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This is to certify that the

thesis entitled

A Translation and Literary Study
of De Ortu Walwanii,
A Thirteenth Century Romance

presented by

James Leon Wieber

has been accepted towards fulfillment
of the requirements for

Ph.D. degree in English

{La/«— & Moe/“5C“,

(1 Major pr essor
Date November 20,1973

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ABSTRACT

A TRANSLATION AND LITERARY STUDY OF
DE ORTU WALWANII, A THIRTEENTH
CENTURY ROMANCE

 

BY

James Leon Wieber

De Ortu Walwanii is an account in Latin of the

 

birth and early life of Sir Gawain. It exists in only one
manuscript, the Cotton MS. Faustina B. VI of the British
Museum, and was first edited by J. Douglas Bruce in EMEA,
13 (1898), 365-456. A few years later Bruce published a

second edition in Historia Meriadoci and De Ortu Waluuanii,

 

Johns Hopkins University Press Series Hesperia, No. 2

 

(Baltimore, 1913).

The first chapter of my dissertation deals with
authorship and date. While some scholars have tried to
ascribe the romance to Robert of Torigni, the consensus of
opinion today is that the author remains anonymous, that
he was a man of considerable learning, probably a member of
one of the ecclesiastical orders, and probably an English-

man or Anglo-Norman. As for the date of De Ortu Walwanii,

 

the terminus ad quem would be the early fourteenth century

 

as indicated by the manuscript. Although scholars have

James Leon Wieber

tried to fix the terminus a quo at various points between

 

the mid-twelfth and mid-thirteenth century, I believe that
the scientific ingredients in the recipe for Greek fire

indicate that De Ortu Walwanii could not have been com—

 

posed before the last half of the thirteenth century.
Chapter II treats the sources of the Gawain

enfances, which occur not only in De Ortu Walwanii, but

 

also in Les Enfances Gauvain and in the French prose Per-

 

lesvaus. Previous scholars have taken the position that

the story of Gawain's birth and early life was derived
ultimately from the legend of Pepe Gregory, or from a com—
bination of the Coptic tale of the grandson of King Armenios
and Celtic lore. I propose a theory of purely Celtic ori—
gins. I demonstrate that the major motifs--the illegitimate
birth of the hero, his exposure on the sea, and his fos-
terage by a fisherman—-as well as other incidental motifs
could have been derived from that body of lore surrounding
the son of the Celtic sun god. In support of this theory I
use the infancy stories of Fiacha Fer-Mara in Lebor Gabala

’

Erenn, Gwri Gwallt—euryn in the Mabinogion, Cuchulainn in

 

 

the Tain b6 Cfiailnge, Taliesin in the Welsh legend of that

 

title, and the birth story of Mordrec in the Suite du Merlin.

 

Chapter III deals with the sources and analogues of
Gawain's adult adventures. Bruce (ed. Historia, pp. lxii-
lxiii) thinks that the first part of the hero's adventures
on the barbarous isle--the landing of the Roman expedition,

the hunting by Gawain and his men in the royal forest, and

‘ifilb‘A‘
0’th James Leon Wieber

their discovery by the king's men—-shows the influence of

Geoffrey of Monmouth's Historia Regum Britanniae (Bk. I,

 

Chs. xi-xiv). A comparison of the two passages shows that
our romancer makes the episode more colorful and dramatic.
Roger Loomis in Celtic Myth (New York, 1927), pp. 12—23,
points out that the second part of the episode--Gawain's
rescuing of the emperor's captive niece--owes its origin

to the Irish tale The Violent Death of Curoi. Our romancer

 

follows the source more closely than does the author of
the most similar romance analogue, Lancelot's rescuing of
the damsel from the giant Carado in the Vulgate Lancelot.
The second of Gawain's adult adventures, his naval battle
with Buzafarnan, seems to be original on the author's part.
This episode also contains a lengthy recipe for Greek fire,
the composition of which was inspired by an actual scien—
tific formula as well as by classical and medieval lore.
Most of the description of Gawain's three—day fight with
Gormundus in Jerusalem also seems to be our author's own
composition, and differs in several ways from the stereo-
typed joust in Arthurian romance. Loomis in Arthurian
Tradition (New York, 1949), pp. 132-38, indicates that the
source of the queen's taunt of a boastful king in De Ortu
Walwanii and other romances is the Irish tale The Journeys

of the Tuatha Luchra and the Death of Fergus; and that the

 

method of the king's humiliation, the combat at the ford,

comes from the Welsh tradition of the annual combat at

 

James Leon Wieber

the ford as preserved at the beginning of Pwyll in the
Mabinogion. This episode in our romance was written
purely to entertain. Gawain's final adventure, his relief
of the queen of the Castle of Maidens, as well as its
romance analogues owe their origin to the Irish tale The

Sickbed of Cuchulainn, according to Helaine Newstead in

 

"The Besieged Ladies in Arthurian Romance," PMLA, 63 (1948),
803-30. However, because of the great emphasis put on the
mission as a proof of Gawain's valor, I believe that the
episode in our romance may be a blending of The Sickbed of
Cuchulainn and Bricriu's Feast.

Chapter IV opens with a discussion of the charac-
terization of Gawain in the context of his portrayal in
the chronicles and in other medieval romances. Then I
treat the setting of the romance, the form and style, and
the author's purpose, which evidently was to tell the tra-
ditional story of Gawain in a very sophisticated prose
style for the entertainment of educated readers.

My translation of De Ortu Walwanii is as literal
as possible while still being readable. It is based on

Bruce's second edition of the romance which I cited above.

 

A TRANSLATION AND LITERARY STUDY OF

DE ORTU WALWANII, A THIRTEENTH

 

CENTURY ROMANCE

BY

James Leon Wieber

A DISSERTATION

Submitted to
Michigan State University
in partial fulfillment of the requirements
for the degree of

DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY

Department of English

1974

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

C) Copyright by
JAMES LEON WIEBER

1974

 

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I wish to thank Professor John Yunck, an excellent
teacher-scholar and the chairman of my doctoral committee,
for his inspiration and guidance and for so freely giving
of his time whenever I needed assistance. My appreciation
goes also to Professors Arnold Williams and William Heist,
members of my committee, for their wealth of knowledge
and advice both inside and outside the classroom. I wish
to thank Stanley and Mary Theis for their suggestions
to make my translation read more smoothly. Finally, my
deepest appreciation goes to my wife Myrna for her
patience, encouragement, and assistance in typing the

dissertation.

ii

 

 

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Page
INTRODUCTION 0 O O O O O O O O O O O O O 1
Chapter
I. AUTHORSHIP AND DATE . . . . . . . . . 6
II. THE SOURCES OF THE GAWAIN ENFANCES . . . . 23
III. GAWAIN'S ADULT ADVENTURES: SOURCES AND
ANALOGUES O O O O O C O O O O O O 54
A. Adventures on the Barbarous Isle. . . 54
B. Gawain's Naval Battle with Buzafarnan . 65
C. Gawain's Three-Day Fight with Gor—
mundus in Jerusalem . . . . . . 67
D. The Queen's Taunt and the Combat at
the Ford . . . . . . . . . . 70
E. Gawain's Relief of the Castle of
Maidens . . . . . . . . . . 76
IV. FINAL INTRODUCTORY COMMENTS. . . . . . . 87
A. The Characterization of Gawain . . . 87
B. Setting . . . . . . . . . . . 96
C. Form and Style. . . . . . . . . 104
D. The Author's Purpose. . . . . . . 110
E. A Note on the Translation . . . . . 112

DEORTUWALWANII. . . . . . . . . . . ll6

SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY . . . . . . . . . . . 210

iii

INTRODUCTION

De Ortu Walwanii is an account of the birth and
early life of Sir Gawain. Written in a very elaborate
prose style, it is one of the few Arthurian romances
which have come down to us in Latin. While it contains
many incidents and motifs traditionally associated with
Gawain, as well as other commonplaces of Arthurian
romance, it possesses a few elements rarely or never
found in works of this genre, such as a naval battle,

a ridiculous recipe for Greek fire, a crusade adventure,
a classical Roman setting for part of the story.

This romance exists in only one manuscript, the
Cotton MS. Faustina B. VI of the British Museum,1 and
was first edited by J. Douglas Bruce in PMLA, 13 (1898),
365-456. Immediately preceding De Ortu Walwanii in this
manuscript is another Arthurian romance in Latin prose,

the Historia Meriadoci, which is believed to be the work

 

0f the same author2 and which Bruce edited in PMLA, 15
(1900), 327-414. Upon discovering a second manuscript

of the Historia Meriadoci, the Rawlinson B. 149 of the

 

Bodleian Library at Oxford, Bruce published another

edition of both romances with corrections: Historia
Meriadoci and De Ortu Waluuanii, Johns Hopkins Uni-
versity Press Series Hesperia, No. 2 (Baltimore, 1913).
Shortly after their publication these two romances

received attention from a half-dozen scholars, who were
interested primarily in sources, authorship and date.
However, De Ortu Walwanii has been all but neglected
for the past forty years. This is regretable because,
even though it must be ranked among the lesser romances,
it does possess literary value and is a curiosity in
the development of Arthurian romance. Thus there is a
need for more scholarship, not only to explore aspects
Of De Ortu Walwanii which have not yet been studied, but
to reevaluate past scholarship in the light of new
information. This dissertation represents a beginning
in the fulfillment of that need. The first chapter
Consists of a review of the literature with regard to
authorship and date, with a suggestion of my own for
determining the approximate date of composition. In
<T—lrlapter II, after summarizing what other scholars have
Said about the sources of the Gawain enfances, I demon-
s"irate that the origins may have been purely Celtic.
c3hapter III is a comparison of Gawain's adult adventures
in De Ortu Walwanii with sources and analogues. Chapter
IV is a discussion of the characterization of Gawain, the

SEtting, the form and style of the romance, and the

author's purpose in writing it. Finally, as part of the
dissertation I am including my translation of De Ortu

Walwanii, the first to have been made of this romance.

 

INT RODUCTION- -NOTES

1The manuscript consists of 129 folios and con-
tains: (1) Historia Meriadoci (fols. 2-23), (2) De Ortu
Walwanii (fols. 23-38), (3) a brief abstract in Latin of
Geoffrey of Monmouth's Historia Regum Britanniae down to
the beginning of Merlin's prophecies (fols. 38-40), (4)
annals from Christ's birth to the year 977, in a four-
teenth century hand (fols. 41-65), (5) a record of impor—
tant events from the beginning of the world to the time
of King Richard II, in a fourteenth century hand (fols.
66-67), (6) the names of the kings of the Saxons and the
Angles, the years they reigned, and the places of their
burial, from Alfred to Richard II, in a fourteenth century
hand (fols. 67-68), (7) annals of England from 1066-1374,
in a fourteenth century hand (fols. 69-91), (8) the names
of the monks of Croxden, Staffordshire (fols. 92-93),
(9) papal letters to English kings, archbishops and
bishops, and one to the Holy Roman Emperor Henry V,
dating from the seventh to the twelfth century but all
in hands of the twelfth century (fols. 94-99), (10)
notices of churches and church lands in London that
belong to the cathedral Church of Canterbury, in a hand
of the twelfth century (fol. 100), (11) a calendar
obituary of the nunnery of Daunton in Kent (?), in a
fourteenth century hand (fols. 101-06), (12) Contem-
plations of Walter Hilton (d. 1396), an anchorite, in
verse (fols. 107-29). H. L. D. Ward, Catalogue of
Romances in the Department of Manuscripts in the British
Museum, I (London, 1883), 374, describes fols. 2—40 in

 

 

 

tHis way: "Vellum; early xivth cent. Quarto; ff. 39,
in double columns, having 35 lines to a column. With
initials in blue and red." See also British Museum,

Department of Manuscripts, A Catalogue of the Manuscripts
in the Cottonian Library Deposited in the British Museum
(London, 1802), pp. 606-07.

 

 

2J. Douglas Bruce, ed., Historia Meriadoci and
De Ortu Waluuanii, Johns Hopkins University Press Series
Hesperia, No. 2 (Baltimore, 1913), p. x. E. Brugger,
"Zu Historia Meriadoci und De Ortu Walwanii," Zeitschrift

 

 

ffir Franzosische Sprache und Literatur, 46 (1923), 439.

Pio Rajna, "Sono i1 De Ortu Walwanii e 1'Historia Meriadoci
Opera di un Medesimo Autore?" in Medieval Studies in

Memory of Gertrude Schoepperle Loomis, ed. Roger S. Loomis
(New Yofk, 1927), pp. 1-16.

CHAPTER I

AUTHORSHIP AND DATE

The only hint as to the identity of the author of
De Ortu Walwanii is the sentence "Incipit prologus R"
which appears at the beginning of his other romance,

Historia Meriadoci, in both manuscripts. Scholars gen-

 

erally agree that the "R" stands for the name of the
author.1 John Bale, the sixteenth century antiquary,
assigned the composition of both romances to Robert of
Torigni (also called Robertus de Monte), giving the
source of his information as the Nordovicensis Scriptorum

Catalogus which is not extant today:

Robertus sancti Michaelis de monte, inter cetera

scripsit,
Chronicorum opus, 1i. i.
Gesta Walwani, 1i. i. 'Vterpendragon rex pater.‘
Gesta Maradoci, 1i. i. 'Memoratu dignam.‘

Ex Nordouicensi scriptorum catalogo.2

 

Having found Bale's entry, Margaret Shove Morriss tried
to establish the correctness of this ascription. She
demonstrated that Robert of Torigni (ca. 1110—1186) as

early as 1139 had a direct knowledge of Geoffrey of

Monmouth's Historia Regum Britanniae which the author of

 

the romances obviously used as a source, and that Robert
had a keen appreciation of all kinds of literature, for
he had gathered at the monastery of Mont St. Michel one
of the best collections of manuscripts then known.
Moreover, she observed that as abbot of Mont St. Michel,
one of the great goals for pilgrimage in the Middle Ages,
Robert had opportunities for meeting the most celebrated
personages of his day and for obtaining crusading news
from returning knights, from whom he could have obtained
the necessary information for his description of Gawain's
journey to Jerusalem in the De Ortu Walwanii. Finally,
she maintained that there is nothing in the romances
which would prevent their being dated during Robert's
lifetime.3

J. Douglas Bruce took exception to Morriss'
arguments. He said that Robert of Torigni's interest
in literature has little bearing on the question of his
possible authorship of the two romances, and that since
Robert apparently accepted Geoffrey's Historia as
authentic history, his knowledge of the work cannot be
taken as evidence of his interest in romance. Further—
more, Bruce said that it would be rather surprising if
a great ecclesiastic whose well-authenticated works are
all of the dryest and most serious character-—chronic1es

and monastic documents of one sort or another--were found

appearing in the role of a writer of romances which con—
tain in part materials of the most extravagant kind.

But as far as Bruce was concerned, the most convincing
argument against Robert of Torigni's authorship of the
romances is the great contrast in style and vocabulary
between his undisputed works and the romances. While the
latter are marked by florid rhetoric, Robert's genuine
writings are characterized by businesslike brevity, and
there are great differences in syntactic construction.
For example, the romancer shows a predilection for the
copulative 333, which is found only three times in
Robert's whole Chronicle; the romancer occasionally ends
his sentences with a noun that is separated by a verb
from the word or words which qualify it, a feature which
occurs only once in the Chronicle; and the romancer
generally follows the classical practice of putting the
verb at the end of the sentence, whereas in Robert's
Chronicle the position of the verb in the sentence is
the same as it would be in French. Bruce concluded,
therefore, that Robert of Torigni could not have been
the author of the romances, and that the compiler of the
Norwich catalogue (which John Bale used as a reference

for the Index Britanniae Scriptorum) having before him

 

a copy of Robert's Chronicle as well as the two romances,
simply mistook the "R" of the "Incipit prologus R" for

the initial of Robert of Torigni.4

Just who the author is remains unknown. As
Bruce pointed out, he was a man of considerable learning,
probably a member of one of the ecclesiastical orders,
and probably an Englishman. The reasons Bruce gave for
the author's nationality are: (1) the snow-covered

Welsh mountain in the Historia Meriadoci is called

 

Snowdon, the English name for the mountain, whereas the
genuine Welsh name is Eryri; (2) the author uses the word
chiula 'ship' in De Ortu Walwanii, which is the Latini-
zation of the Anglo-Saxon 9291; (3) the only citation
in Du Cange for the word carpella 'saddlebow,' which
occurs in both romances, is from an Anglo-Saxon gloss;
(4) the only manuscripts of our author's works are found
in England.5

E. Brugger, on the other hand, argued that the
author of the two romances was a Welshman. He saw in
the Welsh character of the Meriadoc enfances and in the
Welsh setting of the last part of the De Ortu Walwanii
the intent of the author to glorify his native land,
Wales. Brugger argued, moreover, that a Welshman as
well as an Englishman could have used the words chiula
and carpella for both were educated in the same schools,
and that it was due to a scribal change or error that
the name of the Welsh mountain appears as Snowdon instead
of Eryri in the two passages where the name occurs in the

Historia Meriadoci.6

 

10

However, William Mullen convincingly demonstrated
that the enfances of Meriadoc were not essentially Welsh
in nature, but originated among the Scandinavians in
England. He pointed out that the closest analogue to

the Historia Meriadoci is the Scandinavian Hroar—Helgi

 

story, another analogue of which is the Havelok story,
whereas there is no extant Welsh story which corresponds
in any way to the enfances of Meriadoc. In addition,
Mullen contended that the Welsh aspects of the Historia
Meriadoci were a superficial attempt to give local color,
and that the sentences which contain the name of Mount
Snowdon were probably not corrupt, since the author
expressed himself the same way twice. For these reasons
and for the reasons Bruce gave, Mullen concluded that
the author was English or Anglo—Norman.7

Roger S. Loomis also maintained that the author
of the two romances was not of Welsh blood, but of
English or Norman blood: first, because a Welsh author
would not have said that Snowdon was the Cambrian name
of the mountain; secondly, because a Welshman probably
would not have used the British forms of certain names
(e.g. Walwanius and Gwendoloena) whereas an Englishman
or Norman could easily have picked up such common Welsh
names as Ivorius, Griffinus, Caradocus, and Meriadocus;
and thirdly, because "the stories themselves while

incorporating much that is of ultimate Celtic origin,

11

do not represent direct borrowings from Wales."8 The

combined arguments of Bruce, Mullen, and Loomis seem
to me most convincing that the author of De Ortu Walwanii

and Historia Meriadoci was not Robert of Torigni or a

 

Frenchman or a Welshman, but rather an Englishman or
Anglo-Norman.

As for the date of the two romances, the absolute
terminus a quo would have to be about 1136 when Geoffrey

of Monmouth finished writing the Historia Regum Britanniae,

 

for our author obviously borrowed several things from
this work.9 The terminus ad quem would be the early
fourteenth century, the date H. L. D. Ward assigned to
the folios which comprise the two Latin romances in the

Cotton MS. Faustina B. VI.lO

But it is interesting to
note that according to Bruce and Brugger, the numerous
errors in the two extant manuscripts of the Historia
Meriadoci show that neither could have been from the
hand of the author, and that neither was copied from
the other.11

In trying to establish the date of the two
romances, Morriss cited two items of knightly apparel
in the De Ortu Walwanii--the surcoat over the armor and
the helmet with a nosepiece--as well as Gawain's journey
to Jerusalem in this same romance, which journey seems to

have occurred at a time when Jerusalem was still a

kingdom of the Christians (i.e. 1099-1187), as evidence

12

that the romances could have been composed during Robert
of Torigni's lifetime (1110—1186).12 Conceding that the
knightly surcoat was worn sporadically throughout the
twelfth century, J. D. Bruce maintained, however, that
Gawain would not have been given credit for instituting
the custom of wearing the surcoat if the custom had not
already been widespread, that it was a trick of the
writers of the Arthurian prose romances starting with
the writer of the Prose Lancelot (ca. 1215-1230) to
attribute to their heroes the introduction of some well-
known custom. Bruce said that the helmet with the nose-
piece affords no ground for dating the Latin romances
earlier than the thirteenth century, for although the
nosepiece may have been discontinued in the twelfth
century, heroes of romances continued to wear it well
into the thirteenth century. Moreover, it seemed to

him that because the two Latin romances combine so many
Arthurian commonplaces, they could not have been written
during the period of Robert of Torigni's lifetime,
especially when one considers that Chrétien de Troyes
did not compose his romances until the latter half of
the twelfth century. Bruce ascribed the two romances to
the second quarter of the thirteenth century, though

he said they may even be somewhat later, because he
thought that certain names in the Historia Meriadoci

(i.e. Moroveus and Sadocus) and the De Ortu Walwanii

13

(i.e. Nabaor and Buzafarnan) were derived from the Prose
Tristan (i.e. from Meroveus, Sadoc, Nabon or Nabor,
Nabuzardan) which he supposed was written about the year
1220.13
Rajna and Brugger both took exception to Bruce's
statement that these names were dependent on the Prose
Tristan. They showed that the names, if not basically
different from those in the Tristan, could have come
from almost anywhere and therefore could not be used as

evidence for dating the romances. While Rajna agreed

with Morriss that the Historia Meriadoci and De Ortu

 

Walwanii were written in the mid—twelfth century by
Robert of Torigni, Brugger did not attempt to assign
a specific date of composition.14 On the other hand,
William Mullen, after doing extensive research on the
military surcoat and accepting Bruce's arguments except
for the derivation of certain names from the Prose
Tristan, concluded that the romances were composed about
the year 1200, just when the surcoat had become an
established fashion.15
I think Bruce and Mullen are nearer the truth
with regard to the date of the two Latin romances than
those who say they were written during the twelfth
century. Bruce's and Mullen's arguments about the sur-
coat, the helmet with the nosepiece and the presence in

the romances of so many Arthurian commonplaces carry a

 

14

lot of weight. And as Paul Meyer pointed out, it is
necessary that a legendary hero become famous before one
could get the idea to write about his enfances. Just

as the enfances of Roland, Ogier, Vivien and other

heroes of the chanson de geste were not composed before
their fame had been established by other poems, so accord-
ing to Meyer the fragmentary French romance Les Enfances
Gauvain, which exists in a manuscript written in a mid-
thirteenth century hand, could not originally have been
composed earlier than the first part of that century.16
The same reasoning, of course, would apply to De Ortu
Walwanii. Other parallels can be found in Arthurian
romance. For example, Tristan's birth and early life
in the Prose Tristan (mid-thirteenth century) is greatly
expanded from anything that had been written previously
about him.

So far Roger S. Loomis is the only one to have
found evidence which fixes a rather late terminus a quo
for the Latin romances: "As for date, the terminus a quo
is in all likelihood 1277, the year in which Edward I
besieged Llywelyn, the last native prince of Wales, in
his fortress of Snowdon and starved him into surrender,

for just so Arthur [in the Historia Meriadoci] is

 

described as starving out Griffinus in the same region.
Edward's sensational triumph served as a model for

Arthur's."l7 Loomis implied that the terminus a quo

15

for the De Ortu Walwanii would be approximately the same,
for both works are by the same author.

However, there may be evidence in the De Ortu
Walwanii itself that it was composed some time after the
middle of the thirteenth century. In this romance is an
elaborate recipe for Greek fire. While it calls for many
preposterous ingredients (i.e. poisonous toads, poisonous
water snakes, a three—headed asp, the gallbladder and
testicles of a werewolf, a ligure stone, the head and
heart and liver of a crow nine generations old, and the
blood of a red-haired man and of a dragon), it also calls
for elements one can find in a scientific formula for
Greek fire: sulphur, pitch, resin, oil, tartar, and
bitumen. In fact, these last ingredients are practically
identical to the ones which comprise one of the oldest
recipes for it:

Ignem graecum tali modo facies: Recipe sulphur
vivum, tartarum, sarcocollam et picolam, sal coctum,
oleum petroleum et oleum commune. Facias bullire
invicem omnia ista bene. Postea impone stupas et
accende. Quod si volueris extrahere per embotum ut
supra diximus. Post illumina et non extinguetur,
nisi cum urina vel aceto vel arena.

You will make Greek fire in this way. Take live
sulphur, tartar, sarcocolla and pitch, boiled salt,
petroleum oil and common oil. Boil all these well
together. Then immerse in it tow and set on fire.

If you like you can pour it out through a funnel
as we said above. Then kindle the fire which is 18
not extinguished except by urine, vinegar, or sand.

