, above all else in tradition, for traces of the popular genius. Idiotism, amongst all tribes of Celtic race, was never looked on as a degradation, but rather as a peculiar condition wherein individuals could attain to certain perceptions unknown to the vulgar; and the Celts were led to imagine that they had an acquaintance with the invisible world not permitted to other men. Thus the words of the idiot were looked on as prophetic; a hidden meaning was sought for in his acts; he was, in fact, considered, in the energetic language of an old poet, as having his feet in this world, and his eyes in the other.
Brittany has preserved in part this ancient reverence for persons of weak mind. It is by no means unusual in the farms of Léon to see some of these unfortunates, clad, whatever may be their age, in a long dress with bone buttons, and holding a white wand in their hands. They are tenderly cared for, and only spoken of under the endearing title of dear innocents, unless in their absence, when they are called diskyant, that is to say, without knowledge. They stay at home with the women and little children; they are never called upon to perform any labour; and when they die, they are wept over by their relations.
I remember meeting with one of these idiots one day, in the neighbourhood of Morlaix; he was seated before a farm-house door, and his sister, a young girl, was feeding him. Her caressing kindness struck me.
“Then you are very fond of this poor innocent?” I asked, in Breton.
“It is God who gave him to us,” she replied.
Words full of meaning, which hold the key to all this pious tenderness for creatures useless in themselves, but precious for His sake by whom they were confided to our care.
[1] This word idiot must not lead to misconception; the idiot of popular tales is the personification of cunning weakness triumphing over strength. Idiotism, in the traditions of Christian nations, plays the same part as physical ugliness in those of the ancients. The latter take the hunchback Æsop to accomplish extraordinary actions; the former Peronnik, or some other lad of weak mind, in order that the contrast between the hero and the action may be more striking, and the result more unexpected.
We refer the reader to the note which follows this story for the more particular examination which it seems to deserve.
[2] On the sea-coast they scrape away the burnt part left in the porridge-kettles with a mussel-shell; in the interior they use for the same purpose a sharp stone, commonly a gun-flint.
[3] The milk of the black cow is considered in Brittany to be at once the daintiest and the most wholesome.
[4] The Bretons attribute to the butter of the White Week and of the Rogation weeks a special delicacy, and even medicinal properties, on account of the excellence of the pastures at this season.
[5] The Bretons believe in a special demon for sending one to sleep in church, and call him ar c’houskezik, from the verb kouska, which signifies to sleep.
[6] Koanta pabaour, a common form of mockery in Brittany.
[7] A proverbial expression, meaning that one has no time to lose.
[8] The Searcher for the Basin,—Myvyrian, t. i. p. 8. The poem of Perceval, or the Quest for the Holy Graal, is to be found in the Royal Library of Paris, Mss. No. 7523, et supp. franc. 450. We give M. de la Villemarqué’s analysis, contenting ourselves with abridging his labours.
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