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| ISBN-13: | 9781613732106 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Chicago Review Press, Incorporated |
| Publication date: | 03/17/2023 |
| Sold by: | Barnes & Noble |
| Format: | eBook |
| Pages: | 315 |
| File size: | 2 MB |
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Celtic Myth and Arthurian Romance
By Roger Sherman Loomis
Chicago Review Press Incorporated
Copyright © 1997 Academy Chicago PublishersAll rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-61373-210-6
CHAPTER 1
AN ITALIAN SCULPTURE AND A BRETON TALE
To think of Medieval Romance is to gaze through magic casements opening on the foam of perilous seas in faery lands forlorn: it is to dream of faery damsels met in forest wide by knights of Logres or of Lyones, Lancelot or Pelleas or Pellenore; it brings near the island valley of Avilion, deep-meadowed, happy, fair with orchard lawns and bowery hollows crowned with summer sea; we behold Bors, Perceval, and Galahad sailing in Solomon's magic bark for the Land of Sarras; with Parsifal we listen bewildered to the haunting music of the Grail and witness that strange agonized ritual with a mute wonder.
In short, Medieval Romance is dominated by the legends of Arthur and the Table Round. It is they which during the twelfth century placed their enchantment upon Europe. In Sicily, Spain, Iceland, and the Kingdom of Jerusalem, the names of Gawain and Morgan le Fay came to be as well known as they were in England or France. So powerful was the spell of Arthurian legend that its great rival, the Carolingian epic, took over, as the Pèlerinage Charlemagne indicates, much of its supernatural machinery. Arthurian legend borrowed little from the chansons de geste, but the "epics" of Ogier and Huon de Bordeaux incorporate masses of Arthurian material. Quite properly, then, is our conception of Medieval Romance filled with the strange pageantry, charged with the mysterious glamour that distinguishes the Matter of Britain from other medieval cycles.
This strangeness, this mystery lies not simply in the common magical elements of folklore, — the sudden metamorphoses and vanishings, the enchanted weapons and barges, the giants, dwarfs, and monsters. It lies also in the tantalizing suggestion which must occur at times to every sensitive reader that more is meant than meets the ear. It is not only Matthew Arnold who in reading the tales of the Mabinogion suspects that "the medieval storyteller is pillaging an antiquity of which he does not fully possess the secret; ... he builds, but what he builds is full of materials of which he knows not the history, or knows by a glimmering tradition merely, stones 'not of this building,' but of an older architecture, greater, cunninger, more majestical."
But so scattered, so battered are the relics of that older architecture that there are scholars who deny altogether that Arthurian romance is constructed out of the ruins of a pagan Pantheon. There are others, however, who have pointed out that Gawain, whose strength waxed and waned with the mounting and sinking of the sun in the heavens, must have been a solar hero; others have seen in the Grail legend the survival of a long forgotten initiation ceremony into a cult of fertility; others have traced the enchanter Mabon back through the Welsh Mabon son of Modron to Apollo Maponos, worshiped in Gaul and Britain. But there has been only one comprehensive attempt to discover the mythological concepts and figures which, like gigantic shadows thrown on a hillside, loom up behind the mail-clad knights and trimly girdled ladies of Camelot.
Sir John Rhys did not, however, work out the Celtic mythological system from the evidence of the Irish and Welsh legends themselves, but tried to fit them into the scheme which Max Muller had constructed largely from Sanscrit sources. Rhys further weakened his case by his patent ignorance of any but the Welsh and English versions of the Arthurian cycle. He not only failed, in spite of the great value of many of his suggestions, to impress the learned world; he himself abandoned and led others to abandon the attempt to interpret the Matter of Britain as a faded mythology. So, although medieval authors themselves referred to Morgan le Fay as "dea quaedam phantastica," spoke of Gawain and Lunete as the sun and moon, and testified that the common folk in old times regarded Merlin as a god, modern scholars have been much warier. An influential body of them consider the vast literature of the Round Table cycle as mainly springing from the imaginations of French authors of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. The old practise of claiming asauthority the tales of the "Bretons" they consider mere convention; the romances, broadly speaking, a late invention.