The above formula occurs in the Liber Ignium attributed to

Marcus Graecus. At first glance it may appear to be

l6

somewhat different from the list of scientific ingredients
in our romance. However, both recipes call for sulphur,
tartar, pitch and oil; sarcocolla is a resin; and
petroleum oil belongs to the bitumen family. (There
is also the possibility that bitumen in the romance
should have read bitumen liquidum 'naphtha,‘ a petroleum
distillate.) So the only item left out of our romancer's
recipe is boiled salt. This last item was not an essential
ingredient but was added, according to J. R. Partington,
so that the mixture would produce a yellow flame which
looked very hot. Moreover, Partington observes that
boiled salt was left out of the formula in at least one
manuscript of the Liber Ignium.19 Finally, both recipes
call for the ingredients to be boiled together.

From what I could determine from Partington's

very thorough History of Greek Fire and Gunpowder (Cam-

 

bridge, England, 1960), the formula in the Liber Ignium
comes closer by far to the list of legitimate ingredients
in De Ortu Walwanii than any other known recipe for Greek

fire, except for the one in De Mirabilibus Mundi attributed

 

to Albertus Magnus (ca. 1193 or 1206-1280):

Ignem graecum sic facies; Recipe [sulphur]
vivum, tartarum, sarcocollam, picolum, sal coctum,
petroleum et oleum commune. Fac bullire bene, et
si quid imponitur in eo, accenditur, sive lignum
sive ferrum, et non extinguitur nisi urina, aceto
vel arena.

Greek fire is made in this way. Take sulphur,
tartar, sarcocolla, pitch, boiled salt, petroleum,

17

and common oil. Boil them all together, and what
is put into it and set on fire, whether wood or
iron, is not extinguished except by urine, vinegar,
or sand.20

This recipe, of course, is the same as that which appears

in the Liber Ignium. In fact, there are several formulae

 

which both works have in common, and the weight of opinion

is that the author of De Mirabilibus Mundi took them from

 

the Liber Ignium, rather than conversely, or else that

 

the identical parts of both works came from a common

source. Of the few extant manuscripts of De Mirabilibus

 

Mandi, the earliest are thought to belong to the thir-
teenth century. It is uncertain whether Albertus Magnus
is actually the author. But if he is, this work would
have to have been composed some time before his death
in 1280.21

The Liber Ignium is a short Latin document, less

 

than ten pages in length, and contains about three dozen
recipes, fourteen of which are for military incendiary
mixtures. From the authorities named in it and some of
the words used in it, Partington believes that it was an
Arabic work, or that it was written in a place where
Arabic was commonly used. He also thinks that Marcus
Graecus was a purely imaginary person, the real author
or authors of the final collection being Jewish or

Spanish. The Liber Ignium was a very popular work, if

 

one judges from the large number of manuscripts still

18

extant all over Eur0pe. Although the oldest of these

are dated at the end of the thirteenth or beginning of
the fourteenth century, the work probably was known in
Europe a few years earlier than that, especially if it

was a source for parts of De Mirabilibus Mundi. However,

 

it could not have existed too much before the middle of
the thirteenth century because one recipe describes the
purification of saltpeter, and four others including one
for gunpowder call for this chemical. According to
Partington, "There is no evidence of the use of salt-
petre in incendiary compositions in the West before
about 1250, the reason being that purified saltpetre

"22

was not known there before about 1225.

When either the Liber Ignium or De Mirabilibus

 

 

Mundi was introduced to England we do not know. There
is the possibility that Roger Bacon (ca. 1214-1294)
brought one or the other there. Some scholars think
that portions of his works after 1250 reflect the

influence of the Liber Ignium, although that point is

 

debatable. If Bacon ever became acquainted with that

work, or with De Mirabilibus Mundi for that matter, it

 

may have been when he was in Paris in the 1240's. This
was the same time that Albertus Magnus was in that great
center of learning. In any case, Bacon returned to

Oxford some time after 1251.23

19

Certainly the evidence linking the Liber Ignium

or De Mirabilibus Mundi with our romancer is scanty.

 

All we know is that the ridiculous recipe for Greek fire
in De Ortu Walwanii contains a list of legitimate ingre-
dients, and that these ingredients are practically identi-
cal to the ones which comprise the Greek fire recipes

in the two scientific documents. Moreover, there seems

to be no other extant formula for Greek fire which comes
even close to matching this list of ingredients. If the
author of De Ortu Walwanii did borrow from either the

Liber Ignium or De Mirabilibus Mundi, the terminus a quo

 

for the romance would have to be the middle of the thir-
teenth century, for neither work would have been available
to him before then. My guess is that he would not have
seen either document much before the fourteenth century.
The evidence afforded by the recipe for Greek fire, then,
tends to complement Loomis' argument that the terminus a

guo for the Historia Meriadoci is 1277. If his and my

 

theories possess any validity, it appears that neither
romance could have been composed before the last half

of the thirteenth century.

CHAPTER I--NOTES

1The only scholar to dispute the meaning of "R"
was Paul Meyer who, in his review of Bruce' 8 first edition
of Historia Meriadoci, thought it meant "Rubrica." See
Paul Meyer, "Periodiques," Romania, 34 (1905), 144.

Bruce contended that if Meyer had seen the manuscripts,
he would not have made that assertion. Moreover, Bruce
pointed out that the earliest cataloguers of the Historia
Meriadoci also regarded the "R" as the initial of t e
author of the romance (John Leland, the sixteenth century
scholar, in the Collectanea, ed. Thomas Hearne, III, 25;
W. E. Macray in the Catalogi Codicum Manuscriptorum
Bibliothecae Bodleianae, pt. 5, fasc. 1, Oxford, 1862,
col. 501). See J. Douglas Bruce, ed. Historia Meriadoci
and De Ortu Walwanii (Baltimore, 1913), pp. xv-xvi, n. 3.

 

 

 

 

 

2John Bale, Index Britanniae Scriptorum, ed.
Reginald Lane Poole and Mary Bateson (Oxford, 1902),
pp. 384-85.

 

3Margaret Shove Morriss, "The Authorship of the
De Ortu Waluuanii and the Historia Meriadoci, " PMLA, 23
(1908), 599- 620. P10 Rajna in "Per 1e Originie eIa
Storia Primitiva del Ciclo Brettone, " Studi Medievali,
Nuova Serie, 3 (1930), 247-54, also maintained that
Robert of Torigni was the author of these romances.

 

4Bruce, ed., Historia, pp. x-xv.
5 . .
Ib1d., pp. 1x1v-lxv.

6E. Brugger, "Zu Historia Meriadoci und De Ortu
Walwanii," Zeitschrift fur Franzosische Sprache und
Literatur, 46 (1923), 406410, 434-39.

 

7William B. Mullen, "A Critical Study of the
Historia Meriadoci," Diss. Columbia University 1951,
pp. 6-18, 58-71.

20

21

8Roger S. Loomis, "The Latin Romances," in
Arthurian Literature in the Middle Ages, ed. Roger S.
Loomis (Oxford, 1959), p. 474.

 

9According to Bruce, the romancer is indebted to
Geoffrey's Historia for such things as the division of
Britain given at the beginning of Historia Meriadoci;
the story of Gawain's connection with Rome and the pope,
the description of Caerleon, and the names of certain
characters (e.g. Pope Sulpicius, Arthur's sister Anna,
and Gormundus) in De Ortu Walwanii. See Bruce, ed.
Historia, pp. 1v, lx, 1x1v—lxv.

 

10H. L. D. Ward, Catalogue of Romances in the

Department of Manuscripts in the British Museum, I
(London, 1883), 374.

 

 

llBruce, ed. Historia, p. xxiv, n. 2. Brugger,
p. 436.
12 .
Morriss, pp. 608—14, 644.
13

Bruce, ed. Historia, pp. xvi-xxiv. According to
Eugene Vinaver, the first version of the Prose Tristan
was written between 1225 and 1235. See Eugene Vinaver,
"The Prose Tristan," in Arthurian Literature in the
Middle Ages, ed. Roger S. Loomis (Oxford, 1959), p. 339.

 

l4Rajna, "Per 1e Origini," pp. 238-54. Brugger,
pp. 250-80.

15Mullen, pp. 72—82.

l6Paul Meyer, "Les Enfances Gauvain; Fragments
d'un Poéme Perdu," Romania, 39 (1910), 18-19.

 

l7Loomis, "The Latin Romances," pp. 473—74.

l8This quotation from the Liber Ignium and the
translation by J. R. Partington were taken from his
A History of Greek Fire and Gunpowder (Cambridge,
England, 1960), p. 50.

 

19Partington, p. 51.

 

22

20The quotation from De Mirabilibus Mundi and

Partington's translation can be found’in his work, p. 85.

 

21The information regarding De Mirabilibus Mundi

I took from Partington, pp. 57—58, 81—86.

 

22The quotation is from Partington, p. 32. His

discussion of the Liber Ignium occurs mostly on pp. 42—63.

23Partington's discussion of Bacon and Albertus
Magnus occurs on pp. 64—69.

CHAPTER II

THE SOURCES OF THE GAWAIN ENFANCES

There are only three extant romances, all of the
thirteenth century, which contain a somewhat detailed
account of Gawain's birth and early life: the French

prose Perlesvaus,l the metrical Les Enfances Gauvain,2

 

and the Latin prose De Ortu Walwanii.3 J. Douglas Bruce

argued convincingly that the Les Enfances Gauvain and

 

De Ortu Walwanii are different enough so that the one
probably was not the direct source for the other, but
rather both were derived from the same immediate source:
a lost French metrical romance. He also stated that the
passage from Perlesvaus was very likely a rationalized

account of Les Enfances Gauvain or of some variant

 

version.4 I agree that there once existed one or more
French romances which gave rise to the Gawain enfances
that we do have. The question of ultimate sources is
another matter.

According to Bruce, the Gawain enfances, as well
as the early life of Mordrec as found in the Huth Merlin

(now commonly called the Suite du Merlin), were derived

23

24

ultimately from Geoffrey of Monmouth's Historia Regum
Britanniae and the legend of Pope Gregory. Geoffrey's
Historia provided the facts that Gawain was the son of
Loth of Norway and Arthur's sister, and that at a young
age he was separated from his parents when he went to
serve in the household of Pope Sulpicius who dubbed him

a knight. The Gregory legend supplied the illegitimate
birth of the hero, his exposure on the sea, his fosterage
by a fisherman, and other incidental motifs found in one
or more of the Gawain stories, such as a knight aiding
the mother in getting rid of the child, the mother sending
articles with the child for the purpose of his future
identification, and a guardian giving his name to the
hero.5 Hendricus Sparnaay contended, however, that the
Gregory legend was not popular until the last part of

the twelfth century and therefore did not have time to
influence the Gawain enfances. Besides, said Sparnaay,
the Gregory story has motifs in common with secular
romance, which indicates that the Gregory story was
influenced by Arthurian romance, rather than vice versa.6
Roger S. Loomis, also thinking that the legend of Pope
Gregory arrived on the scene too late to influence the
Gawain enfances, theorized that a Welsh bard combined

the ultimate source of the Gregory legend-—the Coptic
tale of the grandson of King Armenios—-with a nonextant,

pagan Celtic enfance of Gwri (which he presumed gave

25

rise to the story of Gwri as we have it in the Mabinogion)

 

to form another nonextant Gwri enfance; this nonextant
Gwri enfance in turn gave rise to the Gawain enfances,

the Gregory legend and other analogues, but not the Mor-
drec enfances which were derived solely from Celtic lore.7

So far no one has proposed a theory of purely
Celtic origins for the Gawain enfances, which would be
a more normal development of Arthurian romance. However,
I think it is very possible that such were the origins.
Throughout the rest of this chapter I shall demonstrate
how the major motifs could have been derived from Celtic
tradition, namely from that body of lore surrounding the
son of the Celtic sun god. I shall also attempt to pro-
vide answers to the objections which adherents to
Loomis' or Bruce's theories might raise.

Gawain has often been regarded as some sort of a
solar hero.8 Primary evidence cited by scholars in
support of this belief is the fact that in several
romances his strength waxes and wanes as the day advances
and declines. Perhaps the earliest example of this can
be found in the First Continuation of Chrétien's BEEF
22231, where Gawain's strength doubles at noon and lasts
until evening when it declines.9 In the Prose Lancelot
Segurades gains in his fight with Gawain in the morning
when the latter's strength decreases; but after midday

when his strength and courage double, Gawain gets the

 

26

best of his foe.10 A slightly different version occurs
in the Suite du Merlin where in the fight with Morhous
Gawain's strength doubles at noon and lasts until about
3 p.m. when it begins to decline.11 The Mort Artu states
that no matter how weary or badly wounded Gawain is as
a result of the morning's fighting, he recovers his full
strength and ability around midday.12 Malory describes
Gawain's strength as waxing in the morning and declining
in the afternoon:
But sir Gawayne, fro hit was nine of the clok,
wexed ever strenger and strenger, for by than hit
cam to the howre of noone he had three tymes his
myght encresed. And all this aspyed sir Marhaus
and had grete wondir how his myght encreced. And
so they wounded eyther other passyng sore. So whan
hit was past noone, and whan it drewe toward
evynsonge, sir Gawayns strength fyebled and woxe
passyng faynte, that unnethe he myght dure no 13
lenger, and sir Marhaus was than bygger and bygger.
While there are variations, the motif is basically the
same in the above examples and in other romances where
it can be found. since the motif occurs so frequently,
it appears that it was not attached to Gawain by accident
or by coincidence, but rather properly belongs to him.
Gawain's parentage also connects him with the sun.
In the romances his father is always Loth. Loomis has
pointed out that Loth was derived from the Welsh name

Lloch which came ultimately from Lug, the Irish sun god.

According to Loomis, Lug's son Cuchulainn, the hero of

 

27

the sagas of the Ulster cycle, also has solar character—
istics (e.g. he could change himself into a crimson
wheelball, and he had golden hair which he could with-
draw into his head while a drop of blood stood at the
root of each hair——a physiological description of the
sun withdrawing its rays as it approaches the horizon and
turning blood red) and is Gawain's counterpart in Irish
mythology.l4

As I mentioned earlier, Loomis believed that
Gawain's prototype in Welsh literature was Gwri Gwallt- I
euryn, nicknamed Pryderi, the hero of the Mabinogion.
Through a rather complicated theory, Loomis traced
Gawain's name back to Gwri Gwallt—euryn, and Gwri's
parentage, like Gawain's, back to Lug the Irish sun god.
He also connected Gwri with Lug's son Cuchulainn on the
bases that colts were born at the time of the birth of
both heroes, both matured faster than normal doing
unusual feats for their age, and both were remarkable
for their golden hair. In fact, Gwri's sobriquet "Gwallt-

"15 In what serves to comple-

euryn" means "golden hair.
ment Loomis' observations, Thomas O'Rahilly identified
Gwri's parents, Pwyll and Rhiannon, as the Welsh sun god
and sun goddess. He noted that the name Pwyll means
"wisdom," which is also the meaning of Mider and Conn,

other names for the Irish sun god and a reflection of

the idea that the sun god or chief god of the Celtic

28

otherworld was omniscient. Moreover, he pointed out
that it is from the traditional association of the horse
with Celtic solar deities that we find Rhiannon, clad
in shining gold, riding a big white horse of surpassing

fleetness, and a colt being born simultaneously with her

16

son Gwri. As for similarities between Gawain and Gwri,

Loomis listed the following:

Gwri is characterized as "the most agreeable,

the most comely, the best endowed with every good
accomplishment of any one in the kingdom." Need-
less to say, Gauvain was a paragon of fine manners,
good looks, and martial prowess. Both Gwri and
Gauvain were born under circumstances which brought
shame to their mothers; both were discovered as
foundlings, swaddled in a rich cloth, and their
gentle birth was recognized; both were baptized,
one as Gwri Gwallt-euryn, the other as Gauvain or
Walwanius; both, after a precocious boyhood in
charge of foster parents, were given in charge to
a prince or emperor; both after this ruler's
decease, inherited his dominions.17

Actually the story of Gwri's birth and early life

as we have it in the Mabinogion18 is quite different in

 

detail from that of Gawain. For example, Gwri was a
legitimate child; his mother suffered shame and punish-
ment because Gwri had disappeared shortly after he was
born and she was accused of killing her son, whereas
Gawain's mother was subject to shame because she bore
him out of wedlock. And while Gwri suffered exposure
of a sort by being separated from his mother and appear-
ing suddenly in someone else's house as an orphan,

(Sawain was set adrift on the sea either by himself

 

29

(Les Enfances Gauvain) or in the charge of merchants

 

(De Ortu Walwanii). However, as I mentioned above,
Loomis felt that the Gawain enfances were derived not
from the story of Gwri in the Mabinogion, but from a non-
extant pagan story of Gwri which probably contained an
incestuous birth and exposure formula. But according to
Loomis, because this formula was found better arranged
and motivated in the Coptic tale of the grandson of King
Armenios, a Welsh bard remodeled the pagan story of Gwri
almost entirely after this tale to form another non-
extant Gwri enfances which was the source of the Gawain
enfances as we now have them. That there originally was
a pagan story of Gwri which contained an incestuous birth
and exposure formula is evidenced, according to Loomis,
by the fact that such a formula was attached to Mordrec
in the Huth Merlin who like Gwri was born on May eve.
And the story of Mordrec, Loomis believed, was probably
unadulterated Celtic tradition, because it is basically
pagan and there are two Celtic analogues to the story:
the Irish tale of Fiacha Fer-Mara and the Welsh legend
of Taliesin.19

However, if one looks more deeply into the
Fiacha Fer-Mara, Taliesin, and Mordrec stories, he will
find that they in fact also consist of the lore surround-
ing the son of the Celtic sun god and are therefore

intimately connected with the Cuchulainn—Gwri-Gawain

30

tradition as well. The story of Fiacha Fer-Mara appears

in "The Roll of the Kings" in Lebor Gabala Erenn:

 

Oengus Tuirmech begat that Fiacha upon his own
daughter in drunkenness, and put him in a boat
of one hide upon the sea, out from Dfin Aignech,
with the trappings of a king's son--a purple
robe with a golden fringe. Fisher-folk found
him in Traig Brenainn amid his treasures, and
thence had he his name, Fiacha Fer-Mara: and
his children took the kingship of Ireland and
of A1ba.20

Macalister and O'Rahilly believed that most of the names
(1
J

in this and other lists of mythological Irish kings are
gods; in other words, the lists are genealogies of gods.21
Oengus had several nicknames, the most popular of which
was Macc ind CC or In Macc Oc. And according to O'Rahilly,
Oengus was a son of the Dagda, the god who presided over
the gig 'otherworld' called Bruig na Boinne, and was
ultimately the Dagda himself for the name Oengus was

often used in place of the Dagda.22 Now the chief god

of the Irish otherworld was primarily the god of the sun,
but he possessed other attributes since he was also in
charge of several other spheres.23 Returning to the

story of Fiacha Fer—Mara, the son of Oengus, one cannot
help but notice that the basic motifs which the Gawain
enfances supposedly derived from the Armenios or Gregory
legends, are all here and in organized form: the

illegitimate birth of the hero, his exposure on the

sea, the rich robe and other treasures sent with him,

31

and his rescue by fisher folk. Moreover, the fisher folk
who found Fiacha gave him the sobriquet "Fer-Mara" which
means "Man of the Sea," just as Gawain is called "Beau

Fils" in Les Enfances Gauvain and "Boy Without a Name"

 

in De Ortu Walwanii. The fact that Fiacha Fer-Mara is

the son of a sun god may explain why the robe, which was
sent with him when he was exposed on the sea, was purple
or deep red with a golden fringe—-the colors of the rising

or setting sun. The cloak which was sent with the baby

 

Gawain in De Ortu Walwanii was gold with inlaid gems, the
color of the sparkling sun at its height.

Since the story of Fiacha Fer—Mara is part of the
lore surrounding the son of the Irish sun god, one would
also expect there to be a similar story of Cuchulainn,
the son of Lug. While there apparently is no extant
account of his being exposed on the sea and rescued and
fostered by a fisherman, there is reason to believe that
such a tale once existed. The story of Cuchulainn's
birth that is available in Irish heroic literature goes
as follows. King Conchobor, his unmarried sister Deich—
tine, and the warriors of Ulster hunt a flock of birds
that have been eating all the vegetation of the country.
Chasing the birds, the Ulstermen come to a house in the
wilderness belonging to a man and his wife, and stay the
night. There the men get drunk. Later that night

Deichtine helps the lady of the house give birth to a

 

32

son, while outside the door a mare gives birth to two
foals. (In one version, Deichtine and fifty maidens are
the ones that ravage the country in the form of birds.
They lead the men of Ulster to this house where, in human
form again, Deichtine and the fifty maidens live with

a man identified as Lug. That night when Conchobor asks
to sleep with the lady of the house whom he does not
realize is his sister, she begs to be excused because the
pains of childbirth are upon her, and she delivers a
little boy.) By morning the house, the strange lady and l
man have all disappeared; only the baby and the foals
remain. Deichtine takes the baby home and rears him for
a short time until he gets sick and dies. In her grief,
Deichtine gets thirsty and takes a drink, and a tiny
creature slips into her mouth with the liquid. That
night Lug mac Ethnenn appears to her in her sleep, says
that the boy which she fostered was his (in one version
Lug says the child was himself reincarnated), that he

was again planted in her womb and is to be called Setanta,
and that the foals should be reared with the boy. When
Deichtine grows heavy with the child, the people of
Ulster, not knowing who the father is, say that her
brother King Conchobor (Conchobor is her father in
another version) made her pregnant at the house in the
wilderness when he was drunk. Conchobor gives Deichtine

in marriage to Sualdam mac Roich. Ashamed of already

 

33

being pregnant, she gets sick when she reaches her new
husband's bed and has a miscarriage. However, she gets
pregnant again and has a son whom she calls Setanta.

The baby is given to others to raise and later is nick—
named Cuchulainn.24 There are resemblances between this
story and that of Fiacha Fer-Mara: an exposure of sorts
for the first incarnation of Cuchulainn, the hint of an
incestuous union the second time Cuchulainn is conceived,
and the rearing of the child by others. These resemblances
plus the resemblances between the Cuchulainn story and
the stories of Taliesin and Mordrec, which I shall dis-
cuss next, make it seem possible that there once was a
version where Cuchulainn was conceived incestuously and,
rather than being the subject of a miscarriage, was
exposed on the sea and rescued by a fisherman. Moreover,
the story of Cuchulainn that we do have bears some

resemblance to the rationalized version of the Gawain

enfance in Perlesvaus, where the illegitimate child

 

Gawain is taken by a nobleman to a distant country and
entrusted to a worthy man to raise, rather than being

put out to sea and rescued (Les Enfances Gauvain) or

 

kidnapped (De Ortu Walwanii) and fostered by a fisherman.

 

The Welsh legend of Taliesin and the birth story

of Mordrec in the Suite du Merlin help to knit together

 

some of the apparently divergent motifs found in the

enfances of Fiacha, Cuchulainn, Gwri and Gawain. In

 

 

 

34

the Welsh legend of Taliesin, the character Gwion rein—
carnates himself by impregnating the lady Caridwen
through her eating a grain of wheat into which he has
transformed himself. (This is similar to Lug's rein—
carnating himself when Deichtine swallows a tiny creature
in her drink.) The wheat grows in her womb, and after
nine months she gives birth to Gwion. Caridwen gets rid
of her baby on April 29 by wrapping him in a leathern

bag and casting him out to sea (just as Fiacha Fer-Mara

is exposed in Lebor Gabala Erenn, and Gawain in Les

 

Enfances Gauvain; Gawain is gotten rid of by being sent
away on the sea in the company of merchants in De Ortu
Walwanii). On May eve (when Gwri Gwallt-euryn of the
Mabinogion is born and appears mysteriously as an orphan
in a strange man's house) Gwion is discovered by a
fisherman (just as Fiacha and Gawain are). When one

of the fisherman's guards opens the bag and sees the

baby, he exclaims "Taliesin," which means "Radiant Brow,"
and this name remains with the baby. (The radiant brow
may be regarded as a solar characteristic, just as
Cuchulainn's and Gwri's golden hair. Thus Taliesin is
known by a sobriquet, as are Cuchulainn, Gwri, Fiacha

and Gawain.) Taliesin is fostered by the fisherman (as
Fiacha presumably is, and as Gawain actually is). Because
as a boy he composes and sings songs extraordinarily well,

he at the age of thirteen is taken to court at Christmas

35

time to sing, and there he triumphs over all the other
bards.25 (Notice the youthful precocity, a characteristic
of Cuchulainn, Gwri and Gawain.)

