Chapter XXIII: Part 23

52
And then bespake him K_ing_ Arthur,
'Alas! thow gentle knight, how may this be,
That I might see him in the same licknesse
_Tha_t he stood vnto thee?'

53
And then bespake him the Greene Knight,
These were the words said hee:
'If youle stand stifly in the battell stronge,
For I haue won all the victory.'

54
Then bespake him the k_ing_ againe,
And these were the words said hee:
'If wee stand not stifly in this battell strong,
Wee are worthy to be hanged all on a tree.'

55
Then bespake him the Greene Knight,
These were the words said he:
Saies, 'I doe coniure thee, thou fowle feend,
In the same licknesse thou stood vnto me.'

56
W_i_th that start out a lodly feend,
W_i_th seuen heads, and one body;
The fier towards the element flaugh,
Out of his mouth, where was great plenty.

57
The knight stood in the middle p ...
. . . . . . .
. . . . . . .
. . . . . . .

* * * * * * *

58
. . . . . . .
. . . . . . .
... they stood the space of an houre,
I know not what they did.

59
And then bespake him the Greene Knight,
And these were the words said he:
Saith, 'I coniure thee, thou fowle feend,
_Tha_t thou feitch downe the steed that we see.'

60
And then forth is gone Burlow-beanie,
As fast as he cold hie,
And feitch he did _tha_t faire steed,
And came againe by and by.

61
Then bespake him S_ir_ Marramiles,
And these were the words said hee:
'Riding of this steed, brother Bredbeddle,
The mastery belongs to me.'

62
Marramiles tooke the steed to his hand,
To ryd him he was full bold;
He cold noe more make him goe
Then a child of three yeere old.

63
He laid vppon him w_i_th heele and hand,
W_i_th yard that was soe fell;
'Helpe! brother Bredbeddle,' says Marramile,
'For I thinke he be the devill of hell.

64
'Helpe! brother Bredbeddle,' says Marramile,
'Helpe! for Christs pittye;
Ffor w_i_thout thy help, brother Bredbeddle,
He will neuer be rydden for me.'

65
Then bespake him S_ir_ Bredbeddle,
These were the words said he:
'I coniure thee, thou Burlow-beane,
Thou tell me how this steed was riddin in his country.'

66
He saith, 'there is a gold wand
Stands in K_ing_ Cornwalls study windowe;
. . . . . . .
. . . . . . .

67
'Let him take that wand in _tha_t window,
And strike three strokes on that steed;
And then he will spring forth of his hand
As sparke doth out of gleede.'

68
And then bespake him the Greene Knight,
. . . . . . .
. . . . . . .
. . . . . . .

* * * * * * *

69
. . . . . . .
. . . . . . .
. . . . . . .
A lowd blast he may blow then.

70
And then bespake S_ir_ Bredebeddle,
To the ffeend these words said hee:
Says, 'I coniure thee, thou Burlow-beanie,
The powder-box thou feitch me.'

71
Then forth is gone Burlow-beanie,
As fast as he cold hie,
And feich he did the powder-box,
And came againe by and by.

72
Then S_ir_ Tristeram tooke powder forth of _tha_t box,
And blent it w_i_th warme sweet milke,
And there put it vnto that horne,
And swilled it about in that ilke.

73
Then he tooke the horne in his hand,
And a lowd blast he blew;
He rent the horne vp to the midst,
All his ffellowes this thé knew.

74
Then bespake him the Greene Knight,
These were the words said he:
Saies, 'I coniure thee, thou Burlow-beanie,
_Tha_t thou feitch me the sword _tha_t I see.'

75
Then forth is gone Burlow-beanie,
As fast as he cold hie,
And feitch he did that faire sword,
And came againe by and by.

76
Then bespake him Sir Bredbeddle,
To the k_ing_ these words said he:
'Take this sword in thy hand, thou noble K_ing_ A_rthur_,
For the vowes sake _tha_t thou made Ile giue it th[ee,]
And goe strike off K_ing_ Cornewalls head,
In bed were he doth lye.'

77
Then forth is gone noble K_ing_ Arthur,
As fast as he cold hye,
And strucken he hath off K_ing_ Cornwalls head,
And came againe by and by.

78
He put the head vpon a swords point,
. . . . . . .
. . . . . . .
. . . . . . .

* * * * * * *

* * * * *

1^1. _The tops of the letters of this line were cut off in
binding. Percy thought it had stood previously_,

come here Cuz_en_ Gawaine so gay.

_Furnivall says "~the bottoms of the letters left suit
better those in the text~" as given. 4 and 5, 8 and 9, are
joined in the MS._

10^4. _Half a page is gone from the MS., or about 38 or 40
lines; and so after 20^2, 28^4, 38^2, 47^4, 57^1, 68^1,
78^1._

14^2. they better.

17^3, 18^1. _The first two words are hard to make out, and
look like ~A vne~._

18^2. boirne.

19^1. his gone.

20^2. _The lower half of the letters is gone._

21. _In MS.:_

our Lady was borne
then thought cornewall K_ing_ these palmers had
beene in Brittanie.

28^4. _? MS. Only the upper part of the letters is left._

31^2. under thrub chadler.

35. _After this stanza is written, in the left margin of
the MS., ~The 3d Part~._

38^1. homly to my hurt. _Madden read ~hourly~._

39^1. _The top line is pared away._

41^2. they words.

43^2. of the trubchandler.

46^3. then had he.

64. p', _i. e._ pro _or_ per, me. _Madden._

66. _Attached to 65 in MS._

69^4. _? MS._

76^{5,6}. _Joined with 77 in MS. & and Arabic numerals
have been frequently written out._

[259] Half a page is gone in the manuscript between 'Robin Hood's Death' and the beginning of this ballad, and again between the end of this ballad and the beginning of 'Sir Lionel.' 'Robin Hood's Death,' judging by another copy, is complete within two or three stanzas, and 'Sir Lionel' appears to lack nothing. We may suppose that quite half a dozen stanzas are lost from both the beginning and the end of 'King Arthur and King Cornwall.'

