282 J ournal of American Folk-Lore.
ionable fiction, and appealed to the religious sentiment, dissatisfied with poetry which exalted the splendors of the world ; in their recasts, fancy was converted into myth, and chivalry resolved into asceticism. In the end, it proved necessary to exchange the origi- nal hero for a new actor who shpuld present a type of the Re- deemer ; the erring but interesting Perceval was banished in favor of the sinless and colorless Galahad. The pietistic essay was suc- cessful ; in place of warm and living humanity, the persons of the action became mythologic figures, vague, vast, and cold as reflections cast by a mirage. Thanks to the disappearance of intermediate steps, the process is not altogether discernible ; all that remains is a much-edited result. Of this reconstructed fiction, some portion came to the knowledge of the most interesting of German mediaeval poets, and by him was fused with the earlier narrative in such manner as to form a poem intentionally typical of human life. The composition of Wolfram was employed by Wagner, who, with abundance of the free imagination which has characterized every step of the evolution, produced a work distinctively modern in its spirit, though mediaeval in its setting. The early history of the theme in Wales and England consists in the degradation of psycho- logic fiction to the popular tale.
As respects the general theory of human thought, the growth of the legend of the Holy Grail furnishes a lesson of caution in laying down general rules. The process is not always from gods to heroes, from a mythic to an heroic stage ; the development is quite as often in the other direction. In the Arthurian cycle, as I have elsewhere observed, "literature preceded myth, humanity came before miracle."
W. W. Newell.
NOTES.
Biaus Desconneus, Carduino, Tyolet. Necessary references will be found in the treatise of G. Paris, Romans en vers, etc. The English variant of Renaud's work is discussed by W. H. Schofield, Lybeaus Desconus, in {Harvard) Studies and Notes in Philology and Literature, vol. v., 1895. As bearing on the general question whether romances of the Arthurian cycle are to be regarded primarily as of literary invention, or rather as of traditional currency, it is of interest to deter- mine whether the English poem is a rehash of Renaud's Guinglain, or is bor- rowed from some independent and presumably earlier version of the same theme. To my mind, the relation of proper names determines the correctness of the former view ; arrangement in parallel columns demonstrates the priority of the French. The English forms are either corruptions of those of Renaud (and that of names borrowed from Crestien : Gifflet li fius d'O, altered into Giffroun le fludous; Orguillos de la lande, given as Otes de lile) or else commonplace appel- lations substituted for names difficult to anglicize (hence the change of la lande into Tile, of Cue" perilleus into Pont perillous, reproduced as Point perilous). The author of Carduino omits proper names; the writer of Wigalois invents a new set. Renaud's names also were probably of his own invention.
�� �
