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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 02 December 2020
In The Folk-Lore, Record for 1881 (Vol. 4, pp. 1 ff.), Mr. Alfred Nutt published an article entitled “The Aryan Expulsion-And-Return Formula in the Folk- and Hero Tales of the Celts.” In this article, Mr. Nutt advances the theory that the Perceval romances, the English and the Welsh versions especially, are variants of the Expulsion and Return formula. This classification has been accepted by subsequent writers, with the result that the English version, Sir Perceval, is declared to be the most faithful representative of the so-called primitive or original form of the story.
page 524 note 1 Printed by J. O. Halliwell in The Thornton Romances.
page 526 note 1 See M. Gaster, “The Legend of the Grail,” Folk-Lore, 1891, pp. 52 ff. See also H. Zimmer in Göttingische gelehrte Anzeigen, 1890, No. 12, pp. 510 ff.
page 527 note 1 In his recent book, Sir Perceval of Galles, published after this study was written and after the substance of it was presented before the 1910 meeting of the Modern Language Association of America, Mr. R. H. Griffith reconstructs what he calls the A-Stage [or primitive form] of the Perceval story and says: “The summary [of the primitive form of the story] is too specific and too detailed to be considered merely a formula, such, for example, as the ‘Aryan Expulsion and Return Formula.‘” P. 118.
page 527 note 2 As first presented by Mr. Nutt, this formula comprised eighteen incidents. Later, in his book, The Legend of the Holy Grail, pp. 153-4, he reduced the number to thirteen as here quoted; the last five of the original list were omitted. Mr. Nutt does not say why.
page 528 note 1 Mr. Nutt also states that Peredur is posthumously born (Folk-Lore Record, iv, p. 43), but I have been unable to find any ground for the statement.
page 530 note 1 A widely-spread form of the theme is as follows: A poor man has a son of whom it is predicted that he shall marry the king's daughter. Angered about the prophecy, the king seeks to get control of the boy, and succeeds usually by giving the parents a large sum of money. Then the king places the child in a box which he throws into the river, thinking the matter is ended. But the child is rescued, usually by a miller, and is cared for until he is grown. The king meets him again and sends him to the queen with a letter calling for the immediate execution of the bearer. The hero stops over night at a hut on his way, and friendly hands substitute for the “death warrant” a letter bidding the queen to marry the bearer to the king's daughter. The marriage takes place; the king is enraged and sends his son-in-law upon a perilous journey. The youth is successful, however, and the story ends with the downfall of the king and the accession of the hero to the throne. See Grimm, Kinder- und Hausmärchen, No. 29 and Notes; Groome, Gypsy Folk-Tales, p. 133 and Note; Wratislaw, Sixty Folk-Tales, pp. 16 and 278; Hahn, Griechische und Albanesische Märchen, No. 20; Boccaccio, Il Decamerone, 2:8; Schmidt, Griechische Märchen, No. 2, p. 67; Wardrop, Georgian Folk-Tales, pp. 22, 25, and 83. See also the story of Achilles.
page 534 note 1 See Nutt, Legend of the Holy Grail, p. 156.
page 540 note 1 See The Unpromising Hero in Folk-Lore, Epic, and Romance, my unpublished dissertation in the Library of Harvard University.
page 543 note 1 Certainly the conventional Male Cinderella hero could never be charged with being proud. On the contrary, he is humble to a fault. After he performs some heroic deed, he often returns to his obscure position in an effort to keep his identity concealed.
page 543 note 2 See the story of Giufa and the Plaster Statue, Crane's Italian Popular Tales, p. 291. See also the following references: Arnason, Icelandic Legends, p. 596; Basile, Der Pentamerone, oder Das Märchen aller Märchen (Felix Liebrecht), p. 56, No. 4; Beauvois, Contes Populaires de la Norvège, de la Finlande, and de la Bourgogne, p. 203; Busk, Roman Legends, p. 371; Chambers, Popular Rhymes of Scotland, p. 101; von Hahn, Griechische und Albanesische Märchen, ii, p. 154, No. 111; Haltrich, Deutsche Volksmärchen aus dem Sachsenlande in Siebenbürgen, p. 232, No. 64; Jacobs, English Fairy Tales (3d ed.), p. 152; Schneller, Märchen und Sagen aus Wälschtirol, p. 165, No. 57; Sébillot, Contes Populaires de la Haute-Bretagne, p. 219, No. 33; Stokes, Indian Fairy Tales, p. 27, No. 7; Wardrop, Georgian Folk-Tales, p. 165.
page 550 note 1 For purposes of comparison, these terms are arranged in two groups irrespective of the order of their illustration above.