The story of Gawain's half-brother Mordrec in the

Suite du Merlin26

has many motifs in common with the

birth stories of Fiacha Fer-Mara, Cuchulainn, Gwri Gwallt—
euryn, Taliesin, and Gawain. Mordrec is the product of an
incestuous union (as is Fiacha, and as is suspected of
Cuchulainn who, like Gawain, at least is conceived
extramaritally). He is a May—day child (like Gwri and P
Taliesin). As a result of shipwreck, he is exposed alone
on the sea and rescued by a fisherman (like Fiacha,
Taliesin and Gawain). When Mordrec is found, he is
wearing a rich garment (like Fiacha, Gwri and Gawain),

and he has a fresh wound on his forehead, the scar of
which remains visible throughout the rest of his life.
(This, I believe, is analogous to Taliesin's radiant

brow, and Gwri's and Cuchulainn's golden hair.) Finally,
he is raised by foster parents (like Fiacha, Cuchulainn,
Gwri, Taliesin and Gawain). I might also mention that,
according to Loomis, the name Mordrec is derived ulti-
mately from Mider, who is the son of Curoi, another name
for the Irish sun god.27 It is noteworthy, too, that
Mordrec's supposed father is Loth, whose name comes from

the sun god Lug.

36

The above comparisons show that the tales of
Fiacha Fer—Mara, Cuchulainn, Gwri Gwallt-euryn, Taliesin,
Mordrec and Gawain seem to have a great deal in common
with one another, and that they seem to consist of that
body of Celtic lore surrounding the son of the sun god.
It is significant that the major motifs of the Gawain
enfances-—the illegitimate birth of the hero, his
exposure on the sea, and his discovery and rearing by
a fisherman--which Bruce and Loomis speculated were
derived from, or influenced by, the Gregory or Armenios
legends, can all be found in this body of Celtic lore
in rather organized form, well motivated, and in the
company of other motifs which the various Celtic tales
I have discussed share with one another. (See Chart A
on the next page for a summary comparison of motifs.) I
believe that there was no need for the Gawain enfances to
have been influenced by either the Gregory or Armenios
legends, and therefore that the ultimate sources of the
Gawain enfances were purely Celtic.

An adherent of the Loomis theory might object
that the Christian elements in the Gawain stories are
testimony of the influence of the Gregory or Armenios
legends. After all, it was the lack of an "ecclesiasti—
cal smack" in the story of Mordrec that made Loomis
decide that this tale owed nothing to the Coptic tale,

but came entirely from Celtic tradition.28 But what

37

 

 

unseen
an cwummn
.cmeuwnmflm
an cmsommu

wEmaxOAG

mpflooomum
Hamzusos

:mEHmzmHm
an cmnmwu
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38

are the Christian elements in the Gawain enfances? First

of all, in Les Enfances Gauvain and in Perlesvaus, Gawain

 

is baptized. It seems to me that any Christian redactor
could have provided for the baptism of the hero. Gwri
Gwallt-euryn, for example, also is baptized, and accord-
ing to Loomis, the story of Gwri in the Mabinogion was
derived from the pagan myth of Gwri without any influence
from the Christian Armenios legend.29 Mordrec, too, is
baptized in the story that Loomis claims does not have

"30

an "ecclesiastical smack. Secondly, in Geoffrey of

Monmouth's Historia, in Les Enfances Gauvain, and in

 

Perlesvaus Gawain is taken to Rome where he is educated
by the Pope and, in the first two works, dubbed a knight
by him (in Perlesvaus there is no mention of Gawain's
being dubbed a knight; and in De Ortu Walwanii Gawain

is trained by the emperor rather than the pope, although
the latter is present when Gawain is entrusted to the
emperor). However, in the Gregory and Armenios legends
the respective heroes never are trained or dubbed knights
by the pope or patriarch; in fact the heroes do not even
go to Rome or Constantinople until after they have been
selected to be the new pope or patriarch. Conversely,
Gawain is never chosen for a church position. Therefore,
it seems highly unlikely that the Gregory or Armenios
legends could have been the source for Gawain's training

and dubbing. Where Geoffrey of Monmouth, the earliest

 

 

IIIIIIII-—__________________________

39

writer to send the young Gawain to the pope in Rome, got
the idea to do so, I do not know. It seems very possible
that he or a Christian source simply thought it appro-
priate that the greatest of Arthur's knights should have
the high honor of being educated and knighted by the pope.
The third Christian element is the sacrament of penance.

In Les Enfances Gauvain the fisherman who had discovered

 

and fostered Gawain for ten years becomes sick, and on
the advice of his confessor goes to Rome to confess and
do penance; in De Ortu Walwanii the fisherman who had
kidnapped Gawain and fostered him for seven years in
Gaul and five years in Rome, falls ill and on his death—
bed confesses to the emperor and Pope Sulpicius the
whole story about how he acquired his son and his ill-
gotten wealth (I shall presume that the fisherman
received the sacrament of penance here). Again, what

is more natural for a Christian redactor to provide than
the sacrament of penance for a man who thinks he is
dying? I might point out that the foster father in the
Gregory or Armenios legends never is said to receive this
sacrament; the only personages who confess and/or do
penance are the principals involved in incest. So
actually the small amount of “ecclesiasticizing” in

the Gawain enfances can hardly be demonstrated to have
come from the Gregory or Armenios legends. Rather, it
is of the kind that could have been supplied by any

Christian author or redactor.

 

.3...” ~ .= _<

40

An adherent of the Loomis theory might also
object that the story of the captivity of Galobrun in
Perlesvaus,31 which in some respects is identical to the
captivities of Gregory and the grandson of Armenios,
suggests the mingling of the Gregory-Armenios and Gwri
legends. Loomis pointed out that while many of the
motifs of this captivity came from the Welsh captivity
of Gwair, one motif—-the dragon swallowing the key and
someone later recovering the key from the dragon in order
to release the captive——is a commonplace of the hagio— J
graphy derived from the East (where it is usually a
fish that swallows the key rather than a dragon).
Observing that this motif occurs in the Coptic tale
of Armenios' grandson, where the hero has an infancy
story similar to Gawain's, Loomis speculated that the
Coptic tale was attached to the Gwri story by a Welsh
bard at an early date. For not only was Gwair an
alternate form of the name Gwri, but Gwri's epithet
Gwallt-euryn was the ultimate source of both Gawain's
and Galobrun's names.32 However, as far as I know, in
the romances there is no captivity of Gawain which
includes the dragon (or fish) swallowing the key motif
or which otherwise resembles the captivity of the grand-
son of King Armenios. And there is no romance which con—
tains an infancy story of Galobrun. Since I have demon-
strated that the basic motifs of the Gawain enfances could

have come purely from Celtic tradition, there is little

 

 

41

or no reason to believe that the Armenios legend had to

be attached to Gwri before the author of the Perlesvaus
wrote his romance, even if we suppose that Loomis is
correct in his derivation of names. I think that the
author of the Perlesvaus, who may well have based the
Galobrun captivity on the Gwair story, simply took the
dragon swallowing the key motif from a similar captivity
story of a non-Celtic saint, such as Gregory or the grand—

son of Armenios, which happened to contain this motif.

Finally, one might ask whether the Celtic tales
which contain the basic motifs of the Gawain enfances
antedate the diffusion of the Gregory or Armenios legends,
and/or whether these tales were influenced by the legends.
We know that the legend of Pope Gregory existed in written
form in the twelfth century, for manuscripts of the French

Vie du Pape Gregoire belong to that century and Hartmann

 

von Aue wrote his Gregorius ca. 1190. Most scholars

33

believe that the hero is not a historical pope, but if

Loomis is correct in his assumption that the hero is

Pope Gregory the Great,34 the legend conceivably could
have been attached to him as early as his reign (590-

604 A.D.). The Coptic tale of the grandson of King
Armenios, which is regarded as the source of the Gregory
legend, is believed to have existed about seven centuries

before Hartmann wrote his Gregorius; in other words, by

the end of the fifth century,35 although we do not know

42

when this tale spread to Europe. On the other hand,
the earliest manuscript containing the birth of Cuchul-
ainn, the Lebor na hUidre belongs to the late eleventh
or early twelfth century, while the language of this
manuscript is dated to the eighth century, and some

36

verse passages may be two centuries older. The

earliest manuscript of the Lebor Gabala Erenn which

 

contains the story of Fiacha Fer-Mara, is dated ca. 1150,
even though the stories in it are regarded as being of
very ancient origin.37 The Coptic legend of Armenios,
then, and possibly the Gregory legend, existed early
enough to have influenced the Celtic tales. However,

we do not know when, if ever, during the Middle Ages
these legends were known in the Celtic countries. There
is no direct evidence that they were known there. I can
find no authority who believes that the pagan Celtic
tales in question were tainted in any way except by the
Christian coloring provided by the scribes who recorded
them. In fact, James Carney who has done much pioneer
work in determining external elements in Irish saga
stated explicitly that in his opinion the birth story

of Cuchulainn is substantially Celtic historical lore.38
And Roger Loomis believed that the tale of Fiacha Fer—
Mara, as well as the somewhat later enfances of Taliesin
and Gwri Gwallt-euryn (as we have it in the Mabinogion)
and Mordrec in the Suite du Merlin are, except for any

Christian coloring, unadulterated Celtic tradition.39

43

I think there is reason to believe, then, that
the basic motifs of the Gawain enfances—-the illegitimate
birth of the hero, his exposure on the sea, and his
rescue by a fisherman--as well as the other motifs which
the Gawain enfances has in common with the Celtic tales
mentioned in the preceding paragraph, were probably not
derived from the Gregory or Armenios legends. In other

words, except for the Christian elements which could have

been supplied by any Christian writer, one need not look
outside the pagan Celtic tradition—-the lore surrounding
the son of the sun god——for the sources of the Gawain
enfances. It is appropriate that Gawain's story should
have evolved from Celtic tradition, as did most of the
rest of Arthurian romance, for he is the most celebrated
of Arthur's knights. It is especially fitting that his
story should have developed from the lore surrounding
the son of the Celtic son god, for this lore has given
rise to so many of Gawain's adult adventures in De Ortu
Walwanii and other romances. The next chapter is

devoted in part to this very tOpic.

CHAPTER I I--NOTES

1The High History of the Holy Grail, trans.
Sebastian Evans (New York, 1903), pp. 271-72. The
episode may be abstracted as follows. Gawain and Arthur
go to mass in a chapel in a certain castle. The priest
there tells them that Gawain was born and baptized in
this castle, and that he was named Gawain after the lord
of the castle. He says that his mother who had him by
King Lot did not want it known that she delivered this
child. So she set the baby in a fair coffer and asked
the lord of the castle, Gawain, to take him away and
leave him where he might die. Gawain took the child,
placed a sealed letter in the front of the cradle saying
that the baby was of royal lineage, included gold and
silver so that he could be reared in great plenty, and
spread a rich covering over the baby. He carried him
away to a distant country and came upon a little home—
stead where there dwelt a worthy man. Gawain delivered
the child to the man and his wife, telling them that if
they raised the child well, much good would come to them.
When the child was grown, his foster parents took him to
Rome to the Holy Father and showed him the sealed letter.
The Holy Father, understanding that he was the son of a
king, took him in. Later the younger Gawain was elected
emperor of Rome, but he refused the position for fear that
he would be reproached on account of his illegitimate
birth. Then he departed and became one of the best
knights in the world. The priest says that even now no
one dares take possession of this castle for fear of
Gawain. This castle now belongs to him, for when the
elder Gawain died, he left it to Messire Gawain. The
priest himself is guardian of it until such time as
Gawain should return.

 

2The two extant fragments totaling 712 lines were
edited by Paul Meyer in "Les Enfances Gauvain; Fragments
d'un Poeme Perdu," Romania, 39 (1910), 19-30. In the
first fragment Arthur's sister Morcades finds herself
pregnant by the young man Lot. She asks for and receives
Arthur's permission to retire to the castle of Bel

44

45

Repaire, supposedly for a vacation, with Lot and a ser-
vant girl. Seven months later she secretly gives birth
to a son, charges her servant girl to get rid of him,
and sends along with the baby a rich silk cloth, a ring,
a clasp, some gold coins, and a letter explaining the
circumstances of the child's birth. As the girl carries
the baby away, she meets her fiancé, Gauvain 1e Brun,
and tells him the whole story. They take the baby to his
house and have him baptized, with Gauvain giving it his
own name. He writes in the letter which accompanies the
child that the baby has been baptized and named Gauvain.
He then puts the baby and its things in a cask and gives
it to one of his servants, probably to set it adrift on
the sea.

In the second fragment the infant has been found
by a fisherman who takes him home and rears him, calling
the boy "Beau Fils." He wants to teach him the fishing
trade, but the latter has no desire to learn it. When
the boy is ten years old, the fisherman falls ill and
on the advice of his confessor goes to Rome to confess
and do penance. Before he departs, he sees for the first
time the letter which tells of the child's birth and
which contains instructions that he is to made a knight
and sent back home with the means of his identification.
Having arrived in Rome, the fisherman gives the boy to
the pope who has him educated and trained in knightly
exercises. The fisherman gets well, goes back home to
his wife and lives happily ever after. Meanwhile
Gauvain's mother Morcades keeps her secret from Arthur.
She goes to Ireland to see Arthur get married to princess
Guinemar, the sister of the king of Ireland. Lot is there,
too, but Lot and Morcades are careful not to be too
familiar with each other so that no one's suSpicion will
be aroused. Guinemar and Morcades become good friends,
and Morcades gives her servant girl in marriage to Gauvain
1e Brun. Back in Rome, the pope knights Gauvain on St.
John's Day. The young knight is victorious at all the
tourneys. Then the emperor dies, leaving no heir. Here
the second fragment ends.

3In De Ortu Walwanii Gawain is conceived as a
result of a secret love affair between Loth of Norway
and Anna, daughter of Uther Pendragon and sister of
Arthur. To preserve her reputation, Anna feigns sick-
ness, retires to a private bedchamber, gives birth to
her baby without anyone knowing it except her maid and
Loth, and immediately commits the baby to some foreign
merchants who are to take him overseas to their own
country and raise him there. Along with the child Anna
sends a case containing an abundance of gold and silver,
expensive clothing including a gold cloak ornamented with

46

precious stones, a ring, and a letter which identifies
the parents and the child's name, Gawain. The merchants
set sail and land on the eighth day near the city of
Narbonne in Gaul. They decide to go into the city, and
entrust the ship and the baby to a boy. While they are
gone, a fisherman named Viamundus and his wife happen
upon the ship. Finding the boy asleep and thinking

of the opportunity he has to become wealthy, the fisher-
man steals the baby and its case and other valuables from
the ship. He and his wife rear the child but do not dare
to make open use of the wealth he has stolen. When the
child is seven years old, the fisherman takes his family
to Rome. Pretending to be sprung from a noble Roman
family and to be ruling over a certain part of Gaul,
Viamundus goes to the emperor, who gives him a wealthy
residence in Rome and other lands outside the city.
Viamundus lives a wealthy and famous life, while his

son who is called Boy Without a Name grows up with all
the attributes of perfection. However, after five years
in Rome, Viamundus falls ill. Thinking he is about to
die, he calls the emperor and Pope Sulpicius, and con-
fesses to them the whole story about how he had acquired
his son and his wealth. Viamundus asks them to receive
his son after his death and to educate him for knight—
hood, which the emperor consents to do. Viamundus then
hands over the case containing the means of identifi-
cation for the boy and asks them not to tell him who he
is since the letter bids them not to. Rather, they
should send Gawain back to his parents as soon as he
reaches manhood. Viamundus dies and is given a noble
burial. The emperor has Boy Without a Name educated at
the imperial palace. At the end of three years, when
the boy is fifteen years old, the emperor dubs him a
knight. Because he wears a purple tunic over his arms,
Gawain is called the Knight with the Surcoat for his
Armor, which name he bears till the end of the romance.
After several adventures Gawain returns to Arthur's
court, finds out his real name and whose son he is, and
is reunited with his parents who are now married.

4J. Douglas Bruce, ed., Historia Meriadoci and
De Ortu Waluuanii (Baltimore, 19I3), pp. xlvii-liv.

 

 

5Bruce, pp. xxxv-lv. The motifs which he said
that Geoffrey supplied can be found in Geoffrey of Mon—
mouth, The History of the Kings of Britain, trans. Lewis
Thorpe (Baltimore, 1966), pp. 221 and 223. Bruce used
the fourteenth century Latin version of the Gregory
legend found in the Gesta Romanorum, ed. Hermann Oesterley
(Berlin, 1872), pp. 399-410. He believed that there
existed in the twelfth century a Latin form of the legend

 

47

which was substantially identical with the one in the
Gesta, and which was the source for the twelfth century
01d French versions of the legend. The story in the
Gesta runs as follows: The Emperor Marcus, who has only
a son and a daughter, gets sick and dies. Tempted by

the devil, the son one night rapes his sister who con-
ceives a son. The two confess their sin and seek the
advice of an old trusted knight who recommends that the
father go on a pilgrimage to the Holy Land and that the
mother place herself in the custody of the knight and his
wife. As soon as the child is born, the mother wraps

it in silk garments embroidered with gold, and puts him
in a cask with a tablet that says the baby has not been
baptized, some gold to provide for the boy's nurture,

and some silver for his education. She gives the cask

to a knight and tells him to put it out to sea. The
father of the baby dies while on his pilgrimage, and his
sister rules the land. When she refuses to marry a duke
of Burgundy, the duke attacks her country and forces the
queen to flee to a fortified city. The cask which holds
the child floats across the sea until it reaches a monas-
tery. The abbot discovers it, baptizes the baby with

his own name Gregory, and entrusts him to a fisherman

to raise. Young Gregory one day gets in a fight with

the son of the fisherman and finds out that the fisherman
and his wife are not his real father and mother. So
Gregory goes to the abbot who tells him the real story

of his birth as told in the letter. When Gregory says

he wants to become a soldier, the abbot dubs him a knight
and sends him on his way across the sea. A storm drives
Gregory to the country of his mother, although they do
not realize their relationship. After he defeats the
troops of the duke of Burgundy and kills the duke himself,
he marries the queen his mother. Later after the queen
recognizes the tablet he is carrying and they discover
their true relationship, Gregory dons the garments of a
pilgrim and asks a fisherman where he might find a
secluded place in order to do penance. The fisherman
takes Gregory out to a huge rock in the middle of the sea
which has chains at its base that could be opened only
with certain keys. After looking Gregory in the chains
and throwing the keys into the sea, the fisherman returns
home. Gregory remains on the rock for seventeen years.
One day the pope dies, at the moment of whose death a
voice from heaven cries out that a man named Gregory
should succeed him. Messengers are sent to all parts

of the world in search of the new pope. They happen

upon the cottage of the fisherman who reveals that the
pilgrim he had chained to a rock in the sea was named
Gregory. One of the fish the fisherman catches that day
contains the keys to the chains. The men go out, free

 

 

48

Gregory, take him to Rome and make him pope. His mother
comes to see the pope and rediscovers her son. She
becomes an abbess of a monastery, and both mother and
son live holy lives till they die.

6Hendricus Sparnaay, "Hartmann von Aue and his
Successors," in Arthurian Literature in the Middle Ages,
ed. Roger S. Loomis (Oxford, 1959), p. 436. See also
H. Sparnaay, Verschmelzung Legendarischer und Weltlicher
Motive in der Poesie des Mittelalters (Groningen, 1922),
pp. 44-45, 52456.

 

 

 

7Roger S. Loomis, Celtic Myth and Arthurian
Romance (New York, 1927), pp. 331-43. Loomis' source for
the Coptic tale was E. Amélineau, Contes et Romans de
l'Egypte Chrétienne (Paris, 1888), I, 174-89. The tale
is very similar to the Gregory legend, as this summary
indicates: After King Armenios dies, his son John becomes
king. One night he gets drunk and rapes his sister.
When he realizes she is pregnant by him, he goes into a
monastery, and his sister rules the country as queen.
As soon as the baby is born, she puts it in a cradle
together with three tablets--one of gold, another of
silver, and the third of ivory on which is inscribed the
fact of his incestuous birth——and a letter saying that
the gold tablet is to belong to the boy when he is grown
up, and the silver one to the man who brings him up and
educates him. The cradle is put in a river, and a
fisherman finds it by the Monastery of Jacob the Shorn
One, and takes it to the abbot. The abbot entrusts the
boy and the silver tablet to the fisherman who raises
him. After a few years the hero John, still a lad,
learns in a quarrel with the children of the fisherman
that he is not their brother. The fisherman sends John
back to the abbot who gives him the gold and ivory tab-
lets. The hero reads the latter one to his great mortifi-
cation, but with the gold tablet buys a battle horse,
armor and weapons. Taking with him the ivory tablet,
he rides out and eventually comes to the city of his
mother which is being beseiged by soldiers. After taking
prisoner the king who is attacking the city, John marries
his mother. One day finding the ivory tablet, she realizes
their relationship and informs her husband that he is her
son. John griefstricken and penitent goes away to the
sea, meets a fisherman, exchanges clothing with him, and
buys from him an iron chain. John fastens the chain to
his own feet and throws the key into the sea. Then he
has himself rowed to an island where he lives alone for
many years eating only vegetables and doing penance.
One day envoys seeking a holy man to be the new patriarch
come to the fisherman and ask for food. In the first

 

 

 

 

49

fish which is caught a key is found which the fisherman
recognizes as the one which John threw into the sea.

The envoys travel to the island, release John and take
him back home with them where he is consecrated a patri-
arch by twelve bishops. His mother comes to him to ask
his prayers for the cure of a sickness she has. His
prayers are efficacious. Recognizing her he tells her
of his identity and clothes her in a religious habit.
God works signs and wonders through them before they

die in bliss.

8For a bibliography of those who regard Gawain
as a solar hero see B. J. Whiting, "Gawain: His Repu—
tation, His Courtesy and His Appearance in Chaucer's
Squire's Tale," Mediaeval Studies, 9 (1947), 194 and 196.

 

9The Continuations of the Old French Perceval of I
Chrétien de Troyes, ed. William Roach (Philadelphia,
1949-1952), I, 331; II, 489—90; III, 404.

 

 

10The Vulgate Version of the Arthurian Romances,
ed. H. Oskar Sommer, Carnegie Institut1on of Washington
Publication No. 74, III (Washington, 1910), 293.

 

llMerlin, Roman en Prose du XIIIe Siécle, ed.
Gaston Paris and Jacob Ulrich (Paris, 1886), II, 239.

 

12La Mort 1e Roi Artu, Roman du XIIIe Siécle, ed.
Jean Frappier (Paris, 1956), pp. 197-99.

 

13Sir Thomas Malory, Works, ed. Eugene Vinaver,
2nd ed. (Oxford, 1967), I, 161.

14Roger S. Loomis, Arthurian Tradition and
Chrétien de Troyes (New York, 1949), pp. 152-53.

 

15Loomis, Arthurian Tradition, pp. 149-52. Accord—
ing to Loomis Gwrvan Gwallt-avan, who was one of Arthur's
warriors in Kulhwch and Olwen, was an alternate form of
the name Gwri Gwallt-euryn, the hero of the Mabinogion.
From Gwallt-avan came Galvagin, the earliest form of the
name Gauvain. Loomis also pointed out that the name
Gwri was often confused with Gweir, who in Kulhwch and
Olwen is said to be the son of Llwch or LlocH, the Welsh
spellings of Lug the Irish sun god.

 

 

 

50

16Thomas F. O'Rahilly, Early Irish History and
M tholo y (Dublin, 1946), pp. 293 and 318. One may ask
how t ere can be several names for the Irish sun god,
with the result that there seems to be more than one such
god. 0' Rahilly on p. 290 provided this explanation:
"In pagan Ireland every district of importance tended
to have its own sid or hill within which the Otherworld
was believed to be located; nevertheless there was in
Celtic belief but one Otherworld, despite the fact that
so many different locations were assigned to it. In the
same way the deities who presided over the different s1de
were ultimately the same everywhere, despite the variety
of local names applied to them."

 

 

l7Loomis, Arthurian Tradition, p. 150.

 

l8The Mabinogion, trans. Gwyn Jones and Thomas
Jones, Everyman's Library No. 97 (New York, 1949),
pp. 17-24. The story may be summarized as follows:
Pwyll, the Head of Annwn, and his wife Rhiannon have a
son. The night the baby is born, six women come to watch
the mother and her baby. But before midnight they all
fall asleep. When they awaken at cockcrow, they find
that the baby has mysteriously disappeared. Fearing
punishment for their lack of vigilance, they kill some
pups of a staghound bitch, smear the blood on the face
and hands of Rhiannon, and lay the bones in front of her.
When Rhiannon awakens, the women accuse her of killing her
own son. Rhiannon protests, but to no avail. Her husband
makes her do penance, which consists of sitting every day
for seven years near a horse-block outside the gate of
the city, telling all who come that she destroyed her son,
and offering to carry guests on her back to the court.

