Page [159], line 2—'From Karidöl and his kingdom.' Karidöl=Carduel or Cardoile, the Anglo-Norman form of Carlisle. This is undoubtedly Arthur's original capital, but throughout this poem Nantes seems to be regarded as the royal city. Curiously enough we find the two names combined in Gautier de Doulens, one of the continuators of Li Conte del Graal, who introduces, as one of his dramatis personæ, Carduel of Nantes.
Page [160], line 29—'Whitsuntide.' An examination of the Romances will show this statement to be correct; Pentecost and Christmas seem to have been the two feasts held in especial honour at King Arthur's court.
Page [160], line 49—'Blood-drops on the snow.' Both Wolfram and Chrêtien insist only on the two colours, red and white, and the fact that they are puzzled by, and think it necessary to explain, the presence of snow at Whitsuntide shows that they are taking over the incident from an older source. As a matter of fact it is to be found in tales unconnected with the Arthurian cycle, and of varying nationality. In Peredur (Welsh) a raven has settled upon the body of a wild goose killed by a falcon, and the hero thinks of three colours (black, for hair; white, for skin; red, for cheeks); in the Fate of the Sons of Usnech, an Irish tale written down before the middle of the twelfth century, and probably centuries older, these three colours are likewise present, but it is a calf instead of a wild goose that is slain, and it is the heroine, not the hero, who is fascinated by the colours. The incident has always been a favourite one with Celtic story-tellers (cf. Argyll Tales, M'Innes and Nutt, pp. 431-34), and curiously it is the slain-bird, instead of the slain-calf version which predominates, although the Fate of the Sons of Usnech is probably the most famous of all Irish stories, and no traceable literary influence of the Welsh tale upon Irish romance is known. Those familiar with Grimm's fairy tales will remember a similar incident in the story of Snowdrop, where the queen pricks her finger, and wishes for a daughter with hair as black as the ebony window-frame, skin as white as the snow, and cheeks as red as the blood; but here, of course, the 'fascination' element is absent. I have attempted to show ('the lai of Eliduc and the mürchen of Schneewittchen,'Folk Lore. iii. I), that the Gaelic version of the Schneewittchen type of story represents the earliest attainable form of the story.—[A. N.]
Page [162], line 87—'Segramor,' or Saigremors. This knight is a familiar figure in the Arthurian Romances, and the episode is quite in accordance with his general character. Chrêtien calls him 'Le Desreè' (uncurbed, impetuous). In Malory he is 'Le Desirous.' Cf. also Book VIII. p. 241.
Page [163], line 121—'To seek for the magic pheasant.' Simrock thinks this an allusion to a popular folk-tale, in which a magician, condemned to death, contrives to escape by setting his judges and executioner to seek for the fallen bird, by the irresistible strains of his magic pipe.
Page [166], line 235—'Heinrich of Veldeck.' A German poet who lived towards the end of the twelfth century. His translation of the Æneid, founded on a French version of the poem, was extremely popular, and Wolfram frequently refers to it in his Parzival.
Page [169], line 321—'Herman of Thuringia.' This Landgrave of Thuringia is well known to history as a generous patron of the literature of his day. His court at the Wartburg was the resort of all the leading poets, and it filled a place in the literary life of the twelfth century only comparable to that taken by the neighbouring court of Weimar six hundred years later. The terms in which Wolfram speaks of the guests at the Wartburg is quite in keeping with what is known of the Landgrave's lavish hospitality.
Simrock renders a passage from Walther von der Vogelweide which describes the tumultuous life of the court as follows:
'Wer in den Ohren siech ist oder krank im Haupt,
Der meide ja Thuringen's Hof, wenn er mir glaubt.
Käm er dahin, er würde ganz bethöret;
Ich drang so lange zu, dass ich nicht mehr vermag,
Ein Zug fährt ein, ein andrer aus, so Nacht als Tag,
Ein wunder ists, dass da noch Jemand höret.'
The Wartburg-krieg, a poem of the end of the thirteenth century, in which the principal poets of the age are represented as competing in song before the Landgrave, supposes this contest to take place in 1207, and is doubtless an echo of what was no unusual incident at that date. Wolfram's poem of Willehalm was composed at the wish of the Landgrave, and in it he speaks of the death of his patron. Herman died in 1216, and the brilliant life at the Wartburg came to an end; his successor Ludwig, the husband of S. Elizabeth, having little taste for literature.