III.
Interesting as this speculation is, however, we are now concerned only with one element of it. Whatever his name may signify, it is obvious that Parsifal was an innocent, a simplex, a fool. It is this trait which enables us to identify him with his prototype in Aryan folk-lore. He is the hero of what the English folk-lorists call "The Great Fool Tales," and the Germans "Dümmlingsmärchen." In the following outline of a very old poetic narrative of the Kelts, called by students "The Lay of the Great Fool," may be found all that part of Parsifal's youthful history which, in Wagner's drama, is learned either from his own lips or those of Kundry:
Once there were two knightly brothers, of whom one was childless while the other had two sons. A strife breaks out between them, and the father is slain with his sons. The wicked knight then sends word to the widow that if she should give birth to another son, he, too, must be put to death. She does give birth to a son, and to save his life sends him into the wilderness to be reared by a kitchen wench who has a love-son. The lads grow up strong and hardy. One day the knightly lad runs down a deer, kills it, and of its skin makes himself a motley suit of clothes. He slays his foster-brother for laughing at him in his strange dress, catches a wild horse, rides to his uncle's palace, and though when asked his name he can only answer "Great Fool," he is recognized. Thus his adventures begin. He avenges the wrongs of his mother. This Great Fool is the original Seeker after the Grail.