At the time when the baby is born, Teyrnon Twryf
Liant is the Lord of Gwent Is-Coed. He has a beautiful
mare which foals on every May eve, but the colt always
disappears before anyone sees it. This particular year
Teyrnon resolves to learn what happens to the colt, and
so he brings the mare into his house on May eve to watch
it. At the beginning of the night the mare brings forth
a beautiful colt, immediately after which Teyrnon sees
a huge claw reach through the window and seize the colt
by the mane. Teyrnon draws his sword and strikes off
the arm of the monster at the elbow, so that a portion
of the arm, together with the colt, remains inside the
house with him. Thereupon he hears a tumult and a
scream. He rushes outside to look around but can see
nothing because of the darkness. Returning to his
house, he sees at the door an infant in swaddling
clothes, wrapped in a mantle of brocaded silk, which

 

51

indicates to Teyrnon that the baby is of gentle birth.
Teyrnon and his wife have the baby baptized, naming him
Gwri Golden-hair, because his hair is yellow as gold.
They rear the boy who develops three times as fast as a
normal child. When he is four years old, he is given
the colt that was born the same night he was found.
Meanwhile Teyrnon hears about Rhiannon and her punish-
ment. Realizing that the boy looks exactly like Pwyll,
the Head of Annwn, and is therefore probably his son,
Teyrnon takes the boy to Pwyll's court and relates the
story of the mare and the boy. Rhiannon and Pwyll
recognize Gwri Golden-hair as their son. Rhiannon gives
to Gwri the name Pryderi which means "care,“ because he
is her deliverance from care. Pryderi is entrusted to
another nobleman to raise, but Teyrnon is rewarded and
named foster father. When Pwyll dies, his son Pryderi
becomes ruler in his father's place.

19Loomis, Celtic Myth, pp. 338-42.

 

20Lebor Gabala Erenn: The Book of the Taking of
Ireland, Part V, ed. and’trans. R. A. Stewart Macalister,
Ir1sh Texts Society, XLIV (Dublin, 1956), 285.

 

21R. A. Stewart Macalister, Tara: A Pagan
Sanctuary of Ancient Ireland (New York, 1931), pp. 98-124.
O'Rahilly, pp. 260-61.

 

 

22O'Rahilly, p. 516.

2 . .
3O'Rahilly, pp. 469-70. In this passage he

pointed out that the tendency of scholars to depart-
mentalize gods as having only one special function or
activity explains why there has been so much confusion
in labeling Celtic deities. Oengus apparently is one
example. While O'Rahilly, Rhys and Wentz regarded him
as the sun god, Macalister called him the god of thunder
and lightning; Rees and Rees, the god of the day; others,
the god of love or the god of agriculture. See W. Y.
Evans Wentz, The Fairy-Faith in Celtic Countries (New
York, 1911), pp. 416-17; R. A. S. Macalister, 1TTemair
Breg: Remains and Traditions of Tara," Proceedings of the
Royal Irish Academy, Section C, 34 (1917-1919), 318-20;
Alwyn Rees and Bfinley Rees, Celtic Heritage (London,
1961), pp. 217-18; J. A. MacCulloch, "Celts," Encyclo-
paedia of Religion and Ethics, ed. James Hastings New
York, 1919), III, 284.

 

 

 

 

 

 

52

24The Téin, trans. Thomas Kinsella (Dublin, 1969),
pp. 21—25, 270. Eleanor Hull, "Cuchulainn Cycle," Ency-
clopaedia of Religion and Ethics, ed. James Hastings
(New York, 1919), IV, 353-57. Tom Peete Cross and Clark
Harris Slover, Ancient Irish Tales (New York, 1936),
pp. 134-36.

 

 

25The legend of Taliesin can be found in The
Mabinogion, trans. Lady Charlotte Guest (New York, I906),
pp. 263-85.

 

26Merlin, Roman en Prose du XIIIe Siécle, ed.
Gaston Paris and Jacob Ulrich (Paris, 1886), I, 147,
203-07. In this romance King Arthur has an affair with
a lady whose identity he is not aware of, but who happens
to be his sister and the wife of King Loth. As a con-
sequence of the affair she conceives Mordrec. Merlin
predicts to King Arthur that a child (i.e. Mordrec) would
be born on the first of May in Logres who would cause
the destruction of Arthur and his kingdom. When May
comes around, Arthur remembers Merlin's prophecy and
sends a proclamation throughout Logres that all children
born on May first should be sent to him. All the parents
of May-day children comply with the command, thinking
that it will bring honor to them and their children.
King Loth happily complies also. As soon as his wife
bears her baby which he thinks he is the father of, he
has him baptized with the name Mordrec. He then has
the mother place him in a rich cradle, in the process
of which Mordrec receives a gash on his forehead, the
scar of which remains visible for the rest of his life.
In spite of the wound, Loth puts the baby in a ship with
a great company of knights and ladies and sends them off
to Arthur's castle. On the way, however, a storm comes
up and causes the ship to be wrecked on a rock. Every-
one on board perishes except the baby who floats along
on the sea in his cradle until a fisherman finds him.
Seeing him wrapped in a silk cloth and wearing rich gar-
ments, he believes him to be of noble blood. He takes
the baby to his lord, Nabor li Derrees, who cares for
the wound and raises the boy with his son Sagremor.
Nabor calls the orphan Mordrec since he found a letter
in the cradle saying that was his name.

 

27Loomis, Celtic Myth, p. 16.

 

281bid., p. 339.

291bid., p. 358.

53

30Merlin, I, 204.

31The High History of the Holy Grail, trans.
Sebastian Evans (New York, 1903), pp. 361-66.

 

32Loomis, Celtic Myth, pp. 332-34.

33W. T. H. Jackson, Medieval Literature: A

History and a Guide (New York, 1966), p. 128. See also
Sparnaay, "Hartmann von Aue," p. 436.

 

 

34Loomis, Celtic Myth, pp. 331, 340-41.

35This is the date that Helen Adolf gives in her
introduction to Hartmann von Aue, Gregorius, the Good
Sinner, trans. Sheema Zeben Buehne (New York, 1966),
p. 18.

 

36Thomas Kinsella, trans. The Tain (Dublin,
1969), p. 256 and plate facing p. 256.

,37R. A. S. Macalister, ed. and trans., Lebor
Gabala Erenn, Part I, Irish Texts Society, XXXIV

(Dublin, 1938), xi.

38James Carney, Studies in Irish Literature and

History (Dublin, 1955), p. 277, n. l.

 

 

39Loomis, Celtic Myth, pp. 339—41, 358.

 

CHAPTER III

GAWAIN'S ADULT ADVENTURES: SOURCES

AND ANALOGUES

After opening the romance with an account of
Gawain's birth and early life, the author relates the
hero's adventures on a barbarous isle, his naval battle
with Buzafarnan, his three-day fight with Gormundus in
Jerusalem, and his journey to Britain where he engages
Arthur and Kay in a nocturnal combat at a ford, and
rescues the mistress of the Castle of Maidens. In this
chapter I shall discuss the sources and analogues of

each of these adventures.

A. Adventures on the Barbarous Isle

 

As Gawain and 100 men are sailing for the Holy
Land to deliver Jerusalem from the pagans, a storm comes
up which drives them to an island of savage dwarfs who
had been conquered and are now ruled by King Milocrates.
A few of the Romans, led by Gawain, go to hunt in what
happens to be the royal game sanctuary. They are dis-

covered by the keepers who order them to lay down their

54

55

arms and ask by whose permission they are plundering

the royal forest, the animals of which no one may kill
except the king. Gawain replies that they need no per-
mission and that they will not lay down their weapons
"unless they be buried in your guts." Gawain then hurls
a spear at the spokesman of the keepers. This starts

a fight in which all the keepers are slain but one who
flees to King Milocrates to report the news. The king
collects his army and, after learning through spies more
about the intruders, sends to his brother, the ruler of
a neighboring land, for additional help. Prevented
meanwhile by stormy seas from resuming their journey,
the Romans send Gawain and another knight to infiltrate
the enemy camp. As the two set out on their spying
mission, they are confronted by a wild boar in the
forest which Gawain slays by cutting off its head.
Eventually they reach the city where Gawain meets the
queen, the emperor's niece whom Milocrates had abducted
from her husband, and plots with her about how to defeat
the king. After her knight suggests the plan, she gives
Gawain the king's sword and golden armor on which the
safety of the kingdom depends, for fate had ordained
that whoever first wears them besides the king would
Conquer him and despoil him of his royal crown. Accord—
ing to the plan, when Milocrates goes out with his army

to meet the Romans, forty of Gawain's men emerge from

56

a vineyard near the palace where they had been hiding
and set fire to the city. Milocrates loses all hope
for victory when he sees Gawain on the battlefield wear-
ing his enchanted sword and armor. But when the king's
troops notice that the city behind them is in flames,
they panic. Some head back to the city; others scatter.
The Romans kill many of the retreating enemy troops.
Milocrates regroups some of his men, but Gawain rides
in and kills the king by cutting off his head. There-
upon the Romans put to flight the rest of the pagan
army and march triumphantly into the city. After spend-
ing a few days there resting and looting the country-
side, they send the queen, the emperor's niece, back
to her lawful husband, and set sail again for Jerusalem.
J. D. Bruce thinks that the first part of the
episode—-the landing of the Roman expedition on the
island, the hunting of Gawain and his men in a nearby
forest, and their discovery by the inhabitants--shows
the influence of Geoffrey of Monmouth's Historia Regum
Britanniae.l He points to two passages. The first is
in Bk. I, Ch. xi, in which Brutus and his Trojans land
on the island of Loegetia. He sends his men to scout
the island for inhabitants. They find no one, but kill
all sorts of wild animals in a forest and come upon an
abandoned city with a temple of Diana.2 The second

passage occurs in the next three chapters of the same

57

book. Here Brutus' fleet has landed in Aquitaine, and
his men under the leadership of Corineus go out to hunt
in the woodland. Meanwhile Goffar the Pict, who is the
king of Aquitaine, learns that a foreign people with a
huge fleet have landed in his country, and sends messengers
to ask them whether they bring peace or war. The messen-
gers encounter the Trojans in the woodland and ask
Corineus

by whose permission he had entered the King's

forest to kill his animals, seeing that it had

been decreed from ancient time that no one should

hunt there without that ruler's order. Corineus

answered them that permission was completely

unnecessary. Then one of their number called

Himbert rushed forward, drew his bow and aimed

an arrow at him. Corineus dodged the arrow,

charged at Himbert and broke his head in pieces

with the bow which he was carrying. Thereupon

the others fled, escaping with some difficulty

from the hands of Corineus, and reported the

death of their comrade to Goffar.
Goffar then collects a huge army so he can avenge the
death of the messenger. Brutus puts his ships in a
state of defense, and then sets out with his entire
army to confront Goffar. There is a great battle in
which Brutus' men break through the enemy ranks killing
many and putting the rest to flight, including Goffar.
The Trojans then sack the country, burn the cities,

kill as many citizens as possible, and fill their ships

with loot before leaving.3

58

Although the first passage from Geoffrey has men
landing on an island not too far from Greece, and going
to hunt in a forest, there is little else which it has
in common with our romance. However, the latter passage
is so markedly similar to much of what happens on the
barbarous isle in De Ortu Walwanii that there can be
little doubt that our author borrowed from it. But he
makes the episode a little more colorful and dramatic
by describing the inhabitants as savage dwarfs, by
having Gawain rather than a keeper of the forest cast
the first weapon, by describing the fight in greater
detail, by allowing only one keeper to survive to
report the news to the king, and by adding the enemy
spies as well as the stormy weather which prevents the
Romans from sailing away before a conflict with King
Milocrates could take place. He also adds Gawain's
spying mission. This he does, I think, to make the
transition between the passage in Geoffrey and the
rescue of the abducted niece of the emperor, which
comes from elsewhere. The spying mission opens, by
the way, with Gawain meeting a wild boar in the forest.
It charges him, but he kills it by cutting off its head.
Wild boars, of course, occur in romance and nonromance
literature of the Western World. What our author's
source may have been for the incident in De Ortu Walwanii,

I could not determine. However, the incident, though

 

59

at first seeming to be a superfluous addition to the
story, certainly is colorful and exciting in itself, and
may have been intended to prefigure Gawain's killing of
Milocrates.

The abduction and rescue of a lady is, of course,
one of the stock Arthurian incidents. Witness, for
example, how many romances contain the carrying off by
force of Queen Guinevere, not to mention other ladies.
But because of the magic sword and other motifs in
Gawain's rescuing of the emperor's niece, Roger Loomis
has been able to identify with some certainty its ulti—
mate source: the Irish abduction story Aided Con Roi

or The Violent Death of Curoi.4 This saga goes as

 

follows. The giant Curoi carries off Blathnat and

her caldron for cows' milk from her lover Cuchulainn.
Cuchulainn tries to stop him but is humiliatingly
defeated in the attempt. Some time later as he is
passing through Curoi's territory, he meets Blathnat
who renews her pledge of love to him and asks him to
bring his army on the following Samhain (Halloween or
November 1) to rescue her; she would see to it that only
a few of Curoi's men are on hand when Cuchulainn is
ready to besiege the stronghold. The signal to attack
would be her pouring cows' milk into the stream which
flows through the woods where Cuchulainn and his army

would be hiding. While Cuchulainn goes off to collect

 

60

his army, Blathnat persuades Curoi to build a splendid

enclosure for his stronghold with all the large stones

in Ireland, and Curoi sends away most of his men to

collect them. Meanwhile Cuchulainn returns and when

he sees the stream turn white from the milk, leads his

army in attack. They set the fortress afire, the burning

of which Curoi's men can see from afar. When they return,

there is a great battle which lasts till the middle of

spring. In the end Cuchulainn strikes off Curoi's head

with the latter's own sword. Blathnat had given the

hero this sword, the only weapon by which Curoi could

be slain. Cuchulainn then takes Blathnat back to Ulster.5
While Gawain's rescuing of the emperor's niece

differs from The Violent Death of Curoi in some details,

 

the two stories have several basic motifs in common:

(1) a gigantic warrior kidnapping a lady from her lover
or husband (although Milocrates is not described as a
giant, we can assume that he is at least of normal size
for his armor is large enough for Gawain to wear, and
thus he would be gigantic in relation to the savage
dwarfs whom he conquered and rules); (2) the hero
finding her in the abductor's stronghold and plotting
her rescue with her; (3) the kidnapped lady helping in
her own deliverance, particularly by providing the hero
with the abductor's sword, the only weapon by which the

abductor can be killed; (4) the hero's army hiding in a

61

woods or vineyard near the abductor's stronghold and
then besieging it while the latter's army is away;

(5) the burning of the stronghold, the sight of which
brings back the enemy troops; (6) the large battle which
ends with the hero beheading the abductor with the
latter's magic sword; and (7) the lady's reunion with
her lover or husband. (While in De Ortu Walwanii the
hero is not the person from whom the lady was abducted,
it is stated that she loves Gawain; however, they evi-
dently do not consummate their love and she is sent back
to her husband.) These essential similarities indicate

that The Violent Death of Curoi is probably the ultimate

 

source of Gawain's rescue of the emperor's niece in

De Ortu Walwanii. What lends even more credence to
this theory is the fact that the hero of The Violent
Death of Curoi is Cuchulainn who is commonly regarded
as Gawain's prototype in Irish lore. Conversely, since
Cuchulainn is the hero, we can say that the episode in
De Ortu Walwanii forms part of the tradition that
properly belongs to Gawain.

Loomis regards both Curoi and Cuchulainn as
solar deities and argues that the mythological basis
of their fight over Blathnat (whose name means "Little
Flower") which lasted from November 1 to the middle of
spring is the annual conflict between the Old Sun and

the New Sun, or "the story of the passing of the

62

flower-maiden from the possession of one sun-god to

another's."6

This significance, of course, is absent
from De Ortu Walwanii. The only trace that may remain
here would come from a consideration that Gawain, a
descendant of the sun god tradition, fights successfully
to rescue a girl from a man whose armor is golden, a

possible solar color.

According to Loomis, The Violent Death of Curoi

 

has left its imprint on several Arthurian abduction
stories, including some of the ones involving Guinevere.7
But there seems to be only one analogue which not only
is very similar to the episode in De Ortu Walwanii, but
agrees with the source in a great number of details.
Occurring in the Vulgate Lancelot this analogue goes

as follows. The gigantic Carado kidnaps Gawain and
imprisons him in his stronghold, the Dolorous Tower.

A damsel secretly comforts Gawain, especially by poison-
ing the vermin in the prison. The damsel is Carado's
mistress whom he had abducted from her lover. Lancelot,
Ywain, and Galeshin set out on their separate ways to
rescue Gawain, and eventually after many adventures
arrive at the Dolorous Tower at the same time. Galeshin
sends his squire to reconnoiter. The squire learns that
Carado has gone out with his knights to oppose Arthur's
army who also had just arrived to rescue Gawain, and

that Carado's mistress promises to help overcome Carado

63

in any way she can. Lancelot goes off to lend assistance
to Arthur. Meanwhile Ywain tries to enter the main gate,
and Galeshin the postern gate, the only two ways to gain
entrance to the stronghold, but both are captured by
guards and imprisoned. As Arthur's and Carado's forces
are fighting, Lancelot attacks from the rear. Carado's
men are routed, and Lancelot engages the huge knight in
a single combat. The latter becomes wounded; he flees
into the main gate of his stronghold with Lancelot
going in right behind him. In the fight which continues
inside, Lancelot breaks his own sword, but the damsel
slips him another. Seeing it in Lancelot's hand, Carado
knows his fate, for this is the one he had entrusted to
the safekeeping of her whom he loved best, the only
sword by which he could die. In the end Lancelot stabs
Carado through the body and cuts off his head. Gawain
and the other prisoners are freed. King Arthur invests
the damsel with the Dolorous Tower which is renamed "La
bele garde," and she is married that same evening to her
lover Melians.8

Here again we have a gigantic man kidnapping a
lady from her lover; a reconnaissance mission which
includes a meeting with the lady and her promise to
help; the hero entering the stronghold while the
abductor's army is away; the lady handing over to the

hero the abductor's sword, the only weapon by which the

64

latter knight can be killed; the beheading of the
abductor with that sword; and the lady's reunion with
her lover. Moreover, Loomis has noted that in the
Livre d'Artus the knight Meliant de Lis was married

to a certain Floree, and by inferring that the nameless
damsel in the Vulgate Lancelot is the same lady, he
connects her with Blathnat, "Little Flower," in The

Violent Death of Curoi.9 But the author of the Vulgate

 

Lancelot has obviously glorified his title hero by trans-
ferring to him the role which properly belongs to Gawain,
and has made the latter only a humble prisoner. Moreover,
the whole focus of the episode is the rescue of Gawain;
the deliverance of the damsel is almost a footnote. In
De Ortu Walwanii the rescue of the emperor's niece seems
somewhat incidental, too. Gawain and the Romans are
trying to save themselves from the military threat of
King Milocrates. But after Gawain learns of the cap-
tivity of the lady, the emphasis seems to be equally
divided between her liberation and self-defense on the
part of the Romans. On the other hand, while Cuchulainn

in The Violent Death of Curoi also by accident discovers

 

Blathnat in Curoi's stronghold, his sole purpose there-
after is to rescue her. The Vulgate Lancelot lacks

other details, such as the captive damsel being in love
with the hero, a face-to-face meeting between the hero

and the lady to plot her rescue, and the burning of the

65

stronghold, which De Ortu Walwanii and The Violent Death

 

of Curoi possess. Thus it appears that although 2e
Ortu Walwanii was composed a half a century later than
the Vulgate Lancelot (late thirteenth century versus
early thirteenth century), it is much closer to the
ultimate source than is the Lancelot for this episode.

What our author's immediate source was for the
rescue of the captive damsel is unknown. Bruce thinks
it may have been the same lost French romance which he
believes supplied the birth and early life of Gawain.lo
In any case, the adventures on the barbarous isle are
a blend of Brutus' landing in Aquitaine from Geoffrey
of Monmouth's Historia and Cuchulainn's rescuing of

Blathnat from The Violent Death of Curoi. The most

 

unusual thing is that these typical Arthurian adventures
occur on an island in the Aegean Sea and in the context
of a crusade mission. Other aspects of this mission I
shall discuss next, while the setting I shall treat
separately in the following chapter.

B. Gawain's Naval Battle
with Buzafarnan

 

Having defeated Milocrates' army on the bar-
barous isle, Gawain and company set sail again for the
Holy Land. But they complete only a day's journey
before they meet the fleet of Buzafarnan, whom Milocrates

had sent to attack the Romans from the rear while they

66

were still harbored on the island. However, a storm

had driven the enemy ships out to sea, thus causing the
strategy to fail, and now they are just returning. The
two fleets position themselves and begin the battle.
Gawain is getting the upper hand when the enemy resorts

to the most dreaded of weapons--Greek fire. The narrative
is interrupted by a lengthy recipe for Greek fire, which
takes up nearly half of the space devoted to this episode.
Finally there is a short account of how the Romans gain
the victory.

Naval battles and alchemical formulae are
rarities in Arthurian romance, not to mention a sea
fight which occurs in the context of a journey to
liberate the Holy Land, and a recipe for the ultimate
in military weapons during the Middle Ages. These one
would expect to find in a chronicle of the crusades
rather than in a romance. Since I could not find a
source for the author's description of the battle in
De Ortu Walwanii, I shall give him credit for composing
it himself. The recipe for Greek fire consists of both
ridiculous and actual elements. Nowhere could I find
a single source for the whole formula in our romance.
The serious elements, as I explained in Chapter I, could
well have come from Mark the Greek's Liber Ignium. The
ridiculous elements, although all appropriate for their

"fiery" qualities, apparently were inspired by classical

67

and medieval lore. See my footnotes to the translation

for the background to each of these. But sources or no
sources, it is owing to the author's originality, not

only that he included in his romance all this non-Arthurian
matter, but that be blended it so well with traditional
Arthurian motifs--i.e. Gawain's rescuing of the abducted
lady and his three-day joust with Gormundus which I shall
discuss next.

C. Gawain's Three—Day Fight with
Gormundus in Jerusalem

 

 

After the naval battle Gawain and the Romans
travel the rest of the way to the Holy Land without
further incident. Final preparations are made for the
joust between Gawain and Gormundus to decide the fate
of Jerusalem. Then with the Christian army on one side
of the arena, and the pagan army on the other, the two
champions clash on foot, because no horse is strong
enough to bear the gigantic Gormundus as a rider. They
fight all day, but neither is victorious. At sundown
they are separated to resume their fight on the next day.
When dawn appears, they clash again and wound each other;
at nightfall they are separated, but not before Gawain
cuts to pieces Gormundus' shield and in the process
breaks his own sword. That evening there is a dispute
about whether the combatants should be allowed replace-

ments for their broken arms, and the decision is in the

68

affirmative. On the third day Gawain drives his foe
outside the fighting area, but encouraged by his people
Gormundus comes back to knock Gawain off his feet with
a blow. Then Gawain, fierce with rage, brings his sword
down on the top of Gormundus' helmet and drives the blow
all the way to the bottom of his chest. He withdraws his
sword and cuts off the pagan Champion's head, thus ending
the contest and winning Jerusalem for the Christians.
Bruce thinks that this episode was suggested in
part by a passage in Geoffrey of Monmouth's Historia Regum
Britanniae (Bk. IX, Ch. xi), where Arthur and the gigantic
Frollo, like Gawain and Gormundus, engage in a single
combat in order to avert a major war over a piece of
territory. Bruce states that although the descriptions
of the two combats differ in many details, "Certain
features, after all, show plainly the influence of the
earlier narrative on the later--namely, the fact that
in each the author allows his hero at one stage of the
contest to have the worst of it, and, again, the incli-
nation of the host that look on to interfere in the
duel."11 I might also point out that Gawain kills
Gormundus in the same way that Arthur slays Frollo:
by bringing the sword down on the top of the foe's
helmet and cleaving his head into two parts. Bruce
also believes that the name of the Persian champion

was adopted from the heathen Gormundus in Geoffrey's

69

Historia (Bk. XI, Chs. viii-x), the king of the Africans
who conquered Ireland, promised to help Isembard capture
Gaul, ravaged Britain, and gave Loegria to the Saxons.12
Gormundus, of course, was a well-known pagan hero, as

evidenced by the early twelfth century chanson de geste

Gormont et Isembart. But it is possible that our author

 

did take the name Gormundus from Geoffrey of Monmouth,
since be borrowed several other things from his works.
However, his making Gormundus gigantic in size may be
the result of Frollo's being of immense stature, even
though Frollo was not too large for his horse to bear him.
Other than the certain features which may have
been inspired by Geoffrey of Monmouth, the description
of the joust appears to be our author's own composition.
The fight is made to last for three days, probably in
reminiscence of the traditional three-days' tournament,
although none of the other characteristics of this
tournament have been preserved, such as the champion
wearing a different color of armor each day, his fight-
ing on behalf of or for the hand of a lady, and so forth.
Gawain's fight with Gormundus differs from the stereo—
typed joust in that the opponents do not rush at each
other on horseback knocking each other to the ground and
splintering their lances, but rather start the combat
on foot and with swords. More Space is devoted to

atmosphere--a grandiloquent description of the fighters

13

70

and their emotions and the strenuousness of the fight--
than to the progress of the fight itself. A further
departure from the usual romance combat is the author's
inclusion of references to classical mythology when he
compares the fierce combat to that which the Lapithae
engaged in, and the exchanging of blows to the hammering
of the Cyclopes. But the greatest departure from
Arthurian tradition is our author's making this joust
take place in Jerusalem in the context of a crusade
adventure, the winning of Jerusalem from the pagans.

