Generally speaking, the tendency of the school represented by Professor Foerster is to regard the Arthurian tradition as divided into two branches, historic and romantic. The former branch being primarily represented by the Historia of Geoffrey of Monmouth, the popularity of which practically introduced Arthur to the literary world, and secondarily by certain passages in the earlier prose romances. This branch contains features of insular origin, reminiscences of the historic Arthur and his fights with the Saxons; but the second and far more important branch, the romantic, is of purely continental origin. Arthur, as a romantic hero, is the product of Breton tradition and folk-lore; Armorica, and not Wales, is the cradle of Arthurian (romantic) legend; and it was Geoffrey's Historia which gave the requisite impulse to the formation of this tradition.
So much for theory, what now are the facts?
Without in any way minimising the popularity and influence of Geoffrey's work, either in its original form or in the translation of Wace, it is quite clear (a) that it did not represent all the historic tradition current concerning Arthur; (b) that his popularity was of considerably earlier date. A comparison with the Brut of Layamon[52] will prove the first point; for the second, we have already noted Professor Rajna's discovery of Arthurian names in Italian documents as proving that such names must have been popular in Italy at the end of the eleventh century. Further, from the testimony of the bas-relief at Modena we see that the traditions associated with the British king were not purely historic, but that he and his knights were already the heroes of tales which have not descended to us. We cannot, therefore, fix with any approach to certainty the date at which Arthur became a romantic hero, but evidence points to a period anterior to that generally admitted.
Then ought we not to distinguish between romantic and mythic? Professor Foerster's arguments appear to me to ignore Arthur as a mythic hero. Romance and myth are not the same thing; though their final developments are apt to overlap, their root origins are distinctly different.
The mythic element in Arthurian legend cannot be ignored—in fact, it is practically admitted; but some scholars appear to lose sight of its character. Yet if that character be rightly apprehended it will, I think, be recognised that the distinguishing features are not due to any demonstrable Armorican element; that the connection of Arthur with Celtic myth must have taken place on insular rather than on continental ground. Thus while Arthur may, or may not, represent the Mercurius Artusius of the Gauls, it is not possible to deny that he, and at least one of his knights, Gawain, stand in very close relation to early Irish mythic tradition. The persistence of Irish elements in the Arthurian story is not a theory but an established fact. Where would these stories, Arthurian and Irish, be most likely to meet and mingle, in Great Britain, or in Armorica? The first is a priori the more probable; not only is the distance less, but we know that during the centuries between the life of the historic Arthur and the appearance of Arthurian story a constant interchange of population went on between Ireland and the northern parts of the British Isles. The conclusion at which we should naturally arrive would be that stories in which the Celtic element was presented under a form identical with early Irish tradition would reach Brittany viâ Great Britain, and would not be of Armorican origin.
And this conclusion is strongly supported by the facts. We have two remarkable stories told of Gawain, both of which find striking parallels in early Irish legend, both are excellently preserved in insular versions, neither is adequately represented by any known continental text. I allude of course to Sir Gawain and the Green Knight and The Marriage of Sir Gawain.[53]
Of the first the existing French versions are, one and all, poor; immensely inferior to the English poem, and showing in certain cases, notably in Perceval li Gallois, a manifest lack of comprehension of the story. The German version, Diu Krône, is preferable to any of the French, but in no case is the story so well and fully told as in the English poem, which cannot possibly be derived from any known continental source. Of the main point of the second story, the wedding of a young knight to a 'Loathly Lady,' the French poems have no trace, though some seem to have retained a confused remembrance of the transformation of a hideous hag into a maiden of surpassing beauty. Mr. Maynadier, in his study of all the known variants, pronounces unhesitatingly for the direct dependence of the English upon the Irish tradition.[54]
In the first story, the Green Knight, the original hero of the beheading challenge, is Cuchulinn, who, if he does not himself represent a god, is certainly the son of a god. In the second the lady is 'the sovereignty,' and through granting her request the hero obtains the sovereignty of Ireland.
Both are thus distinctly mythical in character; and though the English versions, as we now possess them, are of comparatively late date, in neither case can the Irish version be later than the eleventh century, while the internal evidence points a period anterior to the introduction of Christianity.