Chapter XVI: Appendix: To Chapter VIII

While having no connection with the main subject of our study, the Grail legend, I should like to draw the attention of students of Medieval literature to the curious parallel between the _Rig-Veda_ poem of the _Medicine Man_ or _Kräuter-Lied_ as it is also called, and Rusteboeuf’s _Dist de l’Erberie_. Both are monologues, both presuppose the presence of an audience, in each case the speaker is one who vaunts his skill in the use of herbs, in each case he has in view the ultimate gain to himself. Here are the opening lines of the Medieval poem:[1]

“Seignor qui ci estes venu Petit et grant, jone et chenu, Il vos est trop bien avenu Sachiez de voir; Je ne vos vueil pas deçevoir Bien le porroz aperçevoir Ainz que m’en voise. Asiez vos, ne fetes noise Si escotez s’il ne vos poise Je sui uns mires.”

He has been long with the lord of Caire, where he won much gold; in Puille, Calabre, Luserne.

“Ai herbes prises Qui de granz vertuz sont enprises Sus quelque mal qu’el soient mises Le maus s’enfuit.”

There is no reference in the poem to a cure about to be performed in the presence of the audience, which does not however exclude the possibility of such cure being effected.

It would be interesting to know under what circumstances such a poem was recited, whether it formed part of a popular representation. The audience in view is of a mixed character, young and old, great and small, and one has a vision of the Quack Doctor at some village fair, on the platform before his booth, declaiming the virtues of his nostrums before an audience representative of all ranks and ages. It is a far cry from such a Medieval scene to the prehistoric days of the _Rig-Veda_, but the _mise-en-scène_ is the same; the popular ‘seasonal’ feast, the Doctor with his healing herbs, which he vaunts in skilful rhyme, the hearers, drawn from all ranks, some credulous, some amused. There seems very little doubt that both poems are specimens, and very good specimens, of a _genre_ the popularity and vitality of which are commensurate with the antiquity of its origin.[2]