[260] British Museum (but now missing), King's Library, 16, E, VIII, fol. 131, recto: "Ci comence le liucr_e_ cu_m_ment charels de fraunce voiet in ierh_usale_m Et pur p_ar_ols sa feme a co_n_stanti_n_noble p_ur_ ver_e_ roy hugon." First published by Michel, London, 1836, and lately reëdited, with due care, by Koschwitz: Karls des Grossen Reise nach Jerusalem und Constantinopel, Heilbronn, 1880; 2d ed., 1883.

[261] See the argument of Gaston Paris, Romanis, XI, 7 ff; and of Koschwitz, Karl des Grossen Reise, 2te Auflage, Einleitung, pp. xiv-xxxii.

[262] Printed by Koschwitz in Sechs Bearbeitungen von Karls des Grossen Reise, the last from a somewhat later edition, pp. 40-133. The recovery of a metrical form of Galien is looked for. In the view of Gaston Paris, the Pilgrimage was made over (renouvelé) at the end of the twelfth or the beginning of the thirteenth century, and this _rifacimento_ intercalated in Galien by some rhymer of the fourteenth. See his 'Galien,' in Hist. Litt. de la France, XXVIII, 221-239, for all that concerns the subject.

[263] Il Viaggio di Carlo Magno in Ispagna, pubblicato per cure di Antonio Ceruti, c. LI, II, 170: Rajna, Uggeri il Danese nella letteratura romanzesca degl' Italiani, Romania IV, 414 ff. A king of Portugal, of the faith of Apollo and Mahound, takes the place of the king of Constantinople in the former, and one Saracen or another in the several versions of the second. G. Paris, in Romania, IX, 3, 10, notes.

[264] The Norwegian version in Karlamagnus Saga ok Kappa hans, ed. Unger, p. 466, the Seventh Part. Both the Swedish and Danish are given in Storm's Sagnkredsene om Karl den Store, etc., Kristiania, 1874, pp. 228-245. For the sources, see p. 160 ff. The whole of the Danish Chronicle of Charlemagne is printed in Brandt's Romantisk Digtning fra Middelalderen, Copenhagen, 1877, the Journey to the Holy Land, p. 146 ff. Brandt does not admit that the Danish chronicle was translated from Swedish: p. 347. The 'Geiplur,' 968 vv, and one version of 'Geipa-táttur,' 340 vv, are included in Koschwitz's Sechs Bearbeitungen, p. 139 ff, p. 174 ff. For a discussion of them see Kölbing in Germania, XX, 233-239, and as to the relations of the several versions, etc., Koschwitz, in Romanische Studien, II, 1 ff, his Ueberlieferung und Sprache der Chanson du Voyage de Charlemagne, and Sechs Bearbeitungen, Einleitung. The Färöe ballad is thought to show traces in some places of Christiern Pedersen's edition of the Danish chronicle, 1584 (Kölbing, as above, 238, 239), or of stall prints founded on that. This does not, however, necessarily put the ballad into the sixteenth century. Might not Pedersen have had ballad authority for such changes and additions as he made? It may well be supposed that he had, and if what is peculiar to Pedersen may have come from ballads, we must hesitate to derive the ballads from Pedersen. It is, moreover, neither strange nor unexampled that popular ballads should be affected by tradition committed to print as well as by tradition still floating in memory. The Färöe copies of 'Greve Genselin,' for example, as Grundtvig remarks, I, 223, note, though undoubtedly original and independent of Danish, evince acquaintance with Vedel's printed text.

[265] Given, with an English translation by Professor Rhys, in Sechs Bearbeitungen, p. 1, p. 19.

[266] There are some variations in the list of relics in the other versions. The Rímur say "many," without specifying.

[267] On the way from Jerusalem to Constantinople the French, according to Galien, were waylaid by several thousand Saracens. Three or four of the peers prepared for a fight, though armed only with swords ("which they never or only most reluctantly put off," Arsenal MS.), but Charles and the rest felt a better confidence in the relics, and through the prayers of the more prudent and pious of the company their foes were turned into rocks and stones.

[268] The heir of a Scandinavian king, or earl, at the feast which solemnized his accession, drank a bragur-full, a chief's cup or king's toast, to the memory of his father, and then made some important vow. This he did before he took his father's seat. The guests then made vows. The custom seems not to have been confined to these funeral banquets. See Vigfusson, at the word $Bragr$. Charles and his peers show their blood.

[269] Excepting the Welsh translation, which conforms to the original, all other versions give Bernard's gab to Turpin, and most others Turpin's to Bernard. The Danish chronicle assigns the "grand three-horse act" to Gerard; the Färöe ballad omits it; the two manuscript Galiens attribute it to Bernard [Berart] de Mondidier, the printed Galien to Berenger. In these last the feat is, though enormously weighted with armor, to leap over two horses and come down on the back of the third so heavily as to break his bones. There are, in one version or another, other differences as to the feats.

[270] In Galien, Hugo is exceedingly frightened by Charlemagne's fierce demeanor and by what he is told by a recreant Frenchman who is living in exile at his court, and rouses the city for an assault on his guests, in which he loses two thousand of his people. A parley ensues. Hugo will hear of no accommodation unless the gabs are performed. "Content," says Charles, angrily, "they shall be, if you wish;" but he feels how great the peril is, and goes to church to invoke the aid of heaven, which is vouchsafed.

[271] Arthur is said to have "socht to the ciete of Criste," in 'Golagros and Gawane,' Madden's 'Syr Gawayne,' p. 143, v. 302. The author probably followed the so-called Nennius, c. 63.