page 553 note 1 Mr. Griffith, Sir Perceval of Galles, p. 118, says that in the primitive stage of the story, the hero was “in appearance a fool but in reality a predestined hero.”
page 554 note 1 Supra, p. 539.
page 555 note 1 Two vols., Grimm Library, London, 1906, 1909.
page 555 note 2 Edited in 3 vols. by A. Leitzmann in Altdeutsche Texstbibliothek, Halle, 1902-03. Translated in 2 vols, by Miss Jessie L. Weston, London, 1894.
page 555 note 3 Printed by Potvin in Vol. ii of his Perceval, p. 17, ll. 485 ff.
page 556 note 1 Perceval le Gallois ou Le Conte du Graal, edited by Ch. Potvin for the Société des Bibliophiles Belges séant à Mons, 1886-71.
page 556 note 2 This is found in The Mabinogion, translated by Lady Charlotte Guest, London, 1902.
page 556 note 3 The “Didot” Perceval and Perlesvaus agree with the Prologue in making Perceval's father the last of twelve brothers. The “Didot” Perceval is printed in Hucher's Le Saint Graal, Le Mans, 1875-78, Vol. i, pp. 415 ff. The full title is Perceval ou La Quête du Saint Graal. Miss Weston calls this the Prose Perceval. The Perlesvaus is printed in Vol. i of Potvin's Perceval. It has been translated by Sebastian Evans (Temple Classics) under the title of The High History of the Holy Grail, two vols., London, 1898.
page 557 note 1 The Prose Lancelot gives the hero six brothers, the same as, Peredur. Weston, Legend of Sir Perceval, i, p. 65.
page 557 note 2 Vol. i, pp. 66-67.
page 558 note 1 Vol. i, p. 128.
page 559 note 1 Mr. Griffith, Sir Perceval of Galles, pp. 36, 37, explains the death motive as follows: “The mother's fate is different in two different groups. In the Grail group she is said to fall dead of grief at her son's departure; in what I may call the folk-tale group she either lives on to rejoin her son when he has achieved greatness, or nothing more is said of her at all. This difference I think I can explain. … The Grail group made the change. Some author (whether Chrestien or an earlier one) decided to insert the Grail story into the Perceval tale. Now, in the story of the visit to the Grail castle one element that was fixed was the hero's failure to ask the important question concerning the meaning of it all when he saw pass before him the Grail and other objects. This early author conceived it to be a part of Ms duty to furnish an adequate reason for this failure; he sought it in the punishment of a sin; and for the sin he chose to make the mother die as a consequence of her son's departure. The motivation of the mother's death is undoubtedly poor. It is a contradiction to the whole fate element of the tale to make it a sinful thing for the hero to leave the forest to go seek his fortune. Wolfram (or his authority) felt the insufficiency of this unconsciously committed sin, but instead of getting out of the difficulty, he went farther into it, for he changed the character of the Red Knight (Ither), made him a relative of Parzival, and then counted it a sin for Parzival to slay him (IX, 1279 ff.). The folk-tale group—keeping its events always in the shadow of the pillar of cloud which is foreordination and compelling fate—slurs over the mother's unhappiness, leaves her well after her son's departure, and finds no place for sin and its punishment.”
page 560 note 1 Note in this connection that it is a third party in SP who informs Perceval that his mother is insane.
page 561 note 1 The reunion motive might have come in under the influence of some other story or stories, which may even belong to the Expulsion and Return formula.
page 562 note 1 In the Perlesvaus and in the “Didot” Perceval, the father does not die until after the son's departure from home.
page 562 note 2 After the death of the father and the brothers is mentioned, we are told that the hero “was not of an age to go to wars and encounters, otherwise he might have been slain as well as his father and brothers.”
page 563 note 1 Of this incident Miss Weston says: “The attribution of the flight into the woods to the father rather than to the mother is a detail foreign to the usual trend of the story” (Vol. i, p. 66).
page 564 note 1 Vol. i, p. 85.
page 564 note 2 Maspero: Les Contes Populaires de L'Egypte Ancienne, Paris, 1906, pp. 168 ff.
page 565 note 1 The Prologue, known as the Mons fragment, breaks off at line 1282 and does not contain the remaining incidents of the story.
page 566 note 1 Hero's father the last of twelve brothers.
page 566 note 2 Vol. i, pp. 91, 92.
page 566 note 3 Vol. i, p. 326.
page 567 note 1 Mr. Griffith, p. 130, concludes that Chrétien could not have been the source for some parts of the English Sir Perceval, and that Chrétien's influence in any way is not necessarily to be supposed to account for any or all of Sir Perceval. The English poem, he thinks, is wholly independent of the French poem. He thinks it simpler and more in accordance with all the evidence in the case to consider it as an English singer's versification of a folk tale that was known in his district of Northwest England.