D. The Queen's Taunt and the
Combat at the Ford

 

 

Having defeated Gormundus in Jerusalem, Gawain
returns to Rome and then proceeds to Britain to serve
in King Arthur's army. On the night before he arrives
in Caerleon where Arthur is then residing, Queen Gwen—
dolen who is gifted in magic and prophecy taunts her
husband in bed, telling him that a knight is in the
neighborhood, on his way to the court, who will prove
superior to him in valor and fortitude. She says also
that the stranger the next day will send her a gold
ring, three coins and two horses. Even though he knows
that the queen is always right in her predictions,
Arthur later that night secretly goes out with Kay to
encounter the strange knight. They meet him at a ford

and challenge him. Gawain, not knowing who his opponents

71

are, unhorses both of them in the stream and takes their
horses. Saved by the darkness, Arthur returns home and
when the queen asks him where he was and how he had become
so wet, he tells her that he went out to stop a commotion
in the courtyard and got wet in the rain. She replies
that tomorrow the truth will be known. On the next day
Gawain meets the queen's messenger and asks him to take
her a gold ring, three gold coins, and the two horses

he had won the night before. This the messenger does,
and the queen leads the horses into the bedchamber where
Arthur is still resting from the events of the night
before. Recognizing his horses, Arthur is filled with
shame.

It is quite common in romance literature for a
boastful or self—complacent king or knight to be chal—
lenged by his lady on some point of pride--usually his
superiority in arms or physical attractions--to become
upset and set out to prove the truth of the disparaging
remark. Loomis cites its occurrence in Eggs by Chrétien

de Troyes, Diu Crone, De Ortu Walwanii, Rigomer, Hunbaut,

 

 

Gerbert's continuation of Le Conte del Graal, Arthur and

 

Gorlagon, King Arthur and King Cornwall, the Dutch

 

Lancelot, and L'Atre Périlleux. He observes that
Gawain, or a character whose name was derived from
his, plays a conspicuous part in all the boast episodes

of the above-mentioned romances, except the one in

72

Gerbert's continuation of Le Conte del Graal, and con—

 

cludes that Gawain was an indispensible figure in the
formula of the boast. Furthermore, Loomis believes that
the ultimate source of the motif is Celtic: the Irish

tale, The Journeys of the Tuatha Luchra and the Death of

 

Fergus, the preserved form of which is dated in the
thirteenth or fourteenth century, but the tradition

of which most likely goes back several centuries
earlier.14 This Irish tale consists of two parts.

In the first part Iubdan, the king of the Lepra and
Lepracan, holds a banquet at which he brags about the
strength of his soldiery. Esirt, the king's chief poet
bursts out laughing and declares that he knows of a
province in Ireland, Ulster which is ruled by Fergus
mac Leide, where any one man could surpass all four
battalions of the Lepracan, Eventually King Iubdan
goes to Emain Macha, the capital of Ulster, to see

for himself whether what his poet said was true. After
suffering great humiliations, he returns home. In the
second part, Fergus the king of Ulster who has been
disfigured by the monster of Loch Rudraige, has an
argument with his queen. She taunts him about his
ugliness and suggests that he avenge himself on the
monster rather than fight with her. He goes to the
loch and kills the monster, but in the process is mor-

tally wounded himself.15 In both parts of this Irish

73

tale, then, we find a king who is challenged on a matter
of pride, goes out to determine the truth, and is undone,
the same formula which occurs in De Ortu Walwanii. More—
over, in the one part we find a queen taunting her hus-
band, and in the other a king taunted as to his superi-
ority in arms. As for the other romances mentioned
above, I refer the reader to the Loomis study which

shows how the Irish tale accounts for the main features
of the boast formula therein.16

The episode in De Ortu Walwanii has gone outside

The Journeys of the Tuatha Luchra and the Death of Fergus

 

and incorporated another Celtic tradition for the method
of the king's humiliation, the combat at the ford. There
seem to be only two extant romances in which the queen's

taunt is combined with a nocturnal combat at the ford:

De Ortu Walwanii and Heinrich von dem Tfirlin's Diu Cr6ne.

Comparing the two episodes, J. D. Bruce concludes that

because of their close resemblances they probably are

ultimately connected with one another.17
The combat in the ford is itself one of the

stock incidents in Arthurian romance. According to

Loomis, this motif comes from the Welsh tradition of

the annual combat at the ford, as preserved at the

beginning of Pwyll in the Mabinogion. With the help

of supportive evidence from folklore and romance litera—

ture, Loomis interprets the defeat of Arawn (the

74

huntsman-king clad in gray and riding a gray horse) by
Havgan (the king of Annwn whose name means "Summer
White"), and a year later the defeat of Havgan by Pwyll
fighting at the ford in place of Arawn, as the annual
conflict between Winter and Summer.18 If Pwyll is the
Welsh sun god, as Thomas O'Rahilly identified him to

be,19

the episode in Pwyll might also be termed the
annual conflict between the Old Sun and the New Sun.
In any case, this meaning is not apparent in Gawain's
encounter with Arthur and Kay at the ford in De Ortu
Walwanii. What we have here is just an ordinary fight
to confirm the queen's prediction that a knight was
coming to Caerleon who would prove to be superior to
Arthur in martial prowess.

Whereas the boast episodes in some of the other
romances seem to be serious in nature--for example, Count
Galoain's undoing after boasting about his knightly
superiority in Chrétien's Eregzo appears to have been
meant to teach him (as well as the medieval courtly
audience) a lesson in humility--the episode in De Ortu
Walwanii seems to have been written purely to entertain.
Several things contribute to a light tone. First, the
queen taunts Arthur in bed, rather than in a more
stately or public place. Second, the queen's name is
Gwendoloena. As far as I know, this is the only romance

where she is so named. Bruce thinks that her name was

75

taken from that of Merlin's wife in Geoffrey of Monmouth's
Vita Merlini.21 Roger Loomis speculates that it developed
from the Breton Wenlowen, which had been substituted for
the less euphonious Welsh Gwenhwyvar whence comes Guen-
ievre or Guinevere.22 However, it is difficult to
believe that any person who wrote at so late a date (see
Chapter I), who was so well acquainted with Geoffrey of
Monmouth's Historia (where Arthur's queen is "Guen-
huvera"23) and so well versed in Arthurian tradition
generally as our author obviously was, could have mis-
taken the name of the queen accidentally. Whatever his
source or inspiration, I think our author intentionally
gave her the wrong name for the sake of humor. Third,
Queen Gwendolen is said to be skilled in magic and pro—
phecy. She does in fact predict Arthur's discomfiture
and the proof of it in De Ortu Walwanii. These are
powers which one would expect to belong to someone like
Morgain la Fée rather than to the queen. Gwendolen's
having them seems to detract from her dignity as queen,
with the effect again being humorous. Fourth, the
bumbling Arthur knows that the queen is always right

in her predictions, but yet goes out to test them. Then,
after he is unhorsed in the combat at the ford and comes
back to bed, he lies to the queen about how he got all
wet. Fifth, the next day to prove that her husband was

discomfited the night before, the queen leads Arthur's

76

and Kay's horses into the king's bedroom where he is
still resting. It is not unusual in romance literature
for a horse to be led or ridden into a hall (e.g. Sir

Gawain and the Green Knight), but bringing horses into

 

a bedroom is downright ridiculous. For these reasons

the episode must have been written purely to entertain.

E. Gawain's Relief of the
Castle of Maidens

 

 

Coming to Arthur's castle, Gawain asks to serve
in the king's army. Arthur spurns his offer of service
on the premise that he is an unproven knight. Exasperated,
Gawain says he hopes Arthur would deem him worthy if he
should accomplish something which Arthur and his whole
army shall have failed in. This proposal pleases the
king. Twelve days later a messenger arrives at Arthur's
court announcing that the Castle of Maidens in the northern
part of Britain is being besieged by a pagan king who is
in love with the governess of the castle but who has been
rejected by her. Arthur is reluctant to go to her aid
because he had often contended with this king and each
time met defeat, but he collects his army and goes any-
way. Another messenger arrives with the news that the
Castle of Maidens has been taken and the governess
abducted. Arthur pursues the adversaries, but his whole
army is repulsed, and Arthur is in the forefront of

those fleeing. Taunting Arthur about retreating, Gawain

77

rides into the midst of the enemy forces, kills the pagan
king with his spear, and rescues the lady. With the
pagan king's head fixed on the staff of his banner, he
rides triumphantly with the lady back to the hall where
Arthur is moping over his misfortunes in war. There is
great rejoicing and Arthur finally reveals to Gawain the
latter's true identity.

The Castle of Women figures often in Arthurian

romance. Sometimes as in Malory's Book of Sir Tristram

 

de Lyones, it is the site of a tournament.24 Sometimes,

as in Chrétien's Le Conte del Graal, we find a description

 

of the magnificent castle with its hundreds of windows
and hundreds of ladies in rich attire (among whom are
Gawain's grandmother and mother and sister), and

several adventures such as the perilous bed episode
where Gawain's courage is tested.25 The author of De
Ortu Walwanii follows only one tradition concerning the
Castle of Women, that of its being besieged. He locates
the castle in the north of Britain, in accordance with
its generally being identified with Edinburgh from as

early as 1142.26

But there is no description of the
castle; in fact, no one in the romance even goes to the
castle itself. And the governness remains unnamed.

The relief of a lady whose castle is being

besieged, whether or not it happens to be the Castle

of Women, is of course a commonplace in Arthurian

 

78

literature. Helaine Newstead believes that the Irish

tale Serglige Con Culainn or The Sickbed of Cuchulainn

 

has influenced many such romance episodes and contributed
the basic structural pattern of at least five of them:
the story of Dame Lyones in Malory's Book of Gareth, the
story of the Lady of Lothian in the thirteenth century
French verse romance Fergus, the tale of Lady Lufamour
the queen of Maidenland in the fourteenth century English

rimed romance Sir Perceval of Galles, the final episode

 

of De Ortu Walwanii, and the story of the mistress of
the Castle of Maidens in the thirteenth century verse
romance Yder.27

The Sickbed of Cuchulainn as we have it in the

 

Book of the Dun Cow is a compilation of several versions
of the same story which go back to at least the ninth
century. The following is a brief summary of those
parts of the tale which concern us. The fairy woman
Liban comes to Cuchulainn and informs him that her sister
Fand is in love with him and that he can have her love
if he will come to the island where Fand lives and fight
for one day against the armies of three Irish Chieftains
who are besieging it. Cuchulainn refuses to fight that
day on the excuse that he is too sick. Instead he sends
his charioteer Loeg back with Liban to learn about this
island. Loeg finds a rich palace containing 150 women

on the same number of couches. He also meets the

 

79

beautiful Fand as well as Liban's husband Labraid who
sends him back to report what he saw to Cuchulainn.

Here the saga is interrupted by the story of the election
of Lugain to the kingship of Ireland. When the original
tale resumes, there seems to be a duplication of much of
what has already taken place: Liban appearing to Cuchul-
ainn with basically the same message as before, Cuchulainn
refusing to do the woman's bidding and instead sending
Loeg to find out about the island, and Loeg's report to
Cuchulainn. In any case, when Loeg recommends that
Cuchulainn carry out the requested mission, the hero
finally goes. Singlehandedly he meets the enemy armies
and slays two of their Chieftains as well as several
other men. This enables Labraid to finish the battle.
Cuchulainn enjoys the love of Fand for a month and then
bids her farewell, arranging a tryst with her in Ireland.
When Cuchulainn's wife Emer finds out about the tryst,
she tries to kill Fand. Cuchulainn protects Fand

against Emer's jealousy, but Fand decides to leave
Cuchulainn anyway. This causes the hero to become mad
and wander through the mountains without food or drink
and sleep every night in the open. Eventually the druids
restore him to his senses by giving him a magic drink
which makes him forget Fand. They also give Emer a

drink so that she forgets her jealousy.28

80

This Irish tale, then, has Cuchulainn rescuing
a lady whose land and castle full of women is being
besieged by enemies. As for its influence on the five
romances mentioned above, let me quote Helaine Newstead:
A simplified version of the plot of the Serglige,
then, probably contributed the basic structural
pattern: the summoning of aid, the failure of the
first embassy, the hero's single—handed combat
against the enemy hosts and his defeat of the hos—
tile chiefs, the reward of the fay's love, the
separation of the lovers, the hero's madness and
wandering.29
Like most of the Arthurian stories, the five romance
episodes discussed by Newstead have undergone certain
changes and developments. But De Ortu Walwanii stands
perhaps the furthest of the five from its source. In

this romance there is the summoning of aid, but unlike

The Sickbed of Cuchulainn and Malory's Book of Gareth

 

where the messenger is the besieged lady's sister, the
messenger is a male, as is evidenced by the phrase

"misso nuncio," with no expressed kinship to the lady.
Second, there is the failure of the first embassy, but

unlike the Irish tale and Sir Perceval of Galles where

 

Cuchulainn and King Arthur respectively decline because
of illness, Arthur in De Ortu Walwanii does go to the
lady's assistance, though reluctantly, and is put to
flight. Third, while in all the stories we find the
hero's successful single-handed combat against the

besieged lady's enemies, the last three elements——the

81

reward of the lady's love, the separation of the lovers

(which two are part of the Book of Gareth, Fergus, and

 

Sir Perceval of Galles), and the hero's madness and wan-

 

dering (which is found in the Book of Gareth and Fergus)-—
are all absent from De Ortu Walwanii.

Our romance also differs from its source and
from its romance analogues in the great emphasis put
on the mission as a proof of Gawain's valor. The rescuing
of the governess of the Castle of Maidens is the something
that Gawain is to succeed in where Arthur and his whole
army shall have failed, as a proof of Gawain's worthiness
to serve in Arthur's army. Perhaps the proof of valor
aspect was implied in or was once present in the Irish
source, since, as Helaine Newstead pointed out, in the
romance analogues the liberating of the besieged lady
is usually done by a young or obscure or relatively
untried knight.30 On the other hand, perhaps it comes

from a blending of The Sickbed of Cuchulainn with another

 

tale, Bricriu's Feast, which Loomis cites as the source
of Gawain's test of courage--his adventure on the
perilous bed--when he visits the Castle of Ladies in

Chrétien de Troyes' Le Conte del Graal.3l In Bricriu's

 

Feast Cuchulainn and two other warriors of Ulster go to
Curoi's fortress to let Curoi determine which of them is
the bravest and therefore the most worthy to receive the

choicest portion of a feast prepared by Bricriu. When

82

they arrive, Curoi is gone; only his wife is present.
Curoi, however, had left instructions for each of the
heroes according to seniority to take his night watching
the fortress until Curoi should return. The first two
nights the two older heroes each take the watch, and
each is hurled out of the fortress by an attacking giant.
The third night Cuchulainn is the sentry. Three waves
of attackers of nine men each besiege the stronghold.
Cuchulainn not only kills all of them, but tears out

the heart of a sea monster that springs toward the for-
tress, and finally makes an attacking giant submit to
him. As a result when Curoi returns, he proclaims
Cuchulainn the bravest of the heroes and accords him

32 Thus Cuchulainn

the Champion's portion of the feast.
proves his valor by single-handedly defeating waves of
attackers while guarding a fortress inhabited by a lady,
a task which others had failed in. Gawain, too, proves
his valor by single-handedly defeating the enemy army

in order to rescue the captive mistress of the Castle

of Maidens, a task which Arthur and his whole army had
failed in. It seems very possible, then, that the final
episode of De Ortu Walwanii is a blending of The Sickbed
of Cuchulainn, which provides the structural pattern

of the episode, and Cuchulainn's adventures in Bricriu's
Feast, which provides the test of valor motif. Such a

blending would explain why the second structural element

83

in Newstead's list takes the form, not of Arthur declining
to help the lady because of illness, but of his going
and being defeated.

It should be noted that the hero of The Sickbed
of Cuchulainn and Bricriu's Feast is Gawain's prototype
Cuchulainn. So in a sense the rescuing of the lady
whose castle is being besieged is an adventure which
properly belongs to Gawain. The same goes for Gawain's
rescuing of the emperor's niece on the barbarous isle,
which comes from Cuchulainn's rescuing of Blathnat in

The Violent Death of Curoi. Moreover, since the birth

 

and early life of Gawain as well as his combat at the
ford come also from the Celtic sun god lore, the only
adventures of Gawain in De Ortu Walwanii which apparently
do not belong to the original tradition surrounding him
are his naval battle with Buzafarnan and his three-day

fight with Gormundus in Jerusalem.

CHAPTER III--NOTES

1J. Douglas Bruce, ed., Historia Meriadoci and
De Ortu Waluuanii (Baltimore, 1913), pp. lxii-lxiii.

 

 

2Geoffrey of Monmouth, The History of the Kings '
of Britain, trans. Lewis Thorpe (Baltimore, 1966),
p. 64.

 

3Geoffrey of Monmouth, pp. 66-69. Quotation
from p. 67.

4Roger Sherman Loomis, "More Celtic Elements in
Gawain and the Green Knight," Journal of English and
Germanic Philology, 42 (1943), 156-58. Roger Sherman
Loomis, Celtic Myth and Arthurian Romance (New York,
1927), pp. 12-23.

 

 

 

5The different versions of this tale in German
translation can be found in Rudolf Thurneysen, "Die
Sage von Curoi," Zeitschrift fur Celtische Philologie,
9 (1913), 189—234. See also R. Thurneysen, Die Irische
Helden- und Konigsage (Halle, 1921), pp. 432-44. An
English translation of one version, although it lacks
the magic sword motif, can be found in Ancient Irish
Tales, ed. Tom Peete Cross and Clark Harrls SIover
(New York, 1936), pp. 328-32.

 

 

6Loomis, Celtic Myth, p. 51.

7Roger Sherman Loomis, Arthurian Tradition and
Chrétien de Troyes (New York, 1949), p. 204.

 

 

8The Vulgate Version of the Arthurian Romances,
ed. H. Oskar Sommer, Carnegie Institution of Washington
Publication No. 74, IV (Washington, 1911), 88-139.

 

9Loomis, "More Celtic Elements," p. 157.

84

85

10Bruce, p. lxiii.

llIb1d., pp. lx-lxi. Geoffrey of Monmouth,
pp. 223-25.

12Bruce, p. 1X. Geoffrey of Monmouth, pp. 263—

65. I might point out that Peter Rickard identifies
Gormont or Gormundus with the historical Guthrum, the
Norse leader who raided England in the 860's and 870's
and who warred on Ethelred and his successor Alfred the
Great. A later age identified Gormont's men with Sara—
cens. See Peter Rickard, Britain in Medieval French
Literature, 1100-1500 (Cambridge, Eng., 1956), pp. 59-60.

 

13For more on the three-days' tournament, see

Loomis, Arthurian Tradition, pp. 253-60; and Jessie
Weston, The Three Days' Tournament (London, 1902).

 

 

l4Loomis, Arthurian Tradition, pp. 133—38.

 

15Ancient Irish Tales, pp. 471-87.

 

l6Loomis, Arthurian Tradition, pp. 133-38.

 

l7Bruce, pp. 1vii-lviii.

l8Loomis, Arthurian Tradition, pp. 132-33. The
Mabinogion, trans. Gwyn Jones and Thomas Jones, Every—
man's Library No. 97 (New York, 1949), pp. 3-9.

 

19Thomas F. O'Rahilly, Early Irish History and
Mythology (Dublin, 1946), pp. 293 and 318.

 

20Chrétien de Troyes, Arthurian Romances, trans.
W. W. Comfort, Everyman's Library No. 698 (New York,
1914), pp. 42—48.

 

21Bruce, p. lix.

22Loomis, Arthurian Tradition, pp. 196-97.

 

23Geoffrey of Monmouth, Historia Regum Britanniae,
ed. Acton Griscom (New York, 1929), p. 445.

 

 

86

24Sir Thomas Malory, Works, ed. Eugene Vinaver,
2nd ed., 3 vols. (Oxford, 1967), II, 517-40.

25Chrestien de Troyes, The Story of the Grail,
trans. Robert White Linker, 2nd ed. (Chapel Hill, N.C.,
1952), pp. 149-86.

 

26Loomis, Arthurian Tradition, pp. 108-11.

 

27Helaine Newstead, "The Besieged Ladies in
Arthurian Romance," PMLA, 63 (1948), 803-30.

28Serglige Con Culainn, ed. and trans. Myles
Dillon (Columbus, Ohio, 1941). An English translation
of the story appears also in Ancient Irish Tales, pp. 176-
98.

 

 

29Newstead, p. 825.

3°lbid., pp. 803, 807, 813.

31Loomis, Arthurian Tradition, pp. 443-44.

 

32Ancient Irish Tales, pp. 272-76.

 

 

CHAPTER IV

FINAL INTRODUCTORY COMMENTS

An introduction to De Ortu Walwanii would be
incomplete without a few comments about the characteri-
zation of Gawain, the setting, the form and style of the
romance, and the author's purpose in writing it. In
this chapter I am also including a note on my trans-

lation.

A. The Characterization of Gawain

 

The author of De Ortu Walwanii portrays Gawain
for the most part as the ideal knight, but he places
much more emphasis on the military than on other aspects
of his life. Only when dealing with the hero's childhood
does the author endow him with a fairly complete set
of courtly attributes. At the beginning of the romance
Anna gives birth to a little boy with a fine appearance
("eleganti forma," p. 55),1 Investigating the merchants'
ship, Viamundus notices the baby boy with the distin—

guished appearance ("prestanti forma, p. 56). After

Gawain's foster parents had taken him to Rome, youths

87

 

88

clad in the praetexta and knights from the imperial
court used to congregate at Viamundus' home on account
of the charm of the little boy ("ob graciam paruuli,"

p. 58). The author goes on to say that as the boy was
growing in age, he was also growing in bravery of spirit
and fitness of body ("animi uirtute et corporis habili—
tate," p. 58), and being an emulator of the man believed
to be his father he was striving for discretion, courtesy
and prowess ("industrie facecie probitatique," p. 58).
Presumably largess and munificence ("largitate et munifi—
cencia," p. 57) could be added to this list since the
author stressed these as qualities of the foster father
a few sentences earlier. The author mentions that there
flourished in Gawain certain innate virtues ("quedam
ingenite uirtutes," p. 58) which caused people to like
him, that he was endowed with a tall and well-formed
stature, an elegant bearing, a handsome face, and
enormous strength ("procera decentique statura, lepido
gestu, pulchra facie, ingentique fortitudine," p. 58).
On his deathbed Viamundus remarks to the emperor and

the pope that Gawain is not about to degenerate from

the nobility of his parents ("a parentum nobilitate

non degeneraturum," p. 59). After Viamundus dies, the
emperor takes Gawain, now twelve years old, and raises
him at the palace. At the end of three years, his

prowess requiring it ("sua probitate exigente," p. 59),

89

he is fitted out with arms and dubbed a knight by the
emperor.