[272] Cf. 'Young Beichan,' where the porter has also served thirty years and three; 'The Grene Knight,' Percy MS., Hales and Furnivall, II, 62; the porter in Kilhwch and Olwen, Mabinogion, II, 255 f.

[273] In Heinrich vom Türlin's Crône we have the following passage, vv 3313-4888, very possibly to be found in some French predecessor, which recalls the relations of Cornwall King and Guenever. The queen's demeanor may be an imitation of Charlemagne's (Arthur's) wife's bluntness, but the _liaison_ of which Cornwall boasts appears to be vouched by no other tradition, and must be regarded as the invention of the author of this ballad.

Arthur and three comrades return half frozen from a hunt. Arthur sits down at the fire to warm himself. The queen taunts him: she knows a knight who rides, winter and summer alike, in a simple shirt, chanting love-songs the while. Arthur resolves to go out with the three the next night to overhaul this hardy chevalier. The three attendants of the king have an encounter with him and fare hard at his hands, but Arthur has the advantage of the stranger, who reveals himself to the king as Guenever's first love, by name Gasozein, and shows a token which he had received from her.

[274]

Under thrub chadler closed was hee. 29^2.
The bunge of the trubchandler he burst in three. 43^2.

Being unable to make anything of thrub, trub, I am compelled to conjecture _the rub-chadler, that rub-chandler_. The fiend is certainly closed under a barrel or tub, and I suppose a rubbish barrel or tub. Rubb, however derived, occurs in Icelandic in the sense of rubbish, and chalder, however derived, is a Scottish form of the familiar chaldron. Professor Skeat, with great probability, suggests that chadler==chaudeler, chaudière. Caldaria _lignea_ are cited by Ducange. Cad or kad is well known in the sense barrel, and cadiolus, cadulus, are found in Ducange. Cadler, chadler, however, cannot be called a likely derivative from cad.

In stanza 48 the fiend, after he has been ousted from the "trubchandler," is told to "lie still in that wall of stone," which is perhaps his ordinary lair. The spy is concealed under a flight of stone steps in the French poem; in "a large hollow stone in the door outside" in the Welsh story; in a hollow pillar in Galien and the Rímur; in a stone vault in the Färöe ballad: Koschwitz, Karls Reise, p. 64; Sechs Bearbeitungen, pp 29, 52, 85, 117, 153, 179.

[275] Roland's last blast splits his horn. See the citations by G. Paris, in Romania, XI, 506 f.

[276] The first has been printed by Kölbing in Koschwitz's Sechs Bearbeitungen, as already said. The four texts were most kindly communicated to me by Professor Grundtvig, a short time before his lamentable death, copied by his own hand in parallel columns, with a restoration of the order of the stanzas, which is considerably disturbed in all, and a few necessary emendations.

[277] Pól, #A#, #C#, Kortunatus, #B#, i. e. Koronatus (Grundtvig). Coronatus==clericus, tonsura seu corona clericali donatus: Ducange.

[278] The white bears and the wolf-dogs are found in another Färöe ballad, as yet unprinted, 'Ásmundar skeinkjari,' where they are subdued by an arm-ring and "rune-gold:" the white bears in a kindred ballad, Grundtvig, No 71, #A# 4, 5, 8, 9, #C# 6, 7, 13, quelled with a lily-twig; #E# 12, 13, with runes; and in No 70, #A# 28, #B# 27, 30. The source of this ballad is Fjölsvinnsmál, which has two watch-dogs in 13, 14. 'Kilhweh and Olwen,' Mabinogion, II, has a similar story, and there are nine watch-dogs, at p. 277. (Grundtvig.)

[279] Romania, IX, 8 ff. The English ballad has also combined two stories: that of the gabs with another in which a magical horse, horn, and sword are made prize of by a favored hero.

[280] The particular for which superiority is claimed will naturally vary. The author of Charlemagne's Journey has the good taste not to give prominence to simple riches, but in Galien riches is from the beginning the point. So none hath so much gold as Cornwall King. Solomon's fame is to exceed all the kings of the earth "for riches and for wisdom;" and although the queen of Sheba came to prove him with hard questions, she must have had the other matter also in view, for she says, The half was not told me; thy wisdom and prosperity exceedeth the fame which I heard: 1 Kings, x. Coming down to very late times, we observe that it is the wealth of the Abbot of Canterbury which exposes him to a visit from the king.

[281] The tale in the Mille et un Jours is directly from the Persian, but the Persian is in the preface said to be a version from Indian, that is, Sanskrit. There are two Tatar traditional versions in Radloff, IV, 120, 310, which are cited by G. Paris.

[282] Cited by G. Paris, who refers also to King Gylfi's expedition to Asgard (an imitation of Odin's to Vafþrúðnir), and sees some resemblance to the revolving palace of King Hugo in the vanishing mansion in which Gylfi is received in Gylfaginning; and again to Thor's visit to the giant Geirröðr, Skáldskaparmál, 18, which terminates by the giant's flinging a red-hot iron bar at Thor, who catches it and sends it back through an iron pillar, through Geirröðr skulking behind the pillar, through the wall of the house, and into the ground, a fair matching of Charlemagne's gab. (The giant Geirröðr, like Cornwall King, is skilled in magic.) The beginning of Biterolf and Dietleib also recalls that of Charlemagne's Journey. Biterolf, a Spanish king, hears from an old palmer, who has seen many a hero among Christians and heathens, that none is the equal of Attila. Biterolf had thought that he himself had no superior, and sets out with eleven chosen knights to see Etzel's court with his own eyes. Romania, IX, 9 f.

