noted, almost unrepresented by the French romances, which for the most part picture Arthur as a roi fainéant, and profoundly degrade the characteristic figure of Kai. Here, too, philology lends us her aid; Cath Palug (Old Welsh Paluc) would readily become Capalu or Chapalu—the reverse process is impossible.[1] Is then the combat of the race hero and the monstrous cat a genuine fragment of Brythonic saga? Another possibility must be faced before this is granted. The already cited Bataille Loquifer describes the monster as having “tete d’un chat, pieds d’un dragon, corps d’un cheval, queue d’un lion.”[2] If this description goes back to a Welsh original, it would seem that the Cath Palug was a sort of Chimæra. Are we then to look upon this episode as a Brythonic variant of a Pan-Aryan myth descriptive of a strife between the hero and a tempest-demon, or only as the creation of some classically read Welshman?
These considerations have carried us away somewhat from Mons. Gaston Paris’ work, some obiter dicta in which I would specially notice. A propos of the Vengeance de Raguidel, he says: “D’ailleurs cette exaltation conventionelle de la femme est inconnue à la plus ancienne poésie Celtique à laquelle appartient cette malicieuse histoire, comme aussi celle de la Corne enchantée ou du Court Manteau.”[3] But do these chastity-test stories belong to “la plus ancienne poésie Celtique”, and was it not Celtic poetry, on the contrary, that largely inspired the conventional exaltation of woman in mediæval romance? Again, the dragon-fight in Tristan induces the remark, “l’épopée Celtique contient comme toutes les épopées des elements adventices à côté de données nationales.”[4] Granted, but how are these to be distinguished? Is every element to be set down as adventitious that