Without accepting Rhys's particular mythological identifications, it seems possible none the less to accept his basic theory and to agree whole-heartedly in the belief that most of the British and Armoric knights that encircle Uther's son where once gods or deified men. The fundamental stories about their births, their deaths, their combats, their loves, are, once understood, as good mythology as any that exists.
How and where shall we find our entrance from the world of romance into that Other World of the gods? A number of facts scattered about in books on archaeology, history, and literature, when brought together and correlated, enable us to imagine with fair accuracy a scene where knightly adventure and mythical significances seem clearly mingled in the tale of a Breton minstrel.
In November 1096 along the white road, bordered with grey-green olive orchards, leading into the city of Bari, far down in the heel of Italy, a long cavalcade of knights on jaded horses was riding. Their ringed hauberks were rusty, but their shields and fluttering pennons were gay with indigo, green, and cinnabar. It was a long journey they had come, for here were the Duke of Brittany, Alan Fergant, and his vassals, Riou de Loheac, Ralph de Gael, Conan de Lamballe, and Alan, steward of the Archbishop of Dol. And on every knight's arms was the sign of the cross, for they were all vowed to win back the Holy Sepulchre from the Turk. Presently the battlemented walls of Bari loomed up before them; their horses drummed across the drawbridge and clattered through the cobbled streets. Here they were destined to stay for four months, since the Apulian mariners would not risk a winter crossing to Greece. The Breton nobles had to wile away many a long hour. Doubtless they visited the newly built church of Saint Nicholas, and prostrated themselves before the hallowed bones of its patron. But they had other resources. If we enter the great banqueting hall of the Norman Count of Apulia, Roger Bursa, we may find help in our quest. There he sits on the dais with his guests, Robert Curthose, the warrior Duke of Normandy, and the aged Alan Fergant, Duke of Brittany. Squires pass frequently, filling the great drinking-horns with wine. In the middle of the hall the logs blaze. Robert of Normandy, known as a liberal patron of minstrels, calls for a tale. There arises, as we may surmise, a famous Breton conteur. He stands before the dais, and in a loud clear voice, tells his story, impersonating the various characters in gesture, thrust and blow, and intonation. What the story was that he told we shall never know precisely, but its general outline we may by strange chance guess. If we follow the road north from Bari along the coast as far as the Po Valley and turn north-west to Modena, we come to the famous cathedral, on which in 1099 a group of sculptors from Bari began work. On the archivolt of the north portal there is carved a scene which we shall presently recognize as an Arthurian story with Bretonized names. The only explanation for its existence is the one already suggested — that it was a story told by a Breton conteur in the presence of Crusaders and craftsmen gathered at Bari in 1096, a story so memorable and so graphic that it was at last fixed in marble at Modena. To this day it still bears witness to the power of that ancient tale. (See frontispiece.)
In the center is a castle surrounded by waters. On the keep hang a shield and spear. Two persons are within, a woman named Winlogee and a man named Mardoc, both much perturbed. The castle has two opposite entrances defended by wooden barbicans. Before the left barbican stands a churl labeled Burmaltus, brandishing a pick-like weapon called a baston cornu. Against him ride three knights, Artus de Bretania, Isdernus, and an unnamed knight. It is noteworthy that Isdernus wears neither helmet nor hauberk. From the other barbican gallops forth a knight, Carrado, striking with his lance the first of three attacking knights, — Galvaginus, Galvariun, and Che.
Practically all archaeologists agree that the sculpture is to be dated early in the twelfth century. An account of the building of the cathedral, the Relatio Translationis Corporis Sancti Geminiani, speaks of sculptural activity between the commencement of the work in 1099 and the consecration in 1106. "The marbles are dug out, and the scenes carved and polished with marvelous art." That the Arthurian sculpture belongs among these earliest works is proved by the fact that five of the helmets depicted are conical, forming in outline an isosceles triangle, — a fashion which by the year 1109 was being supplanted by a form which showed a curved or longer line in the back and of which no later twelfth century example can be found. The knights of the Modena sculpture, then, mirror for us the champions of the first Crusade. Such in appearance were Bohemund, Tancred, and Godfrey de Bouillon.