Játmundr [Hlöðver], a haughty emperor in Saxon-land, sitting on his throne one day, in the best humor with himself, asks Sigurðr, his prime minister, where is the monarch that is his match. Sigurðr demurs a little: the emperor specifies his hawk, horse, and sword as quite incomparable. That may be, says the counsellor, but his master's glory, to be complete, requires a queen that is his peer. The suggestion of a possible equal rouses the emperor's ire. "But since you talk such folly, name one," he says. Sigurðr names the daughter of Hrólfr [Hugo] of Constantinople, and is sent to demand her in marriage. Magus saga jarls, ed. Cederschiöld, c. I: Wulff, Recherches sur les Sagas de Mágus et de Geirard, p. 14 f.

[283] G. Paris, Histoire Poétique de Charlemagne, p. 344.

31

THE MARRIAGE OF SIR GAWAIN

Percy MS., p. 46. Hales & Furnivall, I, 105; Madden's Syr
Gawayne, p. 288; Percy's Reliques, ed. 1794, III, 350.

We have here again half a ballad, in seven fragments, but the essentials of the story, which is well known from other versions, happen to be preserved, or may be inferred.

Arthur, apparently some day after Christmas, had been encountered at Tarn Wadling,[284] in the forest of Inglewood, by a bold baron armed with a club, who offered him the choice of fighting, or ransoming himself by coming back on New Year's day and bringing word what women most desire. Arthur puts this question in all quarters, and having collected many answers, in which, possibly, he had little confidence, he rides to keep his day. On the way he meets a frightfully ugly woman; she intimates that she could help him. Arthur promises her Gawain in marriage, if she will, and she imparts to him the right answer. Arthur finds the baron waiting for him at the tarn, and presents first the answers which he had collected and written down. These are contemptuously rejected. Arthur then says that he had met a lady on a moor, who had told him that a woman would have her will. The baron says that the misshapen lady on the moor was his sister, and he will burn her if he can get hold of her. Upon Arthur's return he tells his knights that he has a wife for one of them, and they ride with the king to see her, or perhaps for her to make her choice. When they see the bride, they decline the match in vehement terms, all but Gawain, who is somehow led to waive "a little foul sight and misliking." She is bedded in all her repulsiveness, and turns to a beautiful young woman. To try Gawain's compliance further, she asks him whether he will have her in this likeness by night only or only by day. Putting aside his own preference, Gawain leaves the choice to her, and this is all that is needed to keep her perpetually beautiful. For a stepmother had witched her to go on the wild moor in that fiendly shape until she should meet some knight who would let her have all her will. Her brother, under a like spell, was to challenge men either to fight with him at odds or to answer his hard question.

These incidents, with the variation that Arthur (who does not show all his customary chivalry in this ballad) waits for Gawain's consent before he promises him in marriage, are found in a romance, probably of the fifteenth century, printed in Madden's Syr Gawayne, and somewhat hastily pronounced by the editor to be "unquestionably the original of the mutilated poem in the Percy folio."[285]

Arthur, while hunting in Ingleswood, stalked and finally shot a great hart, which fell in a fern-brake. While the king, alone and far from his men, was engaged in making the assay, there appeared a groom, bearing the quaint name of Gromer Somer Joure,[286] who grimly told him that he meant now to requite him for having taken away his lands. Arthur represented that it would be a shame to knighthood for an armed man to kill a man in green, and offered him any satisfaction. The only terms Gromer would grant were that Arthur should come back alone to that place that day twelvemonth, and then tell him what women love best; not bringing the right answer, he was to lose his head. The king gave his oath, and they parted. The knights, summoned by the king's bugle, found him in heavy cheer, and the reason he would at first tell no man, but after a while took Gawain into confidence. Gawain advised that they two should ride into strange country in different directions, put the question to every man and woman they met, and write the answers in a book. This they did, and each made a large collection. Gawain thought they could not fail, but the king was anxious, and considered that it would be prudent to spend the only month that was left in prosecuting the inquiry in the region of Ingleswood. Gawain agreed that it was good to be speering, and bade the king doubt not that some of his saws should help at need.

Arthur rode to Ingleswood, and met a lady, riding on a richly-caparisoned palfrey, but herself of a hideousness which beggars words; nevertheless the items are not spared. She came up to Arthur and told him that she knew his counsel; none of his answers would help. If he would grant her one thing, she would warrant his life; otherwise, he must lose his head. This one thing was that she should be Gawain's wife. The king said this lay with Gawain; he would do what he could, but it were a pity to make Gawain wed so foul a lady. "No matter," she rejoined, "though I be foul: choice for a mate hath an owl. When thou comest to thine answer, I shall meet thee; else art thou lost."

The king returned to Carlisle with a heart no lighter, and the first man he saw was Gawain, who asked how he had sped. Never so ill: he had met a lady who had offered to save his life, but she was the foulest he had ever seen, and the condition was that Gawain should be her husband. "Is that all?" said Gawain. "I will wed her once and again, though she were the devil; else were I no friend." Well might the king exclaim, "Of all knights thou bearest the flower!"

After five or six days more the time came for the answer. The king had hardly ridden a mile into the forest when he met the lady, by name Dame Ragnell. He told her Gawain should wed her, and demanded _her_ answer. "Some say this and some say that, but above all things women desire to have the sovereignty; tell this to the knight; he will curse her that told thee, for his labor is lost." Arthur, thus equipped, rode on as fast as he could go, through mire and fen. Gromer was waiting, and sternly demanded the answer. Arthur offered his two books, for Dame Ragnell had told him to save himself by any of those answers if he could. "Nay, nay, king," said Gromer, "thou art but a dead man." "Abide, Sir Gromer, I have an answer shall make all sure. Women desire sovereignty." "She that told thee that was my sister, Dame Ragnell; I pray I may see her burn on a fire." And so they parted.

