with which Cligés appears to have been received as being somewhat curious considering the undoubted literary value of the poem.[32]

On the other hand, the Cligés knows Lancelot as one of Arthur’s most valiant knights, the third in order of merit, a position he certainly could not have held before his story had reached a fairly advanced stage of development. Indeed, Chrétien’s references to this hero deserve particular attention.[33] He is first mentioned in Erec as a knight of the Round Table, third in rank, the two first being Gawain and Erec, but is only a name, taking no part in the action of the poem. In Cligés he occupies the same position, but here Perceval, and not Erec, ranks second. Lancelot appears upon the scene once, and once only, when he is overthrown by Cligés at the tournament in question. In the Charrette he is the hero of the poem, the first of Arthur’s knights, the lover of the queen, and her rescuer from the prison of Meleagant. In the Chevalier au Lion which followed, his name is mentioned but once, and that in connection with an allusion to the Charrette. In the Perceval his name never appears at all. It seems extraordinary that the significance of these allusions, taken as a group, should so long have escaped detection. As a matter of fact I failed to grasp their importance myself when commenting upon them in my Lancelot studies. Thus, the tournament episode in Cligés is so close a parallel to that of the Lanzelet that, as we have seen, Professor Foerster declares the one to be the source of the other. The rescue of Guinevere from Meleagant, the theme of the Charrette, parallels her rescue from Falerîn, also in the Lanzelet. In both the queen is abducted against her will; in both the prison is of an otherworld character: in the one Lancelot is of the party of rescuers, but takes no prominent share in the enterprise; in the other he is the sole agent of her deliverance. In commenting upon the poem in my Lancelot studies,[34] I pointed out that the story was, in its essence, of so primitive a character, that it must certainly be, in its origin, of an earlier date than any extant literary version; and that, of the two before us, the Lanzelet, by its unlocalised character, the details it gives of Falerîn’s stronghold, and the comparatively unimportant position assigned to Lancelot, must be considered the older.

Further, in the roll of knights named in Erec, following such well-known names as Gawain, Erec, Lancelot, Gornemanz, le Biaus Coarz (Bel Couart), Le lez Hardis (le Laid Hardi), and Melianz de Liz, we have Mauduiz li Sages, who, as I have elsewhere pointed out (Lancelot, p. 80), can hardly be other than the enchanter of the Lanzelet, Malduz der Wîse. Taking all these facts into consideration, the position Chrétien assigns to Lancelot, and the two adventures (they are really only two, the incidents of the Charrette are all subsidiary to the freeing of Guinevere) he records, is it not perfectly clear that Chrétien knew, and followed, an early version of the Lancelot story, akin to, if not identical with, the lost French source of Ulrich von Zatzikhoven? Is it not far more probable that in the Cligés he borrowed from the Lancelot than that an adventure so persistently, and so early, attributed to that well-known hero should have been borrowed from the obscure Cligés?

If it be objected, as of course those who hold Professor Foerster’s views will object, that Chrétien’s position in the literary world of the day was such that it is infinitely more likely that he should be the lender rather than the borrower, I would ask, but how if the story from which he borrowed was held, rightly or wrongly, to be the work of Walter Map? Map was a much more important personage than Chrétien. Chrétien was a poet, and a good poet, but at the best to the world in general he would be no more than the favoured servant and dependant of a minor French princess. Map was a man of political importance, the trusted companion and emissary of the most prominent monarch of the day. What was the position held by Map in the eyes of that same public to whom Chrétien appealed may be gathered by the anxiety which the romance-writers showed to shelter themselves under his name. We have one or two Arthurian poems, such as e.g., Diu Krône, which purport to be by Chrétien; we have a whole mass of prose romance, practically the main body of Arthurian legend in its later form, which professes to be the work of Walter Map. Could testimony as to the relative status of the two men in the eyes of their contemporaries be more eloquent? Is it likely that Chrétien, even if he had held as exalted an idea of his own work as his latter-day admirers would credit him with—and he did not—would have thought it derogatory to his dignity to borrow from Map? I think not; and if we had not a jot or a tittle of further evidence on the subject, I should contend that, on the evidence of the poems alone, we have strong grounds for maintaining the priority over Cligés of a lost Lancelot version.

But as it happens, our case does not rest upon this evidence alone. We have at hand an important witness; a witness to whose evidence Professor Foerster and his followers shut their eyes and stop their ears, but who nevertheless is slowly, but surely, winning recognition as an important factor in the determination of such problems as those we are discussing. Let us turn to folk-lore, and find if from the lips of popular tradition we can gather evidence that may help to decide the question. We shall find an answer startling in its point and clearness.

THE FOLK-TALE

The Contes Lorrains of M. Cosquin[35] contains a story, Le Petit Berger, in which we shall find our tournament adventure in what we may term full fairy-tale form. A princess expresses a desire to own a flock of sheep; her father consents, and hires a lad to guard them, of whom the princess becomes secretly enamoured. On three successive days the shepherd penetrates into a forbidden wood, and on each occasion slays a terrible giant, clad in steel, silver, or golden armour. By the death of these giants the hero becomes master of three castles, of steel, silver, and gold, in each of which he finds a suit of armour and a steed to correspond. He keeps the feat a profound secret, and when later on the king proclaims a three days’ tournament, the prize of which is the hand of the princess, he appears each day in different armour, and mounted on the corresponding steed—steel, silver or golden—wins the tournament, and weds the lady.

Now this is merely the shortest and simplest form of a story, which is found practically all the world over. Let us look at some of the variants.

In the notes to Le Petit Berger M. Cosquin cites a Tyrolean variant, where instead of three giants the hero slays three dragons, thereby winning three castles. The armour corresponds to that of the previous tale; but the