Up through his fifteenth year, then, Gawain has
the makings of the ideal knight. A good looking baby,
he now is a handsome lad with a well-formed stature and
an elegant bearing. He has charm and popularity. He
has great strength of body and bravery of spirit. He
is striving for discretion, courtesy, prowess, and pre-
sumably largess and munificence. He is endowed with
the nobility of his parents. These are all qualities
which would be esteemed in a man in the age of chivalry.
But some of Gawain's characteristics--certain1y his
youthful precocity, and perhaps his good looks, charm
and martial prowess-—are carry-overs from the tradition
surrounding his prototypes in Celtic lore (see my dis-
cussion of Gwri Gwallt-euryn and Cuchulainn in Chapter II).
It should be noted, too, that the description of Gawain's
youthful character is simply that-—a description. Until
he participates in his first tournament, he says or does
nothing. However, from that point on there is ample
speech and action on his part to complement the enumer-
ation of his traits, even those traits such as courtesy
and largess which are not mentioned again after the
opening pages.

Upon his being dubbed a knight, the emphasis is

on Gawain the warrior rather than on Gawain the courtier.

h¥—

 

 

90

Such emphasis is indicated not only by the adventures

the author provides for him, but by the repeated mention
of his valor, prowess, fortitude, strength and invinci-
bility throughout the final seven-eighths of the romance.
While my list is by no means exhaustive, below are
several words for these qualities and the approximate
frequency with which they appear with reference to Gawain.
Virtus 'valor, bravery'--twe1ve times; animus 'courage'--
once; audacia 'boldness'—-three times; audaciter
'boldly'--twice; probitas 'prowess'--nine times;

probus 'doughty, gallant, brave'--four times; strenuus
'quick to act, strenuous‘—-twice; calliditas 'skill'——
once; callidus 'skillful, shrewd'--twice; fortitudo
'courage, fortitude'——five times; fortis 'courageous,
forceful'--twice; pertinacia 'pertinacity'--twice;

vires 'strength, power, might'--nine times; robur
'strength'--once; valor 'strength, force'--twice;

validus 'powerful'--once; consuetudo vincendi 'habit of

 

conquering'--once; invincibilis 'invincible'—-once,
although five other times it is said that no one could
withstand him or conquer him or endure an encounter with
him. Of course, such frequent citing of these qualities
tends to get somewhat boring for the reader. However,
in the tournament on the day Gawain is knighted and in
his numerous battles, he does demonstrate them. More—

over, the author shows that Gawain realizes how important

91

they are. For example, when our hero is collecting his
thoughts in the inner chambers of Milocrates' palace, he
thinks that if he should go back to the ships without
having performed an act of prowess, he surely would be
regarded as an inept and cowardly man (p. 66). Later
when the enemies throw Greek fire on his ship, he reflects
that he must act quickly for all things would be decided
by this test of his bravery and might (p. 78). Of
course, valor and prowess have been trademarks of Gawain
in the chronicles and in most of the romances in which
he plays a part. They also were trademarks of his pro—
totypes in Celtic lore. Thus it is not surprising that
there is a great deal of emphasis on these Virtues in

De Ortu Walwanii.

Other prominent traits of our hero are his dis-
cretion, prudence and caution. These would be equivalent
to the eeee 'wisdom' which he displays in the romances
of Chrétien de Troyes. As William Nitze pointed out,
his eeee was a turning point in the plots of Egee, eri3
and Perceval, and was a factor in later romances as well.2
While the author of De Ortu Walwanii does not use sapientia
'wisdom' with reference to Gawain, he does state that
Gawain and Odabel were chosen for the spying mission on
the barbarous isle because they were recognized before
the others as being prudent and cautious in doubtful

situations ("in dubiis prouidi et cauti . . . pre

92

ceteris noscebantur," p. 64). Of course the hero demon-
strates prudence and caution all through his spying
mission, especially when he takes time out in the inner
chambers of Milocrates' palace to consider what he should
do, and when he sounds out Nabaor to make sure the latter
is on his side before he enlists his help. Another word
the author uses with reference to Gawain is industria,
which I translated as "discretion" since this seems to

be the meaning of the word in Nabaor's "discretion is

the better part of valor" speech to Gawain in Milocrates'
palace (p. 67). In the same speech Nabaor points out
that Milocrates is too heavily guarded for Gawain to

kill him in his sleep. Gawain then shows discretion

when he lays aside his plan in favor of Nabaor's sug-
gestion that he go see the queen, and later when he
accepts the queen's and Nabaor's plan to overcome Milo-
crates. Just before the naval battle Gawain recognizes
the standards on the masts of the enemy ships in the
distance, not as birds of prey as the centurion suggests,
but for what they are, and discreetly tells the centurion
to have everyone get ready for battle. Finally, after
King Arthur rudely rejects Gawain's offer of service,

the latter though exasperated, diplomatically and wisely
proposes a test of valor as a condition of his being
accepted as a member of the king's army. Thus Gawain

is in possession of the two qualities that traditionally

93

have been considered the essential make—up of heroes:

sapientia et fortitudo 'wisdom and fortitude.‘

 

Gawain displays other chivalric virtues, too,
although to a lesser extent. His rescuing of the two
ladies in distress I suppose could be termed acts of
courtesy, as well as acts of courage. He avoids being
discourteous by not making fun of the centurion for mis-
taking the standards on the masts of the enemy ships for
birds of prey, or for calling those birds of prey king-
.fishers, which not only are not vultures, but are birds
of good omen. He also refrains from discourteous remarks
when Arthur rudely rejects his offer of service. Only
twice might Gawain's manners be considered less than
ideal--the times he taunts Arthur for retreating from
battle and for having cowardly knights. However, the
way Arthur behaves, he deserves every taunt he gets.

On the other hand, Gawain acts not only courteously,

but generously by sending gifts to Queen Gwendolen.

His giving Nabaor a ring and purple cloak in memory of
himself might also be considered largess, although I
think it would be more properly labeled a bribe.
Finally, Gawain on at least one occasion shows humility:
when he admits to the queen on the barbarous isle that
he doesn't think he has the power to save her, and asks

her if she knows of a plan that would succeed.

94

As a fighter Gawain is prone to anger and ven-
geance. However, these are not permanent attitudes such
as blacken his personality in some romances (e.g. the
Prose Tristan or Malory's Morte Arthur),3 but rather
momentary feelings. He gets angry and vengeful only
in the heat of battle, and then only after he has been
wounded or is exceptionally hard pressed. In his clash
with Milocrates, these emotions are coupled with fear--
fear that his sight would be impaired by the blood flow-
ing down from the laceration on his forehead. Such
emotions, of course, would be natural for any man in
Gawain's circumstances and thus tend to make him seem
more human. The only time they lead him to what might
be termed unnecessary brutality is when he gives Gor-
mundus the final two blows. After he kills Gormundus by
bringing his sword down on the top of his helmet and
driving the weapon all the way to the bottom of his
chest, he cuts off his opponent's head that has already
been cleaved into two parts and kicks it away from him—
self. Of course, this had been a long, arduous fight.
But if this brutality is out of character, it is because
the author not only here but elsewhere delights in making
his battle descriptions as vivid and gory as possible.

What might be surprising is that in our romance
Gawain is not a lover. His reputation for being a

ladies' man--one who rarely loses an opportunity to

95

make love to whatever damsel is available--had been
established by Chrétien de Troyes and many other
romancers long before De Ortu Walwanii was written.4

In our romance he has two good occasions to make love:
with the emperor's niece on the barbarous isle and with
the queen of the Castle of Maidens. In fact, as I
pointed out in the previous chapter, the Celtic sources
of these two episodes call for an affair between the
hero and the rescued lady. So do most of the romance
analogues of the liberation of a besieged lady, including
at least one other version of a knight rescuing the mis-
tress of the Castle of Maidens.5 Our author even says
that the emperor's niece was in love with Gawain because
of his appearance and stature and reputation for valor.
However, the author never permits Gawain to have an
affair, perhaps because he wanted to keep courtly love
out of his story.

One disappointing aspect of the characterization
of Gawain is the way the author has him act, or rather
fail to act, at the end of the romance when he learns
his identity and is reunited with his real parents. Here
was a chance for some real melodrama. However, we never
learn how Gawain feels. The author simply has the hero
as well as his parents stand there silently, while
Arthur steals the whole show. On the whole, hoWever,

the author does a fairly good job of developing his

96

hero's character. He uses all the techniques. Not only
does he enumerate the hero's qualities, but throughout
most of the romance has him speak and act in such a way
as to demonstrate them. He also occasionally explains
how Gawain thinks and feels, and has other characters
express their opinions about the hero. Gawain comes out
as the ideal knight. A handsome, strongly built young
man, he is most renowned for his valor, prowess and
invincibility. He is discreet, prudent and cautious,
though prone to anger and vengeance in the heat of
battle. His least stressed virtues are generosity and
humility. The only outstanding departure from romance

tradition is that in De Ortu Walwanii he is not a lover.

B. Setting

De Ortu Walwanii opens with the birth of Gawain
in Britain. But immediately--on the second page of the
romance--the setting shifts to Narbonne, France, where
Gawain has been taken by merchants and is kidnapped by
Viamundus. On the third page Gawain is conveyed to Rome.
From there, after he is knighted, he sails across the
Mediterranean Sea, lands on an island in the Aegean Sea,
proceeds to Jerusalem, returns to Rome, and finally
travels to King Arthur's court in Britain where the
romance ends. It is unusual that a sizable portion of
an Arthurian romance should take place outside of Britain

or Brittany, but De Ortu Walwanii is not unique in this

97

respect. In the first two books of Wolfram von Eschen-
bach's Parzival, for example, Gahmuret, the hero's father,
travels to Asia, Africa and parts of Europe before coming
to King Arthur's territory; and at the end of the romance,
in Book XVI, Feirefiz the hero's half brother journeys

to the Orient. However, most of Parzival is set in the
land of Arthur, whereas over three—fourths of De Ortu
Walwanii takes place outside of that land.

The author does not give much description of Nar—
bonne, except to say that there is a steep cliff two miles
from the city under which the merchants land their ship.
However, he depicts Rome in greater detail, giving it a
combined classical and medieval flavor. When Viamundus
arrives there with Gawain, the city is the home of the
emperor. It is interesting to note that the last emperor
to reside at Rome was Romulus Augustus who was deposed
in 476 A.D. Beginning in that year Byzantine emperors
at Constantinople ruled Rome until 800 A.D. when Pope
Leo III crowned Charlemagne as Holy Roman Emperor; there—
after Frankish and German kings held that title until
the end of the empire in 1806. The Rome in De Ortu
Walwanii also is in a state of destruction, having been
devastated by the barbarians. Historically the most
famous sacking of Rome was by Alaric and the Visigoths
in 410 A.D. It was invaded by the Vandals under Gen—

seric in 455 and by the Goths under Totila in 546. More

98

recently Rome was devastated, not by barbarians in the
strict sense, but by the Normans led by Robert Guiscard
in 1084. They were supporting Pope Gregory VII in a
struggle against Emperor Henry IV over the problem of
investiture. Because of the lack of more details, it

is doubtful that our author had any specific invasion in
mind, but was simply creating a setting for the arrival
of Viamundus. The author goes on to say that Viamundus
procured a great many slaves and took the entire retinue
with him when he went to see the emperor. Slavery, of
course, was at its height during classical Roman times;
in the Middle Ages it was gradually being replaced by
serfdom. The author also mentions that the emperor gave
Viamundus a marvelous residence in front of the gates

of his own palace, which residence once belonged to
Scipio Africanus. According to Livy (Ab Urbe Condita
XLIV.xvi.lO), the house of Scipio Africanus (ca.236—

183 B.C.) was located in the southern part of the Forum
near merchants' shops and stalls (the Tabernae Veteres),
and was purchased for the public by Tiberius Sempronius.
This site was adjoining the Palatine Hill on which was
constructed the Palatium, the imperial palace. One
trouble with our author's account is that Scipio's

house ceased to exist before the Palatium was ever
built. According to the same passage in Livy, a public

courthouse later known as the Basilica Sempronia was

99

erected on the site of the house in 170 B.C. On the
other hand, the Palatium was not begun until the reign
of the Emperor Augustus (27 B.C. to 14 A.D.). There-
after, by the way, it was the residence of emperors and
barbaric kings until about 526 A.D. when Theodoric the
King of the Ostrogoths died.6 The author of De Ortu
Walwanii further states that youths clad in the praetexta
used to come to visit the boy Gawain. This style of
toga, which was worn in ancient Roman times by magis—
trates and by freeborn children until they reached the
age of sixteen and assumed the adult toga, went out of
fashion as ordinary dress at the beginning of the second
century A.D., although it was retained as a ceremonial
costume until about the fifth century.7 Finally, the
author mentions the circus as the site of knightly
tournaments. There were a few circuses in and around
Rome in ancient times, which were used primarily for
chariot racing. The largest and most famous was the
Circus Maximus, which was first constructed in the fourth
century B.C., rebuilt in the time of Julius Caesar, and
enlarged by succeeding emperors until it reached its
greatest size under Constantine. The latest circus to
have been built was the Circus Maxentius (309 A.D.) but
it was not used after the sixth century.8 Thus

it appears that during the Middle Ages in Rome there

was no circus as we know it, where equestrian contests

100

could have been held. The Roman setting in De Ortu Wal-
wanii, then, is a blend of the classical and the medieval.
The city has just been sacked by barbarians; it is still
the home of the emperor. There are slaves, an unusual
possession for a romance hero; there are youths clad in
the praetexta. More local color is added by the mention
of Scipio Africanus' house and the circus. On the other
hand, there are knights and tournaments.

After Gawain is dubbed a knight, he sails across
the Mediterranean Sea until he lands on the barbarous
isle. Even though this island is located in the Aegean
Sea, it turns out to be a typical Arthurian fairyland,
and the author uses the common motif of the crossing of
water as a signal of entry into it. On the island there
are forests, dwarfish people, an abducted lady, a castle
and a king with a magic sword and armor. Gawain's leav-
ing this fairyland also is signalled by a crossing of
water, but he finds himself again in the Aegean Sea
about to take part in a non—Arthurian naval battle in
which non-Arthurian Greek fire is used. After the battle
he sails on to Jerusalem (which is not described), where
he engages in a more or less typical Arthurian joust for
a non-Arthurian cause-—the liberation of the Holy Land
from the pagans. Although historically there never was
a duel in the strict sense for the possession of Jerusa—

lem, one is reminded of the era of the crusades, and

 

lOl

particularly of the Christian occupation of that city
from 1099 to 1187.

The setting then shifts across the sea to Rome,
and then to Britain where we find the author's next geo-

graphical description:

Cui quo eo tempore rex Arturus degeret percun—
tanti responsum est, eum apud Carlegion urbem in
Demecia perhendinare, quam pre ceteris ciuitatibus
frequentare consueuerat, illa quippe nemoribus
consita, feris fecunda, opibus opulenta, pratorum
uiriditate amena et irrigacione fluminum Osce scili—
cet et Sabrine decora gratissimum penes se habitandi
locum prebe[b]at. Illic metropolis habebatur
Demecie, illic legiones Romanorum hiemare solebant,
illic rex Arturus festa celebrabat solemnia, dia—
demate insigniebatur, uniuerse primorum Britannie
ad eum conuentus coadunabantur. (p. 85)

Upon inquiring where King Arthur was residing
at that time, he (Gawain) was answered that Arthur
was staying in the City of Caerleon in Demetia,
which he had been accustomed to frequent before the
other cities. That territory to be sure, planted
with groves, abounding in wild beasts, rich in
resources, luxurious with the meadows' greenness,
and scenic with the rivers' flowing—-namely, the
Usk and the Severn—-offered in itself a most
pleasant place to live. Situated at Caerleon was
the metropolitan see of Demetia; there the legions
of the Romans used to spend the winter; there King
Arthur often celebrated solemn feasts and had been
crowned with the diadem; and there assemblies of
the barons of all of Britain were held in his
presence.

Roger Loomis states, "The description of Caerleon (Hes-
peria, loc. cit., p. 85) is taken verbatim from Geoffrey
(ed. Griscom, p. 291)."9 The passage in the Historia

Regum Britanniae to which Loomis refers is in Bk. III,

Ch. X:

102

Inter ceteras composuit unam super oscera
flumen prope sabrinum mare. quae multis temporibus
kaerlusc appellata. metropolis demetie fuerat.
Postquam autem romani uenerunt. prefato nomine
deleto. uocata est urbs legionum. uocabulum
trahens a romanis legionibus quae ibidem hiemare
solebant.10

Among other cities, he (Belinus) built one on
the River Usk near the Severn Sea, which for a long
time was named Kaerusk and was the metropolitan see
of Demetia. But after the Romans came, the above—
mentioned name was dropped; it was then called the
City of Legions, drawing its title from the Roman
legions which used to spend the winter there.

In addition, J. D. Bruce notes, "In the description of
Caerleon and its surroundings the author had in mind
Geoffrey's Historia (Book IX, Chap. xii), where this

city is also described."11

In this section of the Hig-
Egrig Geoffrey says that Arthur decided to hold a plenary
court on the feast of Whitsuntide at the City of Legions
and place the crown of the kingdom on his head, that he
summoned to this feast kings and other famous leaders
from all over the world. Geoffrey goes on to say that
since this city, located on the River Usk and not far
from the Severn Sea, was in a most pleasant position,

it was immensely suitable for such a ceremony. He also
says that the territory was flanked by meadows and
wooded groves. Between the two passages from Geoffrey‘s
Historia, then, the author of De Ortu Walwanii could
have found, and probably did find just about everything
that he put into his description of Caerleon and the

surrounding territory. One exception would be the town

103

of Usk which he mentions later in the same paragraph

and which he says was six miles distant from the City

of Legions ("Usce oppidum, quod ab urbe vi miliariis
distabat," p. 85). This is not to be confused with
Kaerusk, the old name for the City of Legions. There
actually was a town of Usk a few miles north-northeast
of Caerleon.12 Where the author got his idea to mention
this town, I do not know. Probably from his general
knowledge of the area.

Other than the ford near the City of Legions
where Gawain engages Arthur and Kay in the nocturnal
combat, the only mention of the geography of Britain
occurs with reference to the queen of the Castle of
Maidens. The author locates the castle in the northern
part of Britain ("in aquilonari parte Britannie," p. 89),
in accordance with the tradition which from as early as
1147 identified this castle with Edinburgh.13 The Castle
of Maidens is not described, but the territory nearby
is evidently quite rugged. From a steep, remote place
("remoto et prerupto loco," p. 90) Gawain watches Arthur
get repulsed by the pagan king who had abducted the queen.
Then when Gawain enters the battle, he defeats the pagan
army so badly that some of them, rather than being killed
by his sword, commit suicide by throwing themselves head-

long from steep cliffs, and others bury themselves in the

104

waves. Near this battle area is also a great landmark

which the author describes in this way:

Non longe autem perampla et profunda distabat
fouea, duarum prouinciarum terminos dirimens.
Ideoque limes et diuisio illarum dicebatur finium,
cuius angustus aditus et transitus non nisi unius
admittebat ingressum. (p. 91)

However, not far away there was a very large
and very deep ravine dividing the boundaries of
the two countries. Its narrow access and passage-
way admitted the entering of only one person, and
for this reason was declared the limit and separ-
ation of those borders.

Whether the author had in mind an actual ravine in the
northern part of Britain, I do not know. In any case,
it functions as a typical boundary in Arthurian romance

to separate the forces of good and evil.

C. Form and Style

 

De Ortu Walwanii is a simple narrative consisting
of a series of episodes in which Gawain is the central
figure. The episodes follow one another in chronological
order, and the events within the episodes are generally
sequential. There is none of the "tapestry technique"
characteristic of the thirteenth century French prose
romances, in which often concurrent adventures are inter-
woven, broken off and taken up again after long intervals.
The author of De Ortu Walwanii interrupts his story only
a few times to give concurrent or past information. For

example, after the emperor awards Gawain the don——the

105

privilege of taking the emperor's part in the first
single combat which presents itself--the author inserts
a passage giving the background to the war that almost
takes place between the Christians and the pagans in
Jerusalem, and which they decide to avert by a single
combat. Or for example, when Gawain meets Nabaor in

the inner chambers of Milocrates' palace, there is a
flashback wherein the reader learns that Nabaor was one
of the men whom Milocrates had earlier sent to spy on
the Roman fleet, and that while captured by the Romans
he was befriended by Gawain. Interruptions such as these
generally are short and pertinent to the adventure at
hand, and thus do not break up the continuity of the
story. The only serious interruption in the narration
is the long, three-page recipe for Greek fire, which can
be justified only for its entertainment value.

J. D. Bruce sees De Ortu Walwanii as consisting
of three divisions: (l) Gawain's birth and early life,
(2) his journey to Jerusalem, and (3) his return to
Britain.14 Using these arbitrary divisions, let me say
that the second division continues logically from the
first on the basis of the dog which the emperor grants
the hero. The third division follows logically from
the second, because Gawain always is in search of new
adventures, and this time goes to Britain to find them.

The third division also reverts back to the theme begun

106

in the first division: Gawain's unwitting quest for his
identity. This quest, I think, gives some degree of
unity to the whole romance. All through De Ortu Walwanii
until the last page, Gawain goes under a nickname, which
keeps the reader ever aware that he does not yet know his
real name or his real parents.
The most obvious characteristic of the author's
style is his florid rhetoric. This is evident, first
of all, in the structure of the sentences. Almost all
of them are complex (one independent plus one or more
dependent clauses), or compound (two or more independent
clauses) or compound—complex (two or more independent
plus one or more dependent clauses). Rarely does there
appear a simple sentence (one subject and one predicate),
but when one does, it is generally effective rhetori—
cally, particularly when used in direct address. For
example, when Gawain in the single combat drives Gor—
mundus out of the arena, the crowd shouts to their pagan
champion:
Gormunde, regredere! Gormunde, regredere!
quid agis? quo refugis, miles egregie? Fugare,
non fugere, tibi hactenus moris exstitit!
Regredere, proh dolor! regredere! ne in ultimo
dedecus omnia ante bene gesta facinora obnubilet.
Fuge hic locus non est! uinci aut uincere hic
necessarium est! (p. 83)
Gormundus, go back! Gormundus, go back!
What are you doing? Where are you fleeing, dis-

tinguished knight? To put to flight, not to take
flight, has been your custom up to now! Go Back!

 

107

Oh sorrow! Go back! Lest in the end disgrace

obscure all the deeds that you earlier performed

so well. This is not the place for flight! To

be conquered or to conquer is necessary here.
The author generally follows the classical practice of
putting the verb at the end of the clause or sentence,
although there are exceptions. Among the exceptions one
peculiarity which, as Bruce pointed out,15 can be found
at least once on about two-thirds of the pages of the
romance, is the author's practice of ending a sentence
with a noun that is separated by a verb from the adjec-
tive or other words which qualify the noun. Every gram-
matical construction one can think of appears in the
romance, including the supine which does not occur too
often among medieval Latin writers. Ablative absolutes
abound in the sentences. Occasionally, as Bruce also
pointed out,16 the author even inserts words from the
main clause in the ablative absolute clauses. To put
his complicated sentences together, the author employs
a rash of coordinate conjunctions, particularly the
copulative -que, which is used not only to connect
elements within sentences, but also to make a transition
in thought from the previous sentence. In addition, the
author often begins his sentences with relative pronouns
as well as the following transitional words: autem,
igitur, jamque, 223m, 3332, itaque and Egmgn, to mention

the ones most frequent in occurrence.

108

A second aspect of the author's style is his
exceptionally large vocabulary which in many instances
is poetic. For example, he uses the following words

for "horse": equus, dextrarius, sonipes, cornipes.

 

And these for ship: navis, ratis, linter, phaselus,

 

carina, prora, puppis, chiula, liburna, myoparo.

The author's artistry is evident in his effective
use of direct and indirect address. However, his
descriptions, particularly of battles, are probably
his strongest point, wherein he often uses figurative
techniques. For example, he compares the flight of
Milocrates' army from the Romans to a flock of sheep
fleeing from the mouths of wolves; he compares the
fight between Gawain and Gormundus to a clash between
two wild boars. In epic fashion the author even likens
the Gawain-Gormundus combat to the fight of the Lapithae
with the Centaurs, and the exchange of blows to the
Cyclopes' constant beating of their anvils with hammers.
Moreover, one cannot help but notice the onomatopoeia
in this battle description:

Nec mora, tonitrus belli intonuit, offensio
armorum perstrepuit, sonitus ictuum efferbuit et
ignita collisio terribiliter excanduit. . . .
Tinnitu horribili aer resultat et resonat, aereque
percusso montium concaua stridorem multiplicant.

(p. 83)

Without delay the thunder of war resounded, the
clash of arms rang out, the thud of blows erupted
loudly, and the fiery collision grew terribly hot.

. . . The air reverberates and resounds with horrible

ringing, and the hollows of the hills magnify the
stridor of the percussion in the air.