Dame Ragnell was waiting for Arthur, too, and would hear of nothing but immediate fulfillment of her bargain. She followed the king to his court, and required him to produce Gawain instantly, who came and plighted his troth. The queen begged her to be married privately, and early in the morning. Dame Ragnell would consent to no such arrangement. She would not go to church till high-mass time, and she would dine in the open hall. At her wedding she was dressed more splendidly than the queen, and she sat at the head of the table at the dinner afterwards. There her appetite was all but as horrible as her person: she ate three capons, three curlews, and great bake meats, all that was set before her, less and more.[287]

A leaf is wanting now, but what followed is easily imagined. She chided Gawain for his offishness, and begged him to kiss her, at least. "I will do more," said Gawain, and, turning, beheld the fairest creature he ever saw. But the transformed lady told him that her beauty would not hold: he must choose whether she should be fair by night and foul by day, or fair by day and foul by night.[288] Gawain said the choice was hard, and left all to her. "Gramercy," said the lady, "thou shalt have me fair both day and night." Then she told him that her step-dame had turned her into that monstrous shape by necromancy, not to recover her own till the best knight in England had wedded her and given her sovereignty in all points.[289] A charming little scene follows, vv 715-99, in which Arthur visits Gawain in the morning, fearing lest the fiend may have slain him. Something of this may very likely have been in that half page of the ballad which is lost after stanza 48.

Gower and Chaucer both have this tale, though with a different setting, and with the variation, beyond doubt original in the story, that the man whose life is saved by rightly answering the question has himself to marry the monstrous woman in return for her prompting him.

Gower relates, Confessio Amantis, Book First, I, 89-104, ed. Pauli, that Florent, nephew of the emperor, as Gawain is of Arthur, slew Branchus, a man of high rank. Branchus's kin refrained from vengeance, out of fear of the emperor; but a shrewd lady, grandmother to Branchus, undertook to compass Florent's death in a way that should bring blame upon nobody. She sent for Florent, and told him that she would engage that he should not be molested by the family of Branchus if he could answer a question she would ask. He was to have a proper allowance of time to find the answer, but he was also to agree that his life should be forfeited unless his answer were right. Florent made oath to this agreement, and sought the opinions of the wisest people upon the subject, but their opinions were in no accord. Considering, therefore, that he must default, he took leave of the emperor, adjuring him to allow no revenge to be taken if he lost his life, and went to meet his fate. But on his way through a forest he saw an ugly old woman, who called to him to stop. This woman told him that he was going to certain death, and asked what he would give her to save him. He said, anything she should ask, and she required of him a promise of marriage. That he would not give. "Ride on to your death, then," said she. Florent began to reflect that the woman was very old, and might be hidden away somewhere till she died, and that there was no other chance of deliverance, and at last pledged his word that he would marry her if it should turn out that his life could be saved only through the answer that she should teach him. She was perfectly willing that he should try all other shifts first, but if they failed, then let him say that women cared most to be sovereign in love. Florent kept back this answer as long as he could. None of his own replies availed, and the lady who presided in judgment at last told him that he could be allowed but one more. Then he gave the old woman's answer, and was discharged, with a curse on her that told.[290]

The old woman was waiting for Florent, and he now had full leisure to inspect all her points; but he was a knight, and would hold his troth. He set her on his horse before him, rode by night and lay close by day, till he came to his castle. There the ladies made an attempt to attire her for the wedding, and she was the fouler for their pains. They were married that night. He turned away from the bride; she prayed him not to be so discourteous. He turned toward her, with a great moral effort, and saw (for the chamber was full of light) a lady of eighteen, of unequalled beauty. As he would have drawn her to him she forbade, and said he must make his choice, to have her such by day or by night. "Choose for us both," was his reply. "Thanks," quoth she, "for since you have made me sovereign, I shall be both night and day as I am now." She explained that, having been daughter of the king of Sicily, her stepmother had forshapen her, the spell to hold till she had won the love and the sovereignty of what knight passed all others in good name.

The scene of Chaucer's tale, The Wife of Bath, returns to Arthur's court. One of the bachelors of the household, when returning from hawking, commits a rape, for which he is condemned to death. But the queen and other ladies intercede for him, and the king leaves his life at the disposal of the queen. The queen, like the shrewd lady in Gower, but with no intent to trapan the young man, says that his life shall depend upon his being able to tell her what women most desire, and gives him a year and a day to seek an answer. He makes extensive inquiries, but there is no region in which two creatures can be found to be of the same mind, and he turns homeward very downcast.

On his way through a wood he saw a company of ladies dancing, and moved towards them, in the hope that he might learn something. But ere he came the dancers had vanished, and all he found was the ugliest woman conceivable sitting on the green. She asked the knight what he wanted, and he told her it was to know what women most desire. "Plight me thy troth to do the next thing I ask of thee, and I will tell thee." He gave his word, and she whispered the secret in his ear.

The court assembled, the queen herself sitting as justice, and the knight was commanded to say what thing women love best. He made his response triumphantly; there was no dissenting voice. But as soon as he was declared to have ransomed his life, up sprang the old woman he had met in the wood. She had taught the man his answer, he had plighted his word to do the first thing she asked of him, and now she asked him to make her his wife. The promise was not disputed, but the poor youth begged her to make some other request; to take all he had in the world, and let him go. She would not yield, and they were married the next day. When they have gone to bed, the old wife, "smiling ever mo," rallies her husband for his indifference, and lectures him for objecting to ugliness, age, and vulgar birth, which things, she says, are a great security for him, and then gives him his election, to have her ugly and old as she is, but true, or young and fair, with the possible contingencies. The knight has the grace to leave the decision to her. "Then I have the sovereignty," she says, "and I will be both fair and good; throw up the curtain and see." Fair and young she was, and they lived to their lives' end in perfect joy.

Chaucer has left out the step-mother and her bewitchment, and saves, humbles, and rewards the young knight by the agency of a good fairy; for the ugly old woman is evidently such by her own will and for her own purposes. She is "smiling ever mo," and has the power, as she says, to set all right whenever she pleases. Her fate is not dependent on the knight's compliance, though his is.