This carving was first brought directly to the attention of students of medieval romance by Foerster in 1898. He detected a curious resemblance between the sculptured scene and the story of Carado of the Dolorous Tower in the Vulgate Lancelot, which related the carrying off of Gawain by a gigantic knight named Carado; the imprisonment of Gawain in a castle with two perilous entrances, at one of which stood a churl; the pursuit of Carado by Galeschin, Ivain, Arthur, and Keu; and the final deliverance of Gawain by Lancelot, who slays Carado with his own sword, placed by a maiden whom Carado had abducted within Lancelot's reach. Foerster pointed out that in this episode were the castle with two entrances, the churl standing before the gate, the lord of the castle Carado fighting against Arthur and his knights, Keu and Galeschin, who correspond to Che and Galvariun on the sculpture.
Foerster had the puzzle half solved, but he failed to identify the key personage of the sculpture, — the lady Winlogee. To be sure, back in the year 1845 Borghi had proposed that we had here a version of the encounter between Arthur and Modred for the possession of Guinevere, but no one had taken the suggestion seriously enough to proceed on the assumption that Winlogee was Guinevere. But certain facts make that assumption secure. Winlogee is a form of the Breton name Winlowen or Wenlowen, meaning "white and joyous." In the De Ortu Walwanii Arthur's queen is called Gwendoloena. In the romance of Yder the hero is represented as the lover of a queen named Guenloie, whereas he is elsewhere said to be the lover of Guinevere. Indeed, the same romance preserves clear traces of a tender relationship betwen Guinevere and Yder, even though he is actually represented as the lover of Queen Guenloie. This confusion is due to the fact that the more mellifluous name Win-lowen or Winlogee had been substituted by a few Breton conteurs for the Welsh Gwenhwyvar, although the great majority preserved the name as Guenievre. The author of Yder was attempting to reconcile two stories, one of which gave as the name of Yder's beloved Guenievre, and the other, Guenloie. But that these were one and the same person there can hardly be a doubt.
Now any Arthurian scholar, seeing Arthur's queen in a castle surrounded by great waters, approached by two entrances, would have at least a shrewd suspicion that this must be one of the versions of the abduction of Guinevere. He would not, however, feel sure until he could detect among the extant literary versions some correspondences of detail with the Modena sculpture. One obvious feature of the Modena relief is the prominence of Galvaginus, who is, of course, Gawain. He alone bears an elaborately decorated shield and seems to be in combat with the more formidable of the queen's defenders. In the best-known forms of the abduction story, Crestien de Troyes's Chevalier de la Charette and the nineteenth book of Malory's Morte d'Arthur, Lancelot is the rescuer. But Miss Weston showed long ago that in Hartmann von Aue's Iwein it is distinctly implied that Gawain is the hero of the exploit. Let me quote: "A knight appears at Arthur's court and requires the king to grant him a boon — whatever he may ask. Arthur demurs, but finally yields to the knight's taunts and gives the required promise, when the knight demands the queen and carries her off. ... The knights arm to pursue the ravisher; Kay is the first to overtake him, and is struck from his horse with such violence that his helmet catches in the bough of a tree, and he hangs suspended. ... One after another all the knights are vanquished, and Guinevere is carried off. Gawain is not at court; had he been there it would never have happened; he returns the next day, and rides at once in search of the queen. Later on we are told he has returned to court, and a few lines further on that in these same days the queen had returned from her captivity. Who freed her is not stated, but we are led to infer that it was Gawain. Lancelot is not once mentioned throughout the poem.
Hartmann is not alone in representing Gawain as the rescuer of Guinevere. Heinrich von dem Türlin makes him the hero of her abduction by Gasozein, and the Livre d'Artus, of her abduction by Urien. Even though Crestien has made Gawain's failure a foil for the prowess of Lancelot, it was a deliberate perversion of a strong tradition which represented Gawain as the Queen's deliverer.