 

109

Sometimes we find adages or proverbial statements:

Verum quia ad instar flamme amor quo magis
tegitur, eo magis accenditur, indeque capit aug-
mentum unde minui festinatur. . . . (p. 54)

But because, like a flame, the more love is
covered up, the more it is kindled, and from then
on takes its growth from that which hastens to
diminish it. . . .

Oportunitas loci et temporis reddit latronem.
(p. 56)

The opportunity of place and time makes the
thief.

On the other hand, the author occasionally interjects
unnecessary truisms: "Sed quoniam quod omnium latet
noticiam difficile deprehenditur. . . ." (p. 56. "But
because what escapes the notice of all is detected with
difficulty. . . "). Or: "Mos quippe est quod in umbra
constituti luci presentes clare aspiciant ipsique ab
illis incircumspecti maneant." (p. 66. "For indeed

it is customary that those situated in the shadows see
clearly those present in the light, but themselves
remain unseen by them.")

A statistical analysis of the idiosyncracies of
the author's style remains to be done. Included in this
analysis should be a study of the author's prose rhythm,
particularly the rhythm of his sentence endings, where
we generally find polysyllabic words. It remains to be
determined who his model may have been and whether the

rhythm is based on accent, as we would expect it to be

in medieval times, or whether it is based on the quantity

 

110

of syllables (i.e. long and short), as was the practice
in classical times. The reason one is led to suspect the
latter kind of rhythm for sentence endings is that twice
in De Ortu Walwanii the author breaks out in quantitative
dactyllic hexameter verse: once for three lines when
Gawain begins the fight with the keepers of Milocrates'
forest, and the second time for eight lines when the
author describes the retreat of Milocrates' army.

In summary, then, the author's style is very
ornate. In my opinion the rhetoric in places is a little
too high-flown for the subject matter. However, the
author was very proud of his style, as we can infer from
the statement with which he closes De Ortu Walwanii:

. . sicut discriminosius est bellum inire
quam bellum referre sic operosius sit composito
eloquencie stilo historiam exarare quam uulgari
propalare sermone. (p.

. . . just as it is more dangerous to engage

in a war than to recount it, so it may be more
difficult to compose a romance in a finished style

of eloquence than to publish it in the vulgar
tongue.

D. The Author's Purpose

 

In his closing statement which I quoted above,
the author contrasts not merely the excellence of Latin
composition with that in the vulgar tongue, but also a
written work in a finished style of eloquence with a
loose and extemporaneous oral recitation. The very

nature of the author's style—-his complicated sentence

111

structure and his immense vocabulary--indicates that he
meant this romance to be read, not listened to, and that
he meant it for a highly literate audience. Perhaps he
wrote it as a rhetorical exercise.

Not only did he choose Gawain for a hero, but he
chose to tell the traditional story of Gawain, as I
pointed out in Chapters II and III. He makes Gawain
the ideal knight, particularly the ideal warrior, but
the tone of the romance all the way through indicates
that he wanted to tell a story for the sake of a story,
not to use the romance as a vehicle to teach the audience
how an ideal knight should act. The entertainment
quality is especially evident in the humor that shines
through the romance, beginning when Gawain is on the
barbarous isle, if not earlier. In Milocrates' palace
Nabaor makes his antifeminist statement concerning the
fickleness of women. Shortly thereafter the author
labels as kingfishers the birds of prey which the cen—
turion thinks he sees as a portent of a storm, whereas
kingfishers not only are not vultures but are birds of
good omen signifying calm seas. Then there is the recipe
for Greek fire, a masterpiece of originality, but humorous
not only in the nature of some of the ingredients, but
in the instructions on how to obtain and prepare them
for the mixture; moreover, there is the ridiculous idea
of igniting the mixture in the cooking pot and of

storing it aflame in the bags. Entertaining also is

112

the unbridled description of the fight between Gawain
and Gormundus, where the author at times seems to get
lost in his own rhetoric. Finally there is the humorous
portrayal of King Arthur and Queen Gwendolen (see my
discussion of the queen's taunt and the combat at the
ford in Chapter III).

In short, the author's purpose was to tell the
traditional story of Gawain in a very sophisticated

prose style for the entertainment of educated readers.

E. A Note on the Translation

 

In translating De Ortu Walwanii I followed J.

Douglas Bruce's second edition in Historia Meriadoci

 

and De Ortu Waluuanii, Johns Hopkins University Press

 

Series Hesperia, No. 2 (Baltimore, 1913). I have
attempted to make my translation as literal as possible
while still being readable. I have tried to preserve

as best I could all aspects of the author's style:
sentence structure, phraseology, emphasis, rich vocabu-
lary, prose rhythm, and so forth. However, when one
translates, he is forced to make changes with the result
being that some of the flavor is lost from the original.
Latin idioms, of course, had to be changed to English
idioms. And while I translated some of the author's
numerous ablative absolutes with the equivalent nomina-
tive absolutes in English, the majority I changed for

the sake of a smooth reading to temporal or causal

 

113

dependent clauses, or to participial phrases in the
active voice with the subject in agreement with the
subject of the main clause. Because of the complicated
Latin sentence structure, I occasionally found it neces-
sary to use different punctuation than the text has or

to divide a sentence into two or three English sentences.
On the other hand, I preserved as much as possible the
author's use of verb tenses, including his indiscriminate
switch from the past to the present tense while narrating
his story. Likewise, I retained most of his superabundant
conjunctions, and tried where the sense allowed to trans-
late each different Latin word by a different English
word and still preserve the nuances of meaning. In

spite of the changes that I made, I trust that enough

of the author's style still shines through my translation

to give the reader a taste of his artistry.

CHAPTER IV--NOTES

lAll quotations and page numbers are from Bruce's
second edition: Historia Meriadoci and De Ortu Waluuanii,
Johns Hopkins University Press Series Hesperia, No. 2
(Baltimore, 1913).

 

2William A. Nitze, "The Character of Gauvain in
the Romances of Chrétien de Troyes," Modern Philology, 50
(1953), 223-25.

3For Gawain's vindictiveness in romance literature,
see B. J. Whiting, "Gawain: His Reputation, His Courtesy
and His Appearance in Chaucer's Squire's Tale," Mediaeval
Studies, 9 (1947), 204-15. See also Fanni Bogdanow, "The
Character of Gauvain in the Thirteenth-Century Prose
Romances," Medium Aevum, 27 (1958), 154-61.

 

4A good treatment of Gawain the lover can be
found in B. J. Whiting, pp. 196-215, 226—29.

5Helaine Newstead, "The Besieged Ladies in
Arthurian Romance," PMLA, 63 (1948), 803-30.

6See "Rome" in the Encyclopaedia Britannica
(London, 1970), XIX, 568-70.

7Mary G. Houston, Ancient Greek, Roman and Byzan-
tine Costume and Decoration, 2nd ed. (London, 1947),
pp. 87-92.

 

8"Circus," Encyclopaedia Britannica (London,
1970), V, 800. Ernest Nash, Pictorial Dictionary of
Ancient Rome, 2nd ed., 2 vols. (New York, 1961), I,
32-3 0

 

114

 

115

9Roger Loomis, "The Latin Romances," in Arthurian
Literature in the Middle Ages, ed. Roger Loomis (Oxford,
1959), p. 476 in continuation of note 6 from p. 475.

 

loGeoffrey of Monmouth, Historia Regum Britanniae,
ed. Acton Griscom (London, 1929), p. 291.

11Bruce, ed., Historia, p. lvi, n. 1. See Geoffrey
of Monmouth, The History of the Kings of Britain, trans.
Lewis Thorpe, Penguin Books (Baltimore, 1966), pp. 225-28.
Or see Geoffrey's Historia, ed. Griscom, pp. 451—55.

l2Two maps of the area from the years 1188 and
1200 show the town of Usk about ten miles north-northeast
of Caerleon. These maps can be found in William Rees,
An Historical Atlas of Wales from Early to Modern Times,
3rd ed. (London, 1967), Plates 37 and 38.

13Roger Loomis, Arthurian Tradition and Chrétien
de Troyes (New York, 1949), pp. 108-11.

l4Bruce, ed. Historia, pp. lxiii—lxiv.

15Ibid., p. x.

l6Ibid.

 

DE ORTU WALWAN II

DE ORTU WALWANII

King Uther Pendragon, the father of Arthur, had
sought under his jurisdiction the kings of all the pro-
anes bordering on Britain, and in making them payers
E tribute, he detained in his court their sons, in part
3 serve as hostages, in part to be trained in the graces
E courtly conduct and in military discipline. Being
aared among them was Loth, the nephew of King Sichelinus
E Norway, a young man wonderful to behold, endowed with
trength of body and bravery of spirit. For these
sasons he was held dearer than the rest of his peers
3th by King Uther and by his son Arthur, and continually
as admitted to the privacy of the royal household itself.
3w the king had a daughter called Anna,l of incomparable
aauty, who stayed in an apartment with her mother the
Jeen. When the above—named young man often played
Duthfully with her and rather secretly exchanged jest-
ng words, they are seized by love, one for the other.
evertheless, for a long time their mutual feelings are
apt hidden from each other, both out of fear and out

f modesty. But because, like a flame, the more love

116

117

a covered up, the more it is kindled,2 and from then on
ikes its growth from that which hastens to diminish it,
: last not able to contain in themselves the magnitude

5 their love, they disclose to each other what they

ad conceived in their hearts. Therefore, fulfilling

ach other's expressed wish, they give assent to pleasure,
1d immediately she began to increase in size having been
ade pregnant. When the time of her delivery draws near,
1e lies down in a private chamber feigning sickness,
aving only one handmaid cognizant of this thing. At

ast the time had come when she should bring forth her
Jung, and she gave birth to a little boy with a fine
ppearance. Now she had hired very wealthy men pursuing
rade from lands beyond the sea, and had made the agree-
ant with them under oath, that as soon as the baby

iould come forth into the light of day, lest it be
iscovered by anyone, they should take it away with them
nto their own fatherland and diligently rear it all the
ay to adulthood. Accordingly, without anyone knowing it,
he merchants take the little baby when it is born, and
long with it take an inestimable abundance of gold and
ilver and expensive clothing which the mother had

rought together for them. She also handed over a cloak
f enormous value interwoven on all sides with precious
tones set in gold, as well as a ring distinguished by

n emerald stone which she had received from the king for

 

118

.er keeping, and which he used to wear only on feast days.
he also included a document signed with the king's seal,
,he text of which made known with certain evidence that
he baby had been begotten by the nephew of the king of
orway and by Arthur's sister, that he had been named
awain by his mother and that on account of fear of the
ing he had been sent to foreign provinces. Employing a
rudent plan, she was eager to furnish him with these
hings, namely the cloak and ring and document, for this
eason, so that if he, by chance returning some time,
hould be rejected unrecognized by his parents, these
hings would provide a sign of certainty, and through
heir evidence he would come to the notice of his parents.
The merchants, therefore, taking up the little
oy committed to their protection, go on board their
hip, and giving the sails to the winds, they plough
hrough the deep seas until at last on the eighth day
hey glide toward the shores of Gaul. Reaching the con—
inent they put to land two miles from the city of Nar-
onne.3 When they had landed there, wearied from the
alt water and the surging of the sea, they all hurry
0 go on foot to the city--the boat having been left
n the harbor-—leaving behind only one boy to look after
heir possessions and the suckling lying in its cradle;
ertainly they had put to land under a steep cliff quite

ar from the city, and they trusted that no one would

 

 

 

 

 

119

pproach the vessel in the meantime. But after they

ad gone off, by chance a certain fisherman, Viamundus4
{ name, from a nearby village, a man poor in material
30ds but honorable by birth and in character, was walk—
ag along the seashore with his spouse, as was his custom
very day, seeing if he could find any fish left on the
each as a result of the receding of the tide, by the
orth of which he gained a livelihood for himself. When
a noticed the anchored ship, he put other things aside
nd hastily proceeded there. Going on board he found

0 one except the boy who had been left to watch it and
e found him indeed sleeping. Now seeing the baby boy
ith the distinguished appearance and the ship filled
ith all its treasures without a guard, and considering
is own poverty which with fortune favoring him he

ould relieve then and there--as it is said in the
roverb, the opportunity of place and time makes the
hief5-—he snatched up whatever seemed to him to be of
reatest value of the gold and silver and the various
urnishings. Handing to his wife the infant as well as
he case standing near its head, in which were contained
he cloak and ring and document, he and his wife, laden
ith riches, departed with haste to their home, with no
ne observing the affair. Now the traders, after
eturning a little later to the mooring place, discover

he harm done to them by the carrying off of their goods.

 

120

tricken with grief at the unexpected occurrence of this
hing, and overwhelmed with the greatest sadness, they
11 began to sigh and weep, and they continued in their
amentation all day long, especially because of the
bduction of the infant who, they well knew, had been
ntrusted to their guardian care. And soon they send
apable messengers chosen for this task throughout the
eighboring seacoast and countryside to diligently
nvestigate the matter and to find out who had inflicted
n them so great a loss. But because what escapes the
otice of all is detected with difficulty, those who had
een sent out, discovering nothing of certainty, returned
ejected to the ship.

Now Viamundus, carrying away to his cottage the
‘roperty stolen with the little infant, hid it; and
'ith added care he reared him as a son because he lacked
tne of his own. Nevertheless he was afraid to bring
'orth into the open the wealth which he possessed in
.bundance--both because his poverty with which he was
(fflicted up to now was very well known, and because
Lhe investigation into the theft which he had committed
vas still being made--lest by the display of his riches
:he infamy of his perpetrated crime should become known.
low after seven years had passed, he decided to go to
bme, induced both by regret for his deed and because

e did not doubt that he would be able to use his goods

 

 

 

 

121

'reely there, considering that he would be in a strange
'egion. Therefore when all the necessary things for

.he journey had been made ready and packed, he, accom-
anied by his wife and adopted son and family, set out

n the journey with his entire fortune and in a short

mime arrived soundly and prosperously at the walls of
ome. Now after entering the city, he spent the entire
ay going through every part of it. He scrutinized the
hole situation and shrewdly inquired into the state

f the place, the customs of the citizens and the names

f the senators and noblemen. Rome indeed at that time
ad been seized and overwhelmed by the violence of the
arbarians, and had been left in almost utter destruction,
he walls having been demolished, the buildings burned,
itizens taken captive and dispersed or killed with
arious tortures.6 But a new emperor had succeeded

o the throne, who grieving over the ruin of the city

as rebuilding what had been demolished, was reassembling
he dispersed citizens, was ransoming those taken captive,
aking the greatest effort to bring the city back to its
tate of former prosperity. Perceiving these things and
hinking that his venture would succeed for him according
0 his desire, Viamundus, a man of an astute disposition,
elayed not at all, but fitted himself out in distinctive
ttire; he procured servants and as many slaves as

ossible from the neighboring towns, and great

 

 

 

122

miterments; and surrounded by the large crowd of
quiants he proceeds through the middle of the city to
Ipalace, becoming a spectacle for all both because
liS splendid trappings and because of the multitude
1iS retinue; and coming to the emperor he is honorably
sived. Engaging at length in a conversation with him,
nundus said that he was descended from a most noble
ily of Romans and that while abiding in parts of Gaul
had the leadership of the people; but hearing about
devastation and the misfortune of the City of Rome,
hastened here to augment the resources of the citizens;
he humbly entreated the emperor to give him together
h his household a place to live in the city. Now the
ieror, appraising and concluding him to be of no mean
lily because of his venerable grey hair along with the
:gance of his many possessions as well as the large
"ber of his attendants, thanks him for coming to him,
1 assures him that he would present him with manifold
alic honors if he should abide in the city. And he
we him a marble residence of wondrous construction
isisting of marvelous buildings in front of the gates
Ins own palace, which residence is averred to have
ce belonged to Scipio Africanus.7 In addition, he
stowed upon him towns, vineyards and arable lands

tside the city to help him pay for his expenses.

 

 

 

123

Therefore having received the favors of such
reazfortune beyond all expectation, Viamundus conducted
immelf so agreeably and so becomingly and nobly that he
onverted the emperor, the senate and the people to an
mfllation of him, and he drew the emotions of all to
ave him; and the celebrated story of his largess and
1nificence was spread throughout the whole city pri-
1tely as well as publicly; in fact there was an assembly
? the senators and noblemen of Rome every day at his
'me, and even youths clad in the praetexta8 and a
owd of knights from the imperial court congregated
ere on account of the charm of the little boy, all

whom Viamundus used to honor with various delights,
nptuous feasts and most lavish gifts. Meanwhile as

a boy was growing in age, he was growing also in
avery of spirit and fitness of body, and being an
llator of the man who was believed to be his own father,
was striving for discretion, courtesy and prowess.
himself also frequented the palace and was regarded
ng the subjects as a familiar of the sovereign.

137 there flourished in him certain innate virtues
whicfli he turned and attracted the minds of those
int; him to a liking of him. He was, to be sure,
ovmui with a tall and well-formed stature, an elegant
fleg, a handsome face, and enormous strength. And

he Inad just reached his twelfth year of age when

 

 

 

124

fiamundus lay down in bed stricken with a serious illness.
men Viamundus was growing more feeble and discerned that
he end of life was imminent for him, through the chiefs
f the state he most earnestly implored the emperor and
ope Sulpicius,9 who at that time was presiding over
he Apostolic See, to deign to come to him for a con-
erence. Now not at all refusing the pleas of so great
man, whom they loved not a little on account of the
obility of his character, they with full affection came
0 him, taking the most distinguished men of the state
long with them. When they arrived, Viamundus first
endered thanks owed for the favors they had bestowed
1 him; then calling them together in private he revealed
1e circumstances of his earlier life, how by the chance
5 such great riches he had attained his prominence and
>w he had found the boy whom he was rearing; and he
avealed in sequence the course of his entire life. And
: added, saying to the emperor: "I have resolved very
ften in my wavering mind to make this known to your
,ghness, but always waiting for the opportune time I
Lve put it off until the present. But now, since my
timate fate is pressing upon me, I am compelled to
infess these things. Granted that what I request could
justly denied to a man of servile condition by the
rd of the entire world, yet I think that you, mindful

your friendship and familiarity of which you have

 

 

 

 

 

125

.eemed me worthy, will not refuse me my petition. It
(s indeed on account of what I am about to ask that I
.ave summoned you: this boy whom I have raised as a
on and along with whom this entire abundance of things
.as befallen me, I ask that you promise to commit him
,0 your majesty's protection, training him for the order
f knighthood while he is still a youth. You should
‘ealize that he is truly the nephew of Arthur, the king
f Britain"—-for by now he had received the kingdom,

.is father having diedlo--"concerning whom the report
if such great prowess flies everywhere; and I do not
oubt that the boy is not about to degenerate from the
obility of his parents. Nevertheless I advise that
his thing be kept secret from everyone and from the

oy himself, and let not even his name be disclosed
ntil he be recognized by his parents, since the document
'hich bears witness to his lineage forbids this also.
ut when he will have blossomed into manhood, I pray

et him be sent back with your letters and with the
ertain evidence of his parentage, which I regard as
redible enough." And summoning the boy who up to this
ime had been called Boy Without a Name11 since he was
ot known by the name he was assigned, Viamundus,
mbracing the emperor's feet, with a suppliant prayer
nd with the most earnest entreaties commended the boy

0 his protection. And bidding that the coffer be

 

 

 

126

rought forward which contained the testimonies given
y the mother, Viamundus showed them to the emperor.
hen he had seen them, the emperor exalted the man with
reat praise for the generosity he had displayed with
egard to the boy, then received the boy with open arms,
romising that he would satisfy Viamundus' will in all
hings. And so Viamundus, having obtained in accordance
'ith his wish what he had very earnestly striven after,
(ies happily, with the emperor sitting at his side; and
'ith the very great lamentation of all he is buried amid
,he tombs of noble men. A monument of marvelous workman—
hip is constructed above him by the emperor.

Now after the decease of Viamundus, Boy Without
Name is brought to the palace by the order of the
overeign, and counted among the boys belonging to the
oyal court. Indeed, after three years had passed-~that
s to say, in his fifteenth year of age--because his
rowess required it, he is fitted out with arms by the
mperor. Out of his kindness the emperor conferred
nighthood on him and twenty other youths. Then Boy
'ithout a Name went forth with the other newly made
nights and Roman youths to the circus where the tourna-
ents were accustomed to be held. With what great valor
oy Without a Name conducted himself that day! How
trenuously he acted! The applause honoring him from

11 the bystanders at the circus was in testimony of it.

 

 

 

 

127

ndeed in that spectacle no one could withstand him, no
ine could be proven equal to his strength, but whoever
'as in his way he threw down in the mutual encounter.

'or this reason, after the tourney was celebrated, he

s adorned with the golden crown which the monarch had
‘roposed for the victor, and with a procession attending
.im with praises, he is led into the presence of the
:mperor. Lauding him not a little for his singular
rowess, the emperor gave him permission to demand the
'eward of any gift he might wish from him. But Boy
'ithout a Name said, "I desire that your munificence
ronfer on me nothing else, 0 Emperor, save only that

t grant me the first single combat which you must engage
n against any of your enemies." The emperor nodded in
.pproval and established him in the first order of knights.
Ow on the first day that he had been received into
nighthood, he provided himself with a purple tunic, and
rawing it over his armor as he was about to proceed to
he aforementioned knightly contest, he called it his
urcoat for his armor.12 When he was asked by the knights
hy he had put it on over his armor--for never before

ad anyone, covered with armor, worn a tunic of this
ind-—he responded that he was employing the surcoat

s an adornment for his armor. At which response the
ntire host shouted out to him: "The new knight with

he surcoat for his armor! The new knight with the

 

 

 

 

128

surcoat for his armor!" And from then on this name
remained with him: "The Knight with the Surcoat for

"13 After being advanced with very high

his Armor.
honor by the emperor, he always strove for higher

honors for valor and prowess, and to him in every

combat, in every contest, there were ascribed a famous
name and singular courage.

While these things are taking place in Rome, it
happens that a war arises between the king of the Persians
and the Christians abiding in Jerusalem. The day pre-
determined for battle had come, and the battle arrays
of both sides standing around in close formation with
their tremendous forces of both cavalrymen and foot-
soldiers provided a spectacle of terror for each other,
and with their ranks separated they were drawing near
step by step for the fight. Then with trumpets sounding,
bowstrings stretched and spears raised, the captains
were hastening to join in hand to hand combat, when men
on both sides more mature in age and judgment considering
that a conflict involving such a great multitude and
such great power could not be without the greatest loss,
proceed to the middle, prevent a first attack and arrange
for legates to mutually negotiate a condition for peace.
Now after holding negotiations for quite a long time,
they at last collectively reached agreement in this,

that one man should be chosen from each side for a duel,

 

 

129

and that to whomever the victory should fall, to that
side should also go dominion over the things about which
they were fighting. Nevertheless, because the Jerusalem—
ites did not dare to accede to this without the consent
of Caesar under whose sovereignty they lived, they asked
that a truce be granted to them until they should send

a legation to Caesar concerning this matter and learn
his will; they swore by an oath that they were inclined
in mind to this covenant if it should be agreed to by
him. Therefore when the truce is arranged, they choose
those who should discharge this mission, and putting all
delay aside, they send off those chosen, instructing
them that if they should ascertain that Caesar not at
all refuses what they ask, they should also beseech him
for a man capable of the proposed contest. The envoys,
then, hastening their journey come to the emperor, and
after being led into the senate pleaded their cause in

a most eloquent way. Now the emperor, who had entered
upon a council concerning the things reported, determined
that their petition must be granted, but he was doubtful
about whom he should send back with them. And while the
discussion was being drawn out with various opinions,
the matter is brought to the attention of the Knight
with the Surcoat for his Armor. He delayed not at all,
but assuming boldness, rushed into the presence of the

emperor, saying: "0 Emperor, I bid you be mindful of

 

 

 

130

your munificence through which at my asking you graciously
vouchsafed to me when chosen for knighthood that you would
allow me the first single combat which would be necessary
for you to enter upon against your enemies. Behold a
war is being declared by the heathens not only against
you and the Roman people, but also against the Christian
faith. I pray your highness to grant me that which you
have agreed to, so that I may both realize the fulfillment
of your pledge and avenge the dignity of the Roman people
and the practice of religion." Now although the emperor
was extremely reluctant to send away from himself such
a doughty knight and friend and to destine him to such
great danger, nevertheless because his promise required
this and because he did not know anyone more capable of
such a task--especially since he knew that the strength
and bravery of all his troops was to be measured by the
courage of him who was to be sent, and that condemnation
and shame awaited him if the champion should be defeated,
but profit and glory if he should win--he decreed this
to come to pass with a resolution of the senate.

