Page [23], line 623—'Brave Beaucorps.' This brother of Gawain appears in Book VI. p. 183, he is the only one of Gawain's brothers mentioned in this poem. In Malory, we find Gareth called 'Beau-mains,' and it is possible that the two are identical. Beaucorps is evidently much younger than Gawain, and Gareth was the youngest of King Lot's sons.
Page [24], line 679—'Lahfilirost.' This seems to be a misunderstanding for 'Le fils du Rost,' and may be classed with the misinterpretations of a French source.
Page [25], line 700—'Frau Minne.' The word Minne is etymologically derivable from a root 'man,' and is connected with the Latin mens, English 'mind' (cf. 'to have a mind to.') The original signification was that of tender care, or thought for; in Old High German it has already taken the meaning of love in its passionate aspects; finally, in Middle High German (the original language of the Parzival), it has become the standing expression for love betwixt man and woman. We have it in various forms as a verb, Minnen; as an adjective, Minniglich. The personification of the passion of Love as 'Frau Minne' is the work of the courtly poets of the twelfth century, and seems rather to have been derived from classical analogy than to be due to a reminiscence of an early German goddess of Love. Also, with Wolfram and his contemporaries, 'Frau Minne' must be regarded less as the personification of Love in the abstract than as the embodiment of the special love-ideal of the day. This new ideal had its rise, and assumed definite shape in twelfth century France, from whence it spread throughout the knightly society of Christendom, finding its fullest literary expression in the Arthurian romances. The historic causes which led to what was at the time an entirely novel mode of considering the relations between the sexes, and the true nature and ethical import of the chivalric conception of that relation will be briefly discussed in an Appendix to vol. II. The significance of the term is fully apparent from such passages as the present, also cf. Book VI. pp. 161, 163, 165, 171; VII. 208, 224; XII. etc.—[A. N.]
Page [27], line 768.—'Morhold,' also in Book II. p. 39. This is, of course, the well-known hero in Tristan. The allusion may have been in the original French source, or introduced by Wolfram, who would know Morhold from the Tristan of Eilhart von Oberge, composed before 1180. The most famous German poem on the subject, the Tristan of Gottfried von Strassbourg, was somewhat later in date.
Page [31], lines 886, 887—Cf. Book VIII. p. 230 and note.
Page [31], line 904—'Feirefis.' Bartsch interprets the name as vair fils, 'parti-coloured son.' Other critics have suggested 'Fairy's son.' The name distinctly indicates a French origin.
Page [31], line 905—'A woodland-waster,' 'wald-verschwender,' a hyperbolical term constantly employed throughout this poem to denote one who shatters many spears in fight.
BOOK II
Page [35], line 16, and page [57], line 705—'Waleis and Norgals.' These, the two kingdoms of Queen Herzeleide, are located by Wolfram in Spain, but they are undoubtedly Wales and North Wales (the North galis of Malory), the Northern border-land. Parzival's title throughout the poem is der Waleis, in French versions le Gallois, an evident indication of the Celtic origin of the story.