The Wife of Bath's Tale is made into a ballad, or what is called a sonnet, 'Of a Knight and a Fair Virgin,' in The Crown Garland of Golden Roses, compiled by Richard Johnson, not far from 1600: see the Percy Society reprint, edited by W. Chappell, vol. vi of the series, p. 68. Upon Chaucer's story is founded Voltaire's tale, admirable in its way, of Ce qui plaît aux Dames, 1762; of which the author writes, 1765, November 4, that it had had great success at Fontainebleau in the form of a comic opera, entitled La Fée Urgèle.[291] The amusing ballad of The Knight and Shepherd's Daughter has much in common with the Wife of Bath's Tale, and might, if we could trace its pedigree, go back to a common original.[292]

Tales resembling the Marriage of Gawain must have been widely spread during the Middle Ages. The ballad of 'King Henry' has much in common with the one now under consideration, and Norse and Gaelic connections, and is probably much earlier. At present I can add only one parallel out of English, and that from an Icelandic saga.

Grímr was on the verge of marriage with Lopthæna, but a week before the appointed day the bride was gone, and nobody knew what had become of her. Her father had given her a step-mother five years before, and the step-mother had been far from kind; but what then? Grímr was restless and unhappy, and got no tidings. A year of scarcity coming, he left home with two of his people. After an adventure with four trolls, he had a fight with twelve men, in which, though they were all slain, he lost his comrades and was very badly wounded. As he lay on the ground, looking only for death, a woman passed, if so she might be called; for she was not taller than a child of seven years, so stout that Grímr's arms would not go round her, misshapen, bald, black, ugly, and disgusting in every particular. She came up to Grímr, and asked him if he would accept his life from her. "Hardly," said he, "you are so loathsome." But life was precious, and he presently consented. She took him up and ran with him, as if he were a babe, till she came to a large cave; there she set him down, and it seemed to Grímr that she was uglier than before. "Now pay me for saving your life," she said, "and kiss me." "I cannot," said Grímr, "you look so diabolical." "Expect no help, then, from me," said she, "and I see that it will soon be all over with you." "Since it must be, loath as I am," said Grímr, and went and kissed her; she seemed not so bad to kiss as to look at. When night came she made up a bed, and asked Grímr whether he would lie alone or with her. "Alone," he answered. "Then," said she, "I shall take no pains about healing your wounds." Grímr said he would rather lie with her, if he had no other chance, and she bound up his wounds, so that he seemed to feel no more of them. No sooner was Grímr abed than he fell asleep, and when he woke, he saw lying by him almost the fairest woman he had ever laid eyes on, and marvellously like his true-love, Lopthæna. At the bedside he saw lying the troll-casing which she had worn; he jumped up and burned this. The woman was very faint; he sprinkled her with water, and she came to, and said, It is well for both of us; I saved thy life first, and thou hast freed me from bondage. It was indeed Lopthæna, whom the step-mother had transformed into a horrible shape, odious to men and trolls, which she should never come out of till a man should consent to three things,--which no man ever would,--to accept his life at her hands, to kiss her, and to share her bed. Gríms saga loðinkinna, Rafn, Fornaldar Sögur, II, 143-52.

Sir Frederic Madden, in his annotations upon this ballad, 'Syr Gawayne,' p. 359, remarks that Sir Steven, stanza 31, does not occur in the Round Table romances; that Sir Banier, 32, is probably a mistake for Beduer, the king's constable; and that Sir Bore and Sir Garrett, in the same stanza, are Sir Bors de Gauves, brother of Lionel, and Gareth, or Gaheriet, the younger brother of Gawain.

'The Marriage of Sir Gawaine,' as filled out by Percy from the fragments in his manuscript, Reliques, 1765, III, 11, is translated by Bodmer, I, 110; by Bothe, p. 75; by Knortz, Lieder u. Romanzen Alt-Englands, p. 135.

1
Kinge Arthur liues in merry Carleile,
And seemely is to see,
And there he hath with him Queene Genev_er_,
_Tha_t bride soe bright of blee.

2
And there he hath w_i_th [him] Queene Genever,
_Tha_t bride soe bright in bower,
And all his barons about him stoode,
_Tha_t were both stiffe and stowre.

3
The k_ing_ kept a royall Christmasse,
Of mirth and great honor,
And when ...
. . . . . . .

* * * * * * *

4
'And bring me word what thing it is
T_ha_t a woman [will] most desire;
This shalbe thy ransome, Arthur,' he sayes,
'For Ile haue noe other hier.'

5
K_ing_ Arthur then held vp his hand,
According thene as was the law;
He tooke his leaue of the baron there,
And homward can he draw.

6
And when he came to merry Carlile,
To his chamber he is gone,
And ther came to him his cozen S_i_r Gawaine,
As he did make his mone.

7
And there came to him his cozen S_i_r Gawaine,
_Tha_t was a curteous knight;
'Why sigh you soe sore, vnckle Arthur,' he said,
'Or who hath done thee vnright? '

8
'O peace, O peace, thou gentle Gawaine,
_Tha_t faire may thee beffall!
For if thou knew my sighing soe deepe,
Thou wold not meruaile att all.

9
'Ffor when I came to Tearne Wadling,
A bold barron there I fand,
W_i_th a great club vpon his backe,
Standing stiffe and strong.

10
'And he asked me wether I wold fight
Or from him I shold begone,
O[r] else I must him a ransome pay,
And soe dep_ar_t him from.

11
'To fight w_i_th him I saw noe cause;
Methought it was not meet;
For he was stiffe and strong w_i_th-all,
His strokes were nothing sweete.

12
'Therefor this is my ransome, Gawaine,
I ought to him to pay;
I must come againe, as I am sworne,
Vpon the New Yeers day;

13
'And I must bring him word what thing it is
. . . . . . .
. . . . . . .
. . . . . . .

