This surmise is strengthened by the nature of the challenge; Yvain's pouring the water, which is followed by a storm, is a simple piece of sympathetic magic—of rain-making, and, as such, is practised even to-day by savages in different parts of the world. Such a story must, by its very nature, have been originally unlocalised, even as it cannot be dated; it could be postulated of any place, it might be practised everywhere—it belongs just as much, and just as little, to South Africa in the present day as to the wood of Broceliande in the twelfth century.
To treat such a story as a local tradition is a grave error. It may have recalled in its details certain stories told of the Fountain of Barenton, and, therefore, when transported to the Continent from Wales (to which country the earlier redaction certainly belongs), the continental story-tellers, finding the Fountain unlocalised, as it naturally was in the original tale, connected it with the Breton forest. But it is obvious that such connection is purely arbitrary, and has no critical value. It is at variance with all the geography of the story, which is located in Wales or on the Welsh border; and neither the compiler of the Welsh version nor the English translator of Chrétien's poem admit it, but adhere to the earlier and unlocalised form.
I may here quote a remark of the distinguished folk-lore authority to whom I have previously referred. Mr. E. S. Hartland says: 'The rain-making incident has always seemed to me a very good evidence of the traditional origin of the (Yvain) story. At all events it is an incident very closely connected with savage magic.'
I do not suppose it would very much astonish any competent student of these questions if some missionary in Africa, or traveller in the South Sea Islands, was to publish a savage variant of our romance: the substitution of the slayer for the slain, and the practice of rain-making by the pouring out of water, are customs alive in certain parts of the world to this day. But what would Professor Foerster say? Would he still maintain that his 'Meister' invented the story, and credit the savage folk, whoever they might be, with the remains of a vanished civilisation and literary culture?
I think it also highly probable that in the Balaan and Balaain story, and in Meraugis de Portlesguez, we have variants of the same theme. In each of these cases the hero must take the place of the champion he defeats, and hold the post till in his turn he be defeated and slain; while at the same time he succeeds to his predecessor's relations with the lady of the castle, whose ami he becomes.[76] It will be observed that Herr Ahlström's suggestion that the lady may originally have been a fairy—a suggestion contemptuously scouted by Professor Foerster[77]—might be accepted without any detriment to the original signification of the story, whereas Professor Foerster's theory excludes any possible archaic origin, and is demonstrably out of harmony with the very primitive rain-making incident.
It is obvious that such a tale as I have indicated above, belonging as it does to the family of folk-lore and traditional tales, is precisely the kind of story that might be related in a lai; and this was, I believe, its original form. It is significant that Chrétien records the fact that there was a lai more or less closely connected with the lady who became Yvain's wife; and, according to the reading of one MS., that connection was very close indeed, being nothing less than the relation of how Yvain won her to wife.
I print here the reading to which I refer, together with that of Professor Foerster's edition:—
MS. 12560, Bib. Nat. (Anç. fr. 210), fol. 14, recto 2nd col.
Veanz touz les barons se done
La dame a mon seignor 'Y.'
Par la main de son chapelain
Einsint la dame de lenduc
La dame qui fu fille au duc
Lan
