The Lanzelet of Ulrich von Zatzikhoven is, as I suggested above, an example of a romance arrested in development: the kernel of the whole can be detected, but the parts fit badly, and it has never been really worked up into shape. But, unless I am much mistaken, we have in the Welsh tale of The Lady of the Fountain a specimen of the same process at work, of capital importance for critical purposes, since we also possess the completed work, i.e. the Mabinogi has preserved Chrétien's Yvain in process of making. The adventures are practically identical, sequence and incident agree in the main, but in the Welsh version they are much more loosely connected, and there are significant breaks which seem to show where the successive redactions ended. If we follow the indications of the version we shall conclude that as first told the story ended with Yvain's achievement of the 'spring' adventure and his marriage with the lady. This would, I think, represent the original lai, which in its primitive form might well be unconnected with Arthur's court: the king was probably anonymous. The next step would be to Arthurise the story; Yvain must start from Arthur's court, and naturally the court must learn of his success: this was arranged by bringing Arthur and his knights to the spring where they are themselves witnesses, and victims, of Yvain's prowess. It is significant that in all the versions extant Yvain is influenced in his secret departure from court by the conviction that Gawain will demand the adventure of the spring, and thus forestall him; but in the Welsh variant alone is this forecast literally fulfilled and the undecided conflict between Yvain and Gawain fought at the spring. And here the Welsh version breaks again. This was evidently the end of the Arthurised lai, and the point where the conflict between the friends was originally placed. All the variants bear the trace of this second redaction; the Welsh tale alone indicates clearly what was the primitive form. Yvain's transgression of his lady's command (probably first introduced for this purpose), a transgression much more serious in the Welsh, where he stays away for three years, than in the other versions, offered an elastic framework for the introduction of isolated adventures; finally, when the whole was worked over in romance form, his combat with King Arthur's invincible nephew was transferred to the end of the poem, where it formed an appropriate and fitting climax to his feats.
The theory suggested above is based upon certain recognised peculiarities in the evolution of the Breton lais; but the question whether we are justified in making such use of ascertained facts naturally depends upon whether the story related in the romance in question was in its origin one that we might expect to find related in a lai; if it were not, then, however rational the hypothesis may otherwise appear, we should regard it with suspicion as lacking solid foundation.
Granting then that a considerable share in the completion of Arthurian romantic tradition was due to the influence of lais originally independent of that tradition, that the process of fusion had already commenced when Chrétien wrote his poems, and that he was himself familiar with such lais, each of the above points having been already proved, our next step must be to examine the character of the stories related by Chrétien.
Two of the five works we possess (I do not count the Guillaume, which whether it be by Chrétien or not lies outside the scope of our inquiry) must at once be put on one side. Neither Cligés nor the Charrette story (in the form Chrétien tells it) can be based upon lais. But the character of the three more famous poems, Erec, Yvain, and Perceval, is precisely that of a romance composed of traditional and folk-lore themes. In the case of Erec and Perceval this is partially admitted even by the most thoroughgoing advocate of Chrétien's originality, though Professor Foerster would limit the element to the Sparrow-hawk and Joie de la Court adventures in the first, and to Perceval's Enfances as representing a Dümmling folk-tale in the second.[69]
On this subject I shall have more to say later on; for the present I will confine my remarks to Yvain, on the construction of which Professor Foerster holds a theory, highly complicated in itself, and excluding, as a necessary consequence, any genuine folk-lore element.[70]
According to this view the main idea of the poem is borrowed from the story of The Widow of Ephesus, a tale of world-wide popularity, the oldest version of which appears to be Oriental (Grisebach considered it to be Chinese), and which in Latin form, as told first by Phædrus and then at greater length in the compilation of The Seven Sages of Rome, was well known in mediæval times.[71] With this is combined other elements: a Breton local tradition, classical stories (the Ring of Gyges and the Lion of Androcles), and other stories of unspecified origin.
On the face of it, this theory postulates a highly artificial source, and one calling for great powers of invention and combination; and when we examine it, we find the main idea wholly inadequate to sustain the elaborate fabric reared upon it. I have carefully studied The Widow of Ephesus, both in earlier and later variants, and can only see the slightest possible resemblance to the Yvain story; true, in both a widow, overcome with grief for the loss of her husband, speedily forms a fresh attachment, but situation, details, motif, all are radically different. In every variant of the first story the lady's action is prompted by mere sensual caprice; in the second, it is the outcome of a sound instinct of self-preservation. True, Laudine does eventually fall in love with Yvain, but she contemplates marriage with him before she has ever beheld him, influenced by the advice of her servant, who paints in strong colours the defenceless condition of the land, and who is aware of Yvain's passion for her lady. In no variant of the earlier tale does the lady marry the slayer of her husband (a point, I believe, essential to the Yvain story). Indeed, in many her advances are rejected by the object of her passion; in all she is represented as refusing to leave the grave, and none are free from the repulsive details accompanying her new-fledged passion, though these are amplified in the later versions. In insisting on the fact that the lady's re-marriage (often entirely lacking in the earlier story), 'unter hässlichen unser Gefühl schwer verletzenden Bedingungen,' is the central point of both stories,[72] Professor Foerster overshoots his mark. The conduct of the Lady of Ephesus is certainly offensive in the highest degree, not so that of Laudine. For a woman, especially if she were an heiress, in mediæval times marriage was an absolute necessity. The true parallel to Laudine is here not the widow of many wanderings, but the Duchess of Burgundy, in Girard de Viane, who, on the death of her husband, promptly appeals to Charlemagne. 'A quoi sert le deuil?—donnez-moi un autre mari. Donnez moi donc un mari qui soit bien puissant.'[73] Un mari bien puissant was a necessity of those days. The real truth is, that the situation was already in the story, and mediæval compilers explained it in accordance with the social conditions of the time, and the parallel situations in contemporary stories.
A minor objection to the theory is, that it would make, not the hero, but the lady, the real centre of the story, which is certainly not the case. But, as we shall see, the tale in its original form is far older than Chrétien, and could by no possibility have been invented at so late a date as Professor Foerster suggests.
Yvain, as one of Arthur's knights, is of a date considerably anterior to Chrétien. We find him in Wace's Brut, as a valiant hero, on whom Arthur, after the death of Aguisel, bestows the crown of Scotland.[74] Now, Professor Foerster himself states, and I think the great majority of scholars will fully agree with him, that neither Erec, Yvain, nor Perceval were originally Arthurian heroes, and undoubtedly their connection with Arthur's court was of the slightest. If their connection with Arthur marks a secondary stage in the story, and Yvain in the Brut is already an Arthurian knight, it is pretty obvious that the original tale connected with him, by virtue of which he was admitted into the magic circle of Arthurian romance, must be older even than Wace; in other words, he must have been the hero of a popular adventure upwards of thirty years, at least, before Chrétien wrote his poem. And if that original story was not the fountain-story, what was it?
But if we look at the tale aright, I think we shall discover that its essential character is so archaic that it may well be as old as the most exacting criticism can require. What is it but the variant of a motif coeval with the earliest stages of human thought and religious practice—the tale of him 'who slew the slayer, and shall himself be slain'? The champion who must needs defend his charge single-handed against all comers, and whose victor must perforce take his place; and how old this tale may be, Mr. Frazer has taught us.[75]