[161] In this connection it is amusing to find Dr. Wechssler (Sage vom Heiligen Gral, pp. 166-167) remarking complacently that the achievement of the adventures announced by the Grail Messenger 'wird nirgends erzählt.' The Dutch Lancelot has been edited and available for fifty years. I must own that the result of my examination of this, and of the version of 1533, equally available, has been to seriously shake my belief in the soundness and reliability of foreign criticisms of the Arthurian cycle. It is quite clear that the material at our disposal, limited as it is, has not yet been properly examined.
[162] The romances not being named in the D. L., I have adopted for convenience' sake the names given to them by M. Gaston Paris.
[163] Abstracts of these episodic romances are given by M. Gaston Paris, in vol. xxx. of Hist. Litt. de la France.
[164] Dr. Sommer says, and correctly, that the 'pomier' must be the older version.
[165] This account of Lancelot being found asleep and carried off by three queens should be compared with that of Renouart found sleeping and carried off to Avalon by three 'fays.'
I assume throughout that Dr. Sommer's summary correctly represents his text, but I admit that I have my doubts on this point; certainly in the Queste section he gives some most mistaken readings; indeed, apart from the evidence of D. L. and 1533 the whole Lancelot-Queste section needs revision. It is unfortunate that some foreign scholars have been so ready to accept Dr. Sommer's statements without taking the trouble to verify them.
[166] I do not think this is a proper name, but the equivalent of Grave = Count.
[167] No other version mentions, as does M., that the ladies won their living by 'al maner of sylke werkes,' but the whole story looks so like a copy of Yvain's adventure at the Château de Pesme Aventure that I think it may have been in his source.
[168] Of course M. Paulin Paris's book, being greatly condensed and modernised, cannot be used for textual criticism; but the compiler was a scholar of very wide learning, and there are numerous notes and hints, which we, of a later generation, make a great mistake in disregarding.
[169] This lady, never mentioned by M., plays an important rôle in the prose Lancelot.