Four other features on the Modena archivolt are accounted for by the abduction story in Durmart le Gallois, a romance assigned to the second quarter of the thirteenth century: the castle of the abductor is surrounded by a wide marsh; shields are hung on the sides of the keep; the queen is found with her lover in the castle; and Ydier, like Isdernus, wears no armor. This last feature alone should convince us that we are on the right track. The subject of the sculpture must be the abduction of Guinevere.
How can we reconcile this conclusion with the manifest correspondence between the sculpture and the Carado of the Dolorous Tower episode, which Foerster detected? For the Dolorous Tower episode is an abduction not of Guinevere but of Gawain. Yet anyone examining carefully that episode will soon discover that it incorporates many incidents found in Crestien's account of the abduction of Guinevere, and may properly suspect that the Dolorous Tower story is the result of a deliberate manipulation. By substituting Lancelot for Gawain as hero and Gawain for Guinevere as victim, the author of the Lancelot achieved the double result of avoiding a cumbersome repetition of the Guinevere abduction theme and of glorifying Lancelot at the expense of Gawain. Not only was such a procedure in accordance with the author's artistic purposes, but it may also have had the backing of precedent, for, as we shall discover later, the tradition of Gawain's delivery from prison by Lancelot may represent almost as ancient tradition as Gawain's rescue of Guinevere. By reversing the author's process and making Gawain the hero of the Dolorous Tower episode and Guinevere the victim, we get most of the features we need to explain the Modena sculpture, and what the Dolorous Tower episode does not supply the Durmart version of the abduction of Guinevere does. With the aid of these survivals, one dating from the first quarter, the other from the second quarter of the thirteenth century, we can practically reconstruct the tale told by the Breton conteur at Bari during the winter of 1096–7.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from Celtic Myth and Arthurian Romance by Roger Sherman Loomis. Copyright © 1997 Academy Chicago Publishers. Excerpted by permission of Chicago Review Press Incorporated.
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Table of Contents
Contents
BOOK I. FROM KNIGHTS OF THE ROUND TABLE TO IRISH GODS,I. An Italian Sculpture and a Breton Tale,
II. The Rape of the Flower Maiden,
III. Celtic Story-Channels and Story-Ways,
IV. Irish Gods of Sun and Storm,
BOOK II. THE YOUNG GOD AND THE OLD,
V. Curoi, Gwri, and Gawain,
VI. Yellow Son of Fair,
VII. Moulds for Myths,
VIII. Gareth and Lynete,
IX. Lug, Lancelot, and Lot,
X. Disenchantment by Decapitation,
XI. The Porter of the Other World,
XII. The Mule without a Bridle,
XIII .The Giant Herdsman,
XIV. Merlin the Shapeshifter,
BOOK III. THE CULT OF THE GRAIL,
XV. The Ancestors of Galaad,
XVI. The Grail Heroes,
XVII. The Grail Castle,
XVIII. Fisher King and Maimed King,
XIX. Evalach, Avalon, and Morgan Le Fay,
XX. Kair Belli and Kaer Sidi,
XXI. Sone de Nansaj,
XXII. The Siege Perilous,
XXIII. The Grail and the Testing Horn,
XXIV. The Treasures of the Tuatha De,
XXV. Balaain and Galaad,
XXVI. The Mysteries of the Grail,
BOOK IV. BRIDES OF THE SUN,
XXVII. The Grail Damsels,
XXVIII. The Goddesses of Samothrace,
XXIX. The Hag Transformed,
XXX. Proserpine and Febus,
BOOK V. FROM IRISH AND WELSH GODS TO A BRITISH CHIEFTAIN,
XXXI. Knights of the Swan,
XXXII. The Captive God,
XXXIII. Gawain, Pope Gregory, and Mordred,
XXXIV. The Gods and Geoffrey Of Monmouth,
XXXV. Arthur Mab Uter,
Charts,
List of Welch Names,
List of Abbreviations,
Index of Names,