* * * * * * *

14
Then king Arthur drest him for to ryde,
In one soe rich array,
Toward the fore-said Tearne Wadling,
_Tha_t he might keepe his day.

15
And as he rode over a more,
Hee see a lady where shee sate
Betwixt an oke and a greene hollen;
She was cladd in red scarlett.

16
Then there as shold haue stood her mouth,
Then there was sett her eye;
The other was in her forhead fast,
The way that she might see.

17
Her nose was crooked and turnd outward,
Her mouth stood foule a-wry;
A worse formed lady than shee was,
Neuer man saw w_i_th his eye.

18
To halch vpon him, K_ing_ Arthur,
This lady was full faine,
But K_ing_ Arthur had forgott his lesson,
What he shold say againe.

19
'What knight art thou,' the lady sayd,
'That will not speak to me?
Of me be thou nothing dismayd,
Tho I be vgly to see.

20
'For I haue halched you curteouslye,
And you will not me againe;
Yett I may happen S_i_r Knight,' shee said,
'To ease thee of thy paine.'

21
'Giue thou ease me, lady,' he said,
'Or helpe me any thing,
Thou shalt have gentle Gawaine, my cozen,
And marry him w_i_th a ring.'

22
'Why, if I help thee not, thou noble K_ing_ Arthur,
Of thy owne hearts desiringe,
Of gentle Gawaine ...
. . . . . . .

* * * * * * *

23
And when he came to the Tearne Wadling,
The baron there cold he finde,
W_i_th a great weapon on his backe,
Standing stiffe and stronge.

24
And then he tooke K_ing_ Arthurs letters in his hands,
And away he cold them fling,
And then he puld out a good browne sword,
And cryd himselfe a k_ing_.

25
And he sayd, I have thee and thy land, Arthur,
To doe as it pleaseth me,
For this is not thy ransome sure,
Therfore yeeld thee to me.

26
And then bespoke him noble Arthur,
And bad him hold his hand:
'And giue me leaue to speake my mind
In defence of all my land.'

27
He said, As I came over a more,
I see a lady where shee sate
Betweene an oke and a green hollen;
Shee was clad in red scarlett.

28
And she says a woman will haue her will,
And this is all her cheef desire:
Doe me right, as thou art a baron of sckill,
This is thy ransome and all thy hyer.

29
He sayes, An early vengeance light on her!
She walkes on yonder more;
It was my sister that told thee this,
And she is a misshappen hore.

30
But heer Ile make mine avow to God
To doe her an euill turne,
For an euer I may thate fowle theefe get,
In a fyer I will her burne.

* * * * * * *

31
Sir Lancelott and S_i_r Steven bold,
They rode w_i_th them that day,
And the formost of the company
There rode the steward Kay.

32
Soe did S_i_r Banier and S_i_r Bore,
S_i_r Garrett with them soe gay,
Soe did S_i_r Tristeram _tha_t gentle k_nigh_t,
To the forrest fresh and gay.

33
And when he came to the greene forrest,
Vnderneath a greene holly tree,
Their sate that lady in red scarlet
_Tha_t vnseemly was to see.

34
S_i_r Kay beheld this ladys face,
And looked vppon her swire;
'Whosoeuer kisses this lady,' he sayes,
'Of his kisse he stands in feare.'

35
S_i_r Kay beheld the lady againe,
And looked vpon her snout;
'Whosoeuer kisses this lady,' he saies,
'Of his kisse he stands in doubt.'

36
'Peace, coz_en_ Kay,' then said S_i_r Gawaine,
'Amend thee of thy life;
For there is a knight amongst vs all
_Tha_t must marry her to his wife.'

37
'What! wedd her to wiffe!' then said S_i_r Kay,
'In the diuells name anon!
Gett me a wiffe where-ere I may,
For I had rather be slaine!'

38
Then some tooke vp their hawkes in hast,
And some tooke vp their hounds,
And some sware they wold not marry her
For citty nor for towne.

39
And then be-spake him noble K_ing_ Arthur,
And sware there by this day,
'For a litle foule sight and misliking
. . . . . . .

* * * * * * *

40
Then shee said, Choose thee, gentle Gawaine,
Truth as I doe say,
Wether thou wilt haue me in this liknesse
In the night or else in the day.

41
And then bespake him gentle Gawaine,
Was one soe mild of moode,
Sayes, Well I know what I wold say,
God grant it may be good!

42
To haue thee fowle in the night
When I w_i_th thee shold play--
Yet I had rather, if I might,
Haue thee fowle in the day.

43
'What! when lords goe w_i_th ther feires,' shee said,
'Both to the ale and wine,
Alas! then I must hyde my selfe,
I must not goe withinne.'

44
And then bespake him gentle Gawaine,
Said, Lady, that's but skill;
And because thou art my owne lady,
Thou shalt haue all thy will.

45
Then she said, Blesed be thou, gentle Gawain,
This day _tha_t I thee see,
For as thou seest me att this time,
From hencforth I wilbe.

46
My father was an old knight,
And yett it chanced soe
_Tha_t he marryed a younge lady
That brought me to this woe.

47
Shee witched me, being a faire young lady,
To the greene forrest to dwell,
And there I must walke in womans liknesse,
Most like a feend of hell.

48
She witched my brother to a carlish b ...
. . . . . . .
. . . . . . .
. . . . . . .

* * * * * * *

49
. . . . . . .
. . . . . . .
'That looked soe foule, and that was wont
On the wild more to goe.'

50
'Come kisse her, brother Kay,' then said S_i_r Gawaine,
'And amend thé of thy liffe;
I sweare this is the same lady
_Tha_t I marryed to my wiffe.'

