Page [83], line 586—'Iwanet.' The diminutive of Iwein, the well-known hero of Hartmann's poem (the Owain, son of Urien of Rheged, of Welsh tradition).
Page [83]—'Parzival at the court of King Arthur.' There are some distinctive features in Wolfram's version of this incident. Parzival's behaviour towards the King, though unconventional, is far less discourteous than that ascribed to him either by Chrêtien or by the English 'Sir Percyvelle.' In Chrêtien's poem, Perceval rides into the hall, where he finds the king and courtiers plunged in grief at the insult offered to them by the Red Knight. The king does not reply to Perceval's greeting, and the lad rides so close to him that his horse's head knocks off the king's cap. A reason for the failure of the Knights of the Round Table to avenge the insult offered by the Red Knight is suggested in the fact that they are already wounded in battle. [The student of Irish heroic saga cannot fail to recall the strange disability under which the knights of Conchobor's court suffered at times and which completely prostrated them. The province of Ulster would have lain defenceless were it not that the Cuchulainn alone was free from the disability, and single-handed defied the men of the rest of Ireland. There are many points of contrast between the enfances of Cuchulainn and those of Perceval—A.N.] The kindly feeling shown both by Arthur and Guinevere towards Ither is not paralleled in Chrêtien, where the Red Knight is represented as Arthur's deadliest foe, and Guinevere is like to die of shame and wrath at the insult offered to her. Chrêtien also places Perceval's refusal to dismount here, whereas Wolfram places it on his arrival at Gurnemanz' castle. In Chrêtien the hero tells the Red Knight of his intention to demand his armour from Arthur, and there is no trace of the courteous and poetical greeting which Ither here addresses to Parzival. The confusion of the Red Knight with the hero's own personal foe is of course due to the introduction of the Lähelein episode which is peculiar to Wolfram; but Chrêtien has a most curious passage connected with Perceval's inability to disarm his dead antagonist:
'Ains auroie par carbonées
Trestout escarbelliè le mort,
Que nule des armes enport;'
which as it stands is decidedly difficult of interpretation; while in the English Sir Percyvelle we find the hero saying:
'My moder bad me,
Whenne my dart solde brokene be
Owte of the irene brenne the tree,'
which evidently indicates the source of Chrêtien's curious remark. An examination of the different versions seems to show that, while the German is the fuller and more poetical, the French is here closer to the original form of the story.
Pages [85] and [86], lines 635, 658—'Kay the Seneschal.' The character of Kay is one of the problems of the Arthurian legends. In all the tales he is represented as filling the office of Seneschal, and in all he is represented as a man of rough manners, violent temper, and bitter tongue. The Seneschal (Senes-schalh), the oldest servant, was master of the ceremonies, one of the chief personages of a royal household, and not unfrequently the trusted confidant of the king; but such a chastisement as Kay here, and in other versions, inflicts upon Kunnewaaré, was distinctly outside his office, and, taking into consideration the standing of Kunnewaaré and Antanor, quite inconceivable. Here, as in other instances, we have traces of an original tradition dating from a time when a far rougher code of manners and customs obtained. Wolfram, while adhering closely to his source, and to the traditional representation of Kay's character, was evidently extremely puzzled by the undignified and discourteous part allotted to him, and in Book VI. (p. 169) he diverges from the story in order to explain what he feels to be a difficulty, and to defend Kay at some length. The Northern French poets apparently felt the same, and as Kay is generally represented as Arthur's foster-brother they invented the fable that the unknightly traits in his character were due to his having been committed to the care of a peasant nurse when his mother took charge of the infant Arthur.
Page [85], line 652—'The maiden Kunnewaaré.' The 'laughing damsel' seems to be an archaic and misunderstood element in the Grail romances. A common incident of folk-tales is for the hero, fool, lout, or tatterdemalion, to win to wife a princess who has not laughed or spoken for years by inducing her to do either of these things. Some such incident has apparently been woven into an heroic romance, the main outlines of which were already fixed, so that the actual conclusion, marriage of the hero with the laughing damsel, has been disturbed. Note, however, the homage paid by Parzival to Kunnewaaré, and her evident affection for him (Book VI. pp. 181-185). Her name too is suggestive, it has been derived from la pucele a la gonne vaire (the maiden with the coloured robe), but in its present form it is suspiciously like Kondwiramur, and it should be noted that it is the rejected lover of this queen whom Kunnewaaré eventually marries. Is it possible that the Perceval romance from which both Chrêtien and 'Kiot' drew contained doublets of this personage? In the one case in her original, in the other in a modified form. An instructive parallel may be adduced from the saga of Cuchulainn. He is the hero of an Andromeda episode and should by rights wed the delivered heroine, but the story being already fixed before the episode was assimilated, the heroine is passed on to a companion of the hero.—[A. N.]
Page [89], line 766—'Maestricht, or e'en Cologne.' German art, in the early Middle Ages, reached its highest level in the Rhenish provinces, especially at Cologne.
Page [91], line 828—'Gurnemanz of Graharz.' The old knight who instructs the hero in knightly duties is a traditional part of the story, and belongs to most of the versions. In Peredur, he is identified with the Fisher King, Perceval's uncle. In Chrêtien his name is given as Gonemans of Gelbort; in Gerbert, Chrêtien's continuator, he is, Gornemant (one of several points of contact between Gerbert and Wolfram's source).