The Three Days' Tournament: A Study in Romance and Folk-Lore / Being an Appendix to the Author's 'Legend of Sir Lancelot'

by Jessie L. Weston

Yet in so far as the tournament form is concerned, it is, of course, possible that certain literary versions of the story might have been affected by the ordinary customs of the day. Anyway there seems to be a fairly close correspondence here between fact and fancy. Niedner, in his work on Das Deutsche Turnier,[54] remarks that the tourney proper was generally held on a Monday; the knights assembled on the previous Saturday; Sunday morning was spent in mustering those present and arranging the opposing factions; while the afternoon was devoted to the encounter known as the Vesper-spiel, preliminary to the grand struggle of the morrow. Thus the ordinary duration of such a meeting might be reckoned as three days.

But it is clear that there might also be three distinct encounters on as many separate days, as in the folk-tale. Professor Kittredge, in his article, ‘Who was Sir Thomas Malory?[55]’ notes a very remarkable and pertinent instance taken from the life of Richard Beauchamp, Earl of Warwick. When that nobleman was Governor of Calais, hearing of a great gathering of knights, to be held in the neighbourhood, ‘he cast in his mynde to do sume newe poynt of chevalry’; and under the several names of The Grene Knight, Chevalier Vert, and Chevalier Attendant, sent three challenges to the French king’s court. These being accepted, he appeared the first two days in differing armour, the third ‘in face opyn,’ on each occasion overthrowing his antagonist.[56] The days in question are given by Rous as January 6th, 7th, and 8th; the year he does not mention; but Professor Kittredge, by a process of elimination, arrives at the conclusion that it must have been either 1416 or 1417. It is, of course, obvious that this feat must have been suggested by the romances. It is, I think, equally obvious that the three days of the romances were not at variance with actual practice. As to the version of the folk-tale there can be no question. The correct number is three—neither more nor less.

It is, of course, also clear that the occurrence of the tournament in the folk-tale must be subsequent to the institution of tournaments as part of the ordinary chivalric and social conditions; but the tale itself must be earlier, as is witnessed both by the archaic nature of the rescue incident and the magical nature of the horses. Trials of skill in horsemanship are known to all stages of society; and the original form of this special incident was doubtless something of this kind. In the Odenwald variant referred to above, the hero has to perform the feat of carrying off on his spear a ring suspended from a beam, and to hang it up again in returning. This is here supposed to form part of the tournament; but it seems most likely that in earlier forms the trial of skill by which the hero was tested and identified was simply some such feat of skilled horsemanship.

Nor do I think that we are to see the influence of romance, rather than of custom, in this transformation. Neither of the poems in which the incident approximates most closely to the folk-tale form, the Lanzelet and the Ipomedon, appear to have been particularly popular (certainly not the former), judging from the number of manuscripts in which they have been preserved, while the ‘Tournament’ form of the folk-tale is found all over Europe. It is much more reasonable, surely, to conclude that the episode has been borrowed, as so many others have been borrowed, from the stores of popular tradition than to hold that in this case popular tradition has been modified by the influences of a literary cycle.

But is it not as clear as daylight that all this immense body of evidence absolutely and finally disposes of any claim on the part of Chrétien to be first in the field? The four days of Cligés rule that romance, as a source, out of court at once and for ever. Further, not only is that version demonstrably secondary in itself, but definitely secondary to and dependent upon the Lancelot versions. These correspond with the prevailing colours of the folk-tale—black, red, and white, or green, red, and white.[57] The one is the version of the Prose Lancelot, the other of the Lanzelet. Chrétien not only gives one day too many, but manifestly does so in order to combine the two versions which he, in common with us, knew, and gives both green and black—two colours which are found together in no single version of all the dozens I have read.

There is a possible ‘clerical’ explanation of the existence of two versions of the Lancelot tale. Noir in the manuscript may have been read vair, and a copyist writing from oral dictation may thus have substituted vert. But in the face of the green, red, and white of the very primitive Celtic variant given by Mr. Campbell, and confirmed by the Greek parallel, I think it more likely that the three colours of the Lanzelet represent the older form. But inasmuch as in romances, which, like the Arthurian, were supposed to correspond in some measure to the conditions of real life, a green horse would be an impossibility, while yet horse and armour should correspond, black—perhaps under the influence of the Perceval story—would take its place. Both were represented in the folk-tale, and it may be that the version of the Prose Lancelot and of the Ipomedon simply represents ‘the survival of the fittest.’

That there were two versions a closer study will, I think, make evident. Probably those who have followed the argument and illustrations closely will have already detected what hitherto I have left unnoted, that the version of the Ipomedon stands in a much closer relation with certain forms of the folk-tale, i.e. the Petit Berger or a group, than is the case with either the Cligés or the two Lancelot versions. In the Ipomedon alone the prize of the Three Days’ Tournament is the hand of the princess. And not only is there agreement in this, the leading, feature, but there is also a curious correspondence in minor details. Thus, both in the poem and in the folk-tale, the hero, in the character of a servant, has already won the princess’s love. In both she is bitterly disappointed at his apparent failure to compete. In the folk-tale she sends each evening to ask why the shepherd-lad has taken no part in the tourney, receiving each time the answer that he was unwell, but would do his best to appear on the morrow. In the poem, each evening Ipomedon sends word to the princess that it is he who has gained the tourney, but that he is leaving the country immediately, and will not be present on the next day. Thus the heroine, in each case, is kept in uncertainty as to the intentions of her lover.

If we add to this the correspondence with the Odenwald variant already pointed out,[58] and the fact that in the Ipomedon alone the hero is wounded on the third day—a feature found not only in the Odenwald story but in several variants of Le Prince et son Cheval—it becomes clear that if there be a doubt as to the source of the Cligés or the Lanzelet, the Ipomedon version must repose, directly or indirectly, upon the folk-tale.

But, as we have seen, it is precisely the evidence of the Ipomedon which leads us to connect the story with Walter Map, and the romance ascribed to him, the Lancelot. What, then, are we to conclude? I think the only satisfactory interpretation is that which I have suggested above, that there were two versions of the story; in one of which the hero was represented as winning, and probably wedding, the princess; in the other the incident, whatever its original form, had already been so far modified as simply to provide an effective setting for his first appearance at Arthur’s court. This is indeed what we find in the Lanzelet; and the general tone of that poem, wherein the hero wins the hand of no fewer than four ladies, and certainly weds three of them, shows that there would be no initial improbability in postulating another and more primitive form of the story.

To return to Cligés. The dramatis personæ of the tournament episode should be considered. The hero of the adventure does not compete with any number of knights, but is each day confronted with a chosen champion. These are, as I have already shown, Segramor, Lancelot, Perceval, and Gawain; and so far as the first three are concerned they appear here, and here only, their names, even, being otherwise unmentioned throughout the six thousand seven hundred and eighty lines of the poem.