This page has been validated.
MABINOGI AND CONTE DU GRAAL.
133
| Mabinogi |
Conte du Graal |
| Inc. | Inc. |
7. Reproaches of foster-sister whom he finds lamenting over a dead knight.
|
8. Reproached by his cousin; also instructed by her about the magic sword.
|
8. Adventure with the damsel of the besieged castle who offers herself to hero.
|
6. Blanchefleur, Gonemant's niece.
|
9. Second meeting with the lady of the tent.
|
9. |
10. First encounter with the sorceresses of Gloucester, who are forced to desist from assailing hero's hostess.
|
|
11. Adventure of the drops of blood in the snow.
|
10. |
20. Reproaching of Peredur before the Court by the loathly damsel.
|
11. |
21. Gwalchmai's adventure with the lady whose father he had slain.
|
14. |
22. Peredur's meeting the knight on Good Friday, and confession to priest.
|
15. Hermit, hero's uncle. |
| Gautier | |
24. Arrival at the Castle of Wonders (Chessboard Castle); stag hunt; loss of dog; fight with the black man of the cromlech.
|
Inc. 7, 8, and partly 13 and 18.
|
25. Second arrival at the (Grail) castle; achievement of the Quest by destruction of sorceresses of Gloucester. "Thus it is related concerning the Castle of Wonders."
|
22. In so far as Gautier ends his part of the story here with the hero's second arrival at the Grail Castle, but no similarity in the incidents.
|
The sequence is thus exactly the same in the Mabinogi and in Chrestien, with the single exception of the Blanchefleur incident, which, in the French poem precedes, in the Welsh tale follows, the first visit to the Grail Castle. The similarity of order is sufficient of itself to warrant the surmise of a relation such as that of copy to original. If the Mabinogi be examined closely, much will be found to strengthen this surmise. Thus, Birch-Hirschfeld has pointed out that when Peredur first sees the knights, and on asking his mother what they may be, receives the answer, "Angels,