51
S_i_r Kay kissed that lady bright,
Standing vpon his ffeete;
He swore, as he was trew knight,
The spice was neuer soe sweete.

52
'Well, coz_en_ Gawaine,' sayes S_i_r Kay,
'Thy chance is fallen arright,
For thou hast gotten one of the fairest maids
I euer saw with my sight.'

53
'It is my fortune,' said S_i_r Gawaine;
'For my vnckle Arthurs sake
I am glad as grasse wold be of raine,
Great ioy that I may take.'

54
S_i_r Gawaine tooke the lady by the one arme,
S_i_r Kay tooke her by the tother,
They led her straight to K_ing_ Arthur,
As they were brother and brother.

55
K_ing_ Arthur welcomed them there all,
And soe did Lady Geneuer his queene,
W_i_th all the knights of the Round Table,
Most seemly to be scene.

56
K_ing_ Arthur beheld that lady faire
That was soe faire and bright,
He thanked Christ in Trinity
For S_i_r Gawaine that gentle knight.

57
Soe did the knights, both more and lesse,
Reioyced all _tha_t day
For the good chance that hapened was
To S_i_r Gawaine and his lady gay.

* * * * *

1^3. Qqueene.

3^3. _Half a page gone from the MS., about 9 stanzas; and
so after 13^1, 22^3, 30^4, 39^3, 48^1._

19^1. _Perhaps ~sayes~._

23^2. he fimde.

25^1. _Perhaps ~sayes~._

26^2. _Perhaps ~hands~._

27^1. _~He~ altered from ~the~ in MS._

31. "The 2d Part" _is written here in the left margin of
the MS._ Furnivall.

34^2. her smire.

37^4. shaine.

41^2. w_i_th one.

43^1. seires.

44^2. a skill.

45^3. thou see

48^1. Carlist B ... _~&~ is printed ~and~._

[284] Still so called: near Aiketgate, Hesket. Lysons, Cumberland, p. 112.

[285] 'The Weddynge of S^r Gawen and Dame Ragnell,' Rawlinson MS., C 86, Bodleian Library, the portion containing the poem being paper, and indicating the close of Henry VII's reign. The poem is in six-line stanzas, and, with a leaf that is wanting, would amount to about 925 lines. Madden's Syr Gawayne, lxiv, lxvii, 26, 298^a-298^y.

[286] Sir Gromer occurs in "The Turke and Gowin," Percy MS., Hales and Furnivall, I, 102; Sir Grummore Grummorsum, "a good knight of Scotland," in Morte d'Arthur; ed. Wright, I, 286 and elsewhere (Madden).

[287] See 'King Henry,' the next ballad.

[288] The Gaelic tale of 'The Hoodie' offers a similar choice. The hoodie, a species of crow, having married the youngest of a farmer's three daughters, says to her, "Whether wouldst thou rather that I should be a hoodie by day and a man at night, or be a hoodie at night and a man by day?" The woman maintains her proper sovereignty, and does not leave the decision to him: "'I would rather that thou wert a man by day and a hoodie at night,' says she. After this he was a splendid fellow by day, and a hoodie at night." Campbell, Popular Tales of the West Highlands, I, 63.

The having one shape by day and another by night is a common feature in popular tales: as, to be a bear by day and a man by night, Hrólfr Kraki's Saga, c. 26, Asbjørnsen og Moe, Norske Folkeeventyr, No 41; a lion by day and a man by night, Grimms, K. u. H. m., No 88; a crab by day and a man by night, B. Schmidt, Griechische Märchen, u. s. w., No 10; a snake by day and a man by night, Karadshitch, Volksmärchen der Serben, Nos 9, 10; a pumpkin by day and a man by night, A. & A. Schott, Walachische Mærchen, No 23; a ring by day, a man by night, Müllenhoff, No 27, p. 466, Karadshitch, No 6, Afanasief, VI, 189. Three princes in 'Kung Lindorm,' Nicolovius, Folklifwet, p. 48 ff, are cranes by day and men by night, the king himself being man by day and worm by night. The double shape is sometimes implied though not mentioned.

[289] The brother, Grower Somer Joure, was a victim of the same necromancy; so the Carl of Carlile, Percy MS., Hales & Furnivall, III, 291.

[290]

And whan that this matrone herde
The maner how this knight answerde,
She saide, Ha, treson, wo the be!
That hast thus told the privete
Which alle women most desire:
I wolde that thou were a-fire!

So Sir Gawen and Dame Ragnell, vv 474 f, and our ballad, stanzas 29, 30.

[291] This was a melodrama by Favart, in four acts: reduced in 1821 to one act, at the Gymnase.

[292] Chaucer's tale is commonly said to be derived from Gower's, but without sufficient reason. Vv 6507-14, ed. Tyrwhitt, are close to Dame Ragnell, 409-420. Gower may have got his from some Example-book. I have not seen it remarked, and therefore will note, that Example-books may have been known in England as early as 1000, for Aelfric seems to speak slightingly of them in his treatise on the Old Testament. The Proverbs, he says, is a "bigspellbóc, _ná swilce gé secgað_, ac wísdómes bigspell and warnung wið dysig," etc.

32

KING HENRY

'King Henry.' #a.# The Jamieson-Brown MS., fol. 31. #b.#
Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border, 1802, II, 132.

Scott describes his copy of 'King Henry' as "edited from the MS. of Mrs Brown, corrected by a recited fragment." This MS. of Mrs Brown was William Tytler's, in which, as we learn from Anderson's communication to Percy (see p. 62, above), this ballad was No 11. Anderson notes that it extended to twenty-two stanzas, the number in Scott's copy. No account is given of the recited fragment. As published by Jamieson, II, 194, the ballad is increased by interpolation to thirty-four stanzas. "The interpolations will be found inclosed in brackets," but a painful contrast of style of itself distinguishes them. They were entered by Jamieson in his manuscript as well.