And so the emperor arranges for him together
with the legates to be well and properly fitted out and
reinforced with arms—-a hundred knights with one centurion
being assigned to him over and above——in order that he
might both proceed honorably and, if any adversity should

befall him through such great expanses of lands and sea,

 

131

might escape it with their support. And with no delay,
they enter upon their journey, and coming to the Adriatic
Sea go on board ships. Now sailing with them were six-
teen vessels, some of which merchants, others of which
those hastening to the holy places, had assembled in
their company on account of the fierceness of the pirates
who were roaming through the compass of the sea. When
these ships then are joined together, they leave port

and are borne into the deep. After being tossed all
about by violent waves for twenty-five days, during which
time they could neither seek port nor steer a straight
course because of storms rising up on all sides, and
after being driven around in great winding routes, they
put to land at a certain island belonging to a barbarous
people. The inhabitants of this island were of such
savageness that they spared no sex, no age; but they
tormented with equal punishment guilty and innocent
people coming from a foreign nation. For that reason
they were sought out by no one pursuing trade, but were
shunned by every people to whom the infamy of such great
wickedness had become known, and they remained in the
world as if situated outside it, segregated from the
fellowship of all men. For they are said to eat, and
immoderately so, the flesh of all beasts and birds, to

be subject to pleasure to the extent indeed that neither

fathers know their children nor do children know by whom

 

 

 

132

they were begotten. Their stature does not exceed the
measure of three cubits,l4 and their lifetime extends

to their fiftieth year. Rarely does anyone depart from
life before his tenth year, nor does anyone who survives
pass beyond his fiftieth year. Well supplied with
clothing and food, accustomed to hardships, abounding

in riches, they are known to be fecund in the propagation
of offspring.

Indeed already the report had been spread abroad
through all the territories of the pagans that a knight
sent by the emperor was coming for the duel that had
been arranged, and that no one could endure an encounter
with him. For that reason they secretly sent word to
all the neighboring islands under their jurisdiction in
the Aegean Sea, which he was about to cross, to observe
with a continuous watch the ports and shores, and, if
by chance he should put to land, to destroy him, lest he
be able to appear on the established day. Moreover, they
stationed pirates in diverse places to be on the lookout
over the wide expanses of the sea, so that if the Romans
should escape unharmed from those watching their harbors,
they would be intercepted unexpectedly by those who were
constantly running to and fro through the sea.

Now at that time there reigned on that island a
certain man called Milocrates,15 an enemy of the Roman

people, who upon seizing and abducting the emperor's

   

 

 

 

133

niece whom the emperor had given to the king of Illyria,l6

had taken possession of that island by force. When the
plans for ambush had been made known to Milocrates as
well as to others, he fortified with knights and guards
the cities and towns--both those which lay on the sea
and those near which he had ascertained were harbors
suitable for landing--in order that on the one hand the
former might attack the Knight with the Surcoat for his
Armor sailing by, or on the other hand the latter might
suddenly assail the Romans putting to land.

Now the shores on which the Romans had landed were
surrounded all about with woods, not too abundant however
in wild animals, and because of their scarcity they
were being preserved rather strictly and sedulously
from the inhabitants and from outsiders coming in; the
eating of the animals was lawful for no one to enjoy
except the king and his nobles.

When the aforementioned centurion reached this
island with his fleet, the Knight with the Surcoat for
his Armor, with a few men accompanying him, disembarked
from the ship and went to the forest to hunt. After
slaying six stags, he had begun to chase the seventh
with hounds uncoupled, when behold a keeper of the woods
stationed in the interior of the forest heard the barking
of the hounds and the sounding of trumpets. He summons

his companions, into whose charge together with him the

 

 

 

134

king had committed the forest for protection, and he
bids them to take up arms. The twenty knights who were
watching over it were set in different places, and with—
out their permission it was unsafe for anyone to enter.
At the command they take up arms and run to meet the
hunters who had already taken game. They ask the Romans
by whose permission they are plundering the royal woods,
to enter which was not lawful for anyone even on a peace-
ful walk. The Romans are ordered to lay down their arms
and, for the rashness which they had perpetrated, to go
to the king to submit to his judgment. Against this the
Knight with the Surcoat for his Armor responded: "The
one who gave us permission to come here also gave us
permission to seize whatever things are necessary for
us, and we will not lay down our weapons unless they be
buried in your guts."

He had spoken and brandishing javelins with his
powerful arm, showered hard iron into the swollen throat
of the one threatening and harshly checked his ready
speech.l7

Now the wounded keeper of the woods let out a
groan, but yet became more angry as a result of the pain
itself, and with all his effort drew the missile out of
his wound and sent it back toward the Knight with the
Surcoat for his Armor, but it travelled astray away

from the Knight and became infixed in an oak tree. With

 

 

 

135

no delay the others from both sides run together, and
joining their hands in combat, at one moment they inflict
blows on one another at close range; at another moment
they contend at a distance by the hurling of spears.
There were more men on the side of the Knight, but with-
out armor; while the adversaries had the protection of
all kinds of armor. But when he saw his own men yielding
to the enemies, the Knight with the Surcoat for his Armor
rushed with drawn sword upon their leader, struck him
down to the ground, and grabbing the nosepiece of his
helmet, dragged him over to his fellow Romans and
deprived him of his life together with his armor. After
putting on the armor and after encouraging his own troops,
he assailed the enemies and alone slew thirteen men before
the rest were put to flight. Then a band of knights pur-
sues those fleeing through the remote parts of the forest,
and they send straight to Tartarus all whom they are able
to overtake. Only one man is left surviving this slaughter
to bear the news of this great disaster. Concealing
himself in the density of the bushes, he lay hidden
until the enemy force breaking ranks ceased following
after him. When the force withdrew, he very quickly
got up, went to the king and reported to him what had
happened.

Now King Milocrates at that time was staying in

a nearby city which he had founded in a most delightful

 

 

 

 

 

136

place three miles from the sea. After learning about the
coming of the enemies as well as the annihilation of his
own knights, he at once sent out messengers to command
the nobles of the entire province to come together as
soon as possible with as large a force as they could avail
themselves of. Now just as it had been commanded in
regard to both time and place, they arrive with a col-
lected multitude. Those arriving were encamped throughout
the neighboring districts because the above-mentioned
city was not able to contain them. But King Milocrates
deliberated with their leaders as to what should be done.
Meanwhile the Knight with the Surcoat for his
Armor, having utterly defeated the enemies, marches back
to the ships, and the whole army, after being rewarded
with the spoils taken, congratulates him for his Victory.
Now on the third day they tried to proceed on the journey
that they had begun, but since high winds hindered them,
they were forced to tarry in that place. Therefore the
centurion, very much discouraged because of this,
assembles the leaders of the military and seeks counsel
from them concerning what should be done. For he affirmed
that the king of that island and his nobles were now
stirred up against them on account of the destruction
of their own men, and that they had already conspired
to go crush the Romans in vengeance for those slain

unless the Romans had hurried too quickly to depart.

 

 

 

137

he centurion said, moreover, that with the wind driving
hem back, they could not sail away from there, nor
ould remaining in that place be safe, since neither
id they have a sufficient number of knights to repel
he multitude of the enemies, nor would their stores
upply their necessities for so long a time. "Therefore
t is necessary," he said, "that someone of us go to
nvestigate the strengths and plans of the adversaries
n order that, knowing those things which are being done
1y them, we may more advantageously provide for what we
hould do."

The words of the commander find favor, and two
[en from among all of them are chosen to carry out this
lusiness, one of whom was the Knight with the Surcoat
'or his Armor, and the other, called Odabel,l8 was a
'elative of the centurion; they were recognized before
;he others as being prudent and cautious in doubtful
(ituations, and brave and quick to act in adverse sit-
Lations. Covered with armor these men set out on their
.ppointed journey and direct their course through the
'oods to the city. At the entrance of this forest an
:normous wild boar runs toward them, its neck covered
ith bristles like little spears, its gaping jaws
’ortified with curved tusks. With flashes of fire
>ursting forth from its mouth and with foam flowing

d1 over its shoulders, it charged in that sidelong

 

 

 

138

tack. Now after seeing the boar, the Knight with the
rcoat for his Armor jumped down from his noisy-footed
eed, and brandishing his splendid hunting spear with

8 right hand he rushed on foot upon the boar before

had the opportunity of attacking him. The point of
he spear that had been thrust into its forehead between

.he eyebrows, running through other parts, made its exit
through the flank. And yet it did not immediately tumble
to the ground, but seemed to have conceived a rage
together with the wound it received so that, although
its strength for the most part had run out from blood
being lost, yet with as much strength as the boar was
afforded, it assailed him with its tusk. But as soon as
the Knight with the Surcoat for his Armor caught the

blow with his shield that he had placed opposite it, he
with sword unsheathed cut off the head of the one raging
at him and left the boar wallowing in its own blood. On
his behalf his armor-bearer took the boar back to the

centurion after it had been placed on a horse, and
returning at a quickened pace he overtook the Knight

at the gates of the city at midday.

Now after marching into the city they went to
the palace, and mingling with the others they fared
among the royal company as if they were part of it.
For indeed the innumerable crowd tolerated them whose

identity had not been found out; moreover, it turned

 

 

 

139

ut for their safety that they were not ignorant of the
rt of speaking the language of that country. And so,
andering in every direction throughout the city and its

Listricts, they investigated the quality and number of

the military--both what was actually present and what

they had heard was about to come; truly by no means had
the entire army already come together. For indeed on

King Milocrates had sent certain men to
spy on the fleet of the Romans;

the day before,

and tracing their steps
back to the town they had put him in great terror,

attesting that they had found so great a multitude of

armed men as his island of defenseless men had never

contained. Actually ,

the spies had been captured by the
centurion, who threatening them with death then and there,

had forced them to promise by an oath to report such

information. Moreover,

in order that he might keep them

quite faithful to him, he lavished on them very many

gifts before he sent them back to their own people; for
this reason King Milocrates was afraid to go attack the

fleet except with a strong force. Now through legates
he had summoned his brother, Buzafarnan19 by name, who
ruled neighboring kingdoms,

to bring together for him
in his such great need as many troops as he could as
quickly as possible. While King Milocrates was awaiting

his arrival, the business of war was delayed. Now on

the very day that the Knight with the Surcoat for his

 

 

 

 

140

Armor had come to the city, King Milocrates by chance
had called a meeting of his barons to inquire from them

vflnai: should be done in the pressing circumstances. In

tfliis «council it was decided by all that upon the arrival
<3f liis brother King Buzarfarnan, the army should be
(iivdxied into two parts, one of which should approach
the adversaries by sea,

the other by land, so that no

avenuae of escape would be available. The Knight with
the: Surcoat for his Armor, however, sitting back unrecog—

nized among them, was listening with intent ear to every
single thing that was being said, was noting in his

remembering mind the things that he heard.

And now Phoebus had set and King Milocrates was

hastening to dinner. Conducting himself in his company

is the Knight with the Surcoat for his Armor; while

the Knight's companions20 wait outside for him, he

steps into the palace and as the others are reclining
at table, he with no one knowing it——certainly the rather
late hour had diminished their vision, but no one thought

mw'such thing could happen--steals into the chamber
\flmre the niece of the emperor, that is to say the queen

meiKing Milocrates as we mentioned above had kidnapped

fnmiher lawful husband, was sitting with only her female
senmnts. Now he began to weigh carefully by himself
Mmthe should do, and to look forward with the careful

we<fi his mind to whatever misfortune could befall him.

 

 

 

141

1r if, as he had proposed, lying hidden in the apartment

should inflict death on the king asleep, he feared

Lat he himself would be caught and suffer the same pun-
:hment. If, on the other hand, he should go back with

3 act of prowess having been performed, he would be

egarded surely as an inept and cowardly man. While he
ras pondering over these things by himself, a certain
might named Nab[a]or21—-one of those in fact whom the
king had recently sent to spy on the centurion's fleet--
was coming to the queen on orders of the king. The
Knight with the Surcoat for his Armor caught sight of

him but was not noticed by him; for indeed it is cus-

tomary that those situated in the shadows see clearly

those present in the light, but themselves remain unseen

by them. In any case, the Knight with the Surcoat for

his Armor had formed a lasting friendship with this man

while with the other spies he was being held captive by

the centurion, and the Knight had handed over to him

a ring together with a purple cloak in memory of himself.

After seeing Nabaor, therefore, the Knight takes courage

because of their friendship. Quietly calling him over

to himself he embraces Nabaor, makes known the reason

for his coming, and after mentioning in advance certain

ways by which he would undertake to reward him, asks
that his goodwill-—when he perceives that Nabaor is

favorably inclined toward him, deceit being far

 

 

142

rived-—become of help to him in perpetrating those
.ngs which he had planned to do.

Now Nabaor is very much surprised at his presence
1 when he had learned why the Knight had come, rejoiced
it he had found the opportunity of repaying his gen-
>sity. Therefore, after leading the Knight into a
:e private apartment, he said: "O my very dear friend!
at you are endeavoring to do is greater than your
Llity and should not be attempted by your power alone.
r indeed thirty strong men surround the king, ever
arding his repose, so that access to him cannot be
i even by his familiars until the day dawns. Besides,
hope you realize that on most occasions it is necessary
use discretion rather than force, because even in the
e of force what is desired is accomplished successfully
ny times through discretion, and without it never does
e using force meet success in his undertaking. Now
is being your guide, go ahead with your design, but
th me teaching you in what way it may be set in motion.
e queen is very much taken with love for you and she
st ardently desires either to speak with you or to
ke your acquaintance through intermediaries. For she
dte often has questioned me returning from my mission
La spy as to what appearance and stature you have;
d answering that you are incomparable in both, I

flamed her heart with love for you, so that she is

 

 

143

concerned more about your welfare than about the king's.
Although there is no doubt that the queen of this land
is raised up by King Milocrates to the greatest heights
of honor and glory, yet because it has not escaped her
mind that she had been seized from her nuptial bed
according to the law of the robber, the dishonor of

her captivity ever torments her, and she would prefer
to live elsewhere as a free-woman with a poor man than
to live here as a captive maintained with a whole array

of material things. Moreover, hearing that you, who

 

have been appointed by the emperor for the agreed-upon
contest by reason of your innate and incomparable
prowess, have put to land here, she is trying with all
her effort, striving with all her might to be able to
speak with you now. For indeed she hopes, if she can
attract your notice, that through your valor and forti—
tude she may be freed from the bond of captivity and
restored to her husband, to whom, it is known, she had
been given with a dowry by the emperor. May you realize
beyond a doubt that she will do her best with all dis-
cretion and ability, will attend to it with all sagacity
to augment your power and strength and to bring it about
to prevail against King Milocrates. Nevertheless,
because the mind of woman is marked by fickleness and

is bent toward any motions whatever of inconstancy more

quickly than the wind, it must first be shrewdly tested

/_

r.

 

 

 

 

144

where her feelings lie. If she should discover that

you are present, neither fear of the king nor disgrace

to her good name would prevent her from conversing with
you. Therefore I shall go to her to bear the mandates

of the king to her, and carefully making mention of you
among other things, I shall find out on what side her
will is inclined. You, I pray, in the meantime wait here
in hiding for the outcome of the matter."

So Nabaor went to the queen; as they engaged in
various discussions, at last they had conversation con-
cerning the Knight with the Surcoat for his Armor. When
Nabaor exalted him with great praise for the wondrous
feats performed by him, the queen said: "0 happy me!

If only I were really able to lay down the complaint

of my misery before so gallant a man! If not for any
other reason, at least out of friendship for the emperor,
whose niece I am and whose knight he himself is, he
would snatch me away from the tyranny of Milocrates!
Therefore, if I should find anyone faithful, I would
like to send a messenger to the Knight to see if in

any way the opportunity might be afforded us to get
together and talk."

Now Nabaor, with whom she was speaking, was one
of those whom together with her King Milocrates had
committed to the bond of servitude. For this reason,

she used to entrust to him quite safely the secrets of

 

 

 

145

her mind, so that he was aware of her private feelings.
He answered her: "You can believe, 0 Queen, that there
will be no impediment to your wishes if only your desire
is such; nor will there be any need for a messenger;
merely let deceit be lacking; simply let your will be

in accordance with your words and he will be present
here according to your wish whom up to now you seemingly
have longed to see."

Now after she swore to this——that she wished it
would happen more earnestly than she dared to profess--
Nabaor led the Knight with the Surcoat for his Armor into
her presence and made known to her the reason for which
he had come. Again, as was mentioned above, the Knight
stood forth manly in stature, handsome in appearance,
so that he converted to himself the favor of those behold—
ing him by reason of their admiration of his handsomeness.
Greeting him on entering the queen bade him sit down,
and after gazing upon him intently for a long time, at
length with tears pouring out, she uttered sighs from
the bottom of her heart and revealed the troubles with
which she was burdened, adding that he was able, if he
were willing, to bring about for her a remedy for such
great misfortunes. And he: "If the ability accompanied
my willingness, certainly there would be no delay in
the doing of your will. But it is evident that the king

is superior to us in military number and strength, and

 

 

146

for this reason it is uncertain what the result of a war
would be for us. Wherefore if you are aware of anything
which could succeed in behalf of your wishes, which
could conclude the desired business with a prosperous
ending, make it known and you will not find me reluctant
or slow to carry it out."

While the queen, keeping silent for a little
while, was thinking what she might say to these things,
Nabaor said: "It is not at all unknown to you, 0 Queen,
that the king is gathering an army to fight against the J
Romans, during the assembling of which I see the greatest V
opportunity for carrying out a plan. For you will be able,
if you put yourself in the Knight's great care, both to
remove him together with his companions from the impend-
ing danger and to bring your desire to a happy fulfill-
ment. Indeed the mind of the king, occupied with the
business of war, will be very little concerned about
other things. Therefore send word to the centurion
through the Knight to dispatch hither on the next day
forty men trained in arms secretly through the shaded
parts of the forest, so that on the following day, as
the king goes into battle against the centurion, the
forty men may take possession of the city by your hand-
ing it over to them, which city kindled with fire would
provide a horrible spectacle for the king and his men, as

well as an incentive for victory for the Romans."

 

 

 

 

147

Indeed with many prayers she begs the Knight to
go through with what was suggested. In addition, she
presented to him the king's sword as well as his golden
armor, for it had been ordained by fate that the king
would be despoiled of his royal crown, conquered by him
who should first wear them besides himself. Moreover,
she heaped upon him copious gifts of gold and silver
and gems of great value, and over and above pledged him
her friendship. When these things were done, the Knight
with the Surcoat for his Armor hastily returns to his
companions, and leading them from the city he reached
the centurion at daybreak; then, showing the gifts
bestowed upon himself, he made known what he had done,
seen and heard.

The centurion, exhilarated more than can be
believed with the hope of victory, ordered that the
knights be chosen who were to be sent to the queen.

Now he placed his relative Odabel in command over those
chosen and, after exhorting him to lead cautiously and
prudently those entrusted to him, sent him forth. Going
therefore, they arrived on the next day toward evening
at the vineyard which was bordering on the royal palace.
They were let into it by Nabaor according to the queen's
order and lay hidden in it the whole night.

In the morning as it grows light, King Milocrates

marches out of the city with his army to do battle with

 

 

 

 

148

the centurion. Now earlier he had sent a major part

of his forces in a fleet, with his brother as leader,

to assail the enemies from the rear, so that surrounded
with warfare on both sides the Romans would yield to

him more quickly. But because their plan was well
known, the centurion had positioned his ships on the
shore around the camp so that, if need be, they would
also serve as a fortification for those fleeing back to
them. He himself both leads the military out of the
camp which had been set up in a secure place not far
from the sea, and divides the knights into five units,22
the middle one of which he himself commands. He was
overtly marching over against the king, whom a battle-
array of 15,000 armed men accompanied. But although
the king was superior in number and strength of soldiery,
yet he did not at all entertain the hope of victory,
because of course his armor had been stolen on which

he knew the protection of himself and his kingdom
depended. When he, about to go into battle, asked

for this armor and could by no means find it, all hOpe
of success fell from his mind, nor did he discover that
the Knight with the Surcoat for his Armor had it until,
as he was about to fight, he espied him dressed in it

on the battlefield. Exceedingly terrified at the sight
of this, he shuddered because reasoning truly he was

extremely afraid of that which afterwards came to pass

 

 

 

 

 

149

for him. Yet he was not able to leave off from what
had been begun since he saw that either to die laudably
or to conquer bravely was necessary for his glory.

So the blasting of trumpets resounded on both
sides, by which both boldness for spirits and a sign
for attacking the enemies are wont to be united. And
the company soldiers had already begun to clash when
behold smoke rising up in the air from the city pro-
claimed by its own evidence what was happening there.
For indeed as soon as the king hurrying for the fight
marched out of the city, those who were waiting in
ambush immediately had risen up, brought it under their
power, and setting fire to it had kindled its suburbs.
As the blaze reached greater heights, the destruction
of the city was evident now indeed to the citizens
stationed quite far away, especially when sparks driven
by the south wind were flying before the faces of those
fighting. The heart of the king, therefore, was very
afraid in the presence of imminent disaster, and post-
poning the contest which had been begun, he hastened to
go rescue the city.

You could discern far and wide that battle—lines
were being broken, that hands were emptied of their
weapons, and that men were bent on flight. They enter
a thousand ways, yet there is not one way for two men;

thus the enemies flee, just as sheep shun the mouths

 

 

 

 

 

150

of dogs. The other side pursues and presses upon those
fleeing, and those whom they overtake they send to
destruction equally. Part of the enemy is felled by
jagged rocks, part falls down having been slain; the
part which suffers neither fate experiences cruel bonds.23
Now the Knight with the Surcoat for his Armor,
observing the wedge-formations of the enemies being
suddenly broken up and put to flight, pursues them with
his soldiery grouped closely together and advances into
their midst with the greatest slaughter. Indeed not
only had the blaze consuming the buildings of the city
terrified the enemies, but also the flight itself upon
which they had entered had rendered them completely
ineffective in mind and hand. Scattered therefore over
the slopes of the hills and through the remote parts of
the forests, like a flock of sheep beset by the fury of
wolves, they were heading for the city walls and without
interruption were being slain by the swords of those
chasing them. The knights, moreover, who had set fire
to the outskirts of the city, were meeting those fleeing
and were keeping them away from the walls; turning them
back to the battlefield they forced them to fall back
into the hands of those whom they were fleeing. A
horrible massacre was being made from both sides, and
the enemies were hampered by their own great number so

that they were held incapable either of flight or of

 

 

 

 

 

 

151

their own defense. Without a protector they were thrown
into confusion, like a defenseless crowd, and no one
deigned to give his right hand to anyone asking for it.
However, at length when King Milocrates saw that
he was surrounded on all sides by enemies, he reckoned
that it would be an infamous thing for him if he should
die without having performed an illustrious deed. There-
fore he unites his scattered men into a wedge—formation
and courageously assailing those pressing upon him, in
the first encounter checks the assault of the adver-
saries and compels them to yield to him. Slaying as
many of them as possible with his own right hand, he
was putting the rest to flight, until the Knight with
the Surcoat for his Armor, observing his fellow knights
being badly torn, puts his horse to a gallop and rides
to meet Milocrates. The king boldly takes on the one
coming; when they clash, each is thrown down from his
horse by the other. But the Knight with the Surcoat for
his Armor, rising more quickly, rushes with drawn sword
at the king now trying to get up, and he would have
inflicted a lethal wound if the blow had not been brought
to naught by a shield thrown in the way. Although no
great injury resulted from the blow, nevertheless faint-
ness came over Milocrates' brain so that after falling
back he lay still for a moment like a man asleep. With

sword eager to strike him a second time, the doughty

 

 

 

 

152

young man, the nephew of King Arthur, rushes at him
again, but a man on horseback threatening with mouth and
hand assails the Knight with the Surcoat for his Armor
from the left. However, the Knight on foot and protected
with a shield warded off his attacks from himself, and
letting fly from a bowstring an arrow which by good
fortune had been handed to him, neither shield nor
steel hauberk prevented the arrow from piercing right
through the saddlebow with its force and, having been
received under the stomach, right through him who was
threatening greater things.

After that man, then, had been laid prostrate, the
Knight again sought out the king, but was taken on by him
with greater boldness than he had expected. For indeed
as the king was recovering his breath, shame and anger
had furnished him strength, bringing back before the
eyes of his mind the memory of his former dignity and
prowess; and making him feel that he must by no means
suffer punishment like some plebeian, this shame and
anger had spurred him on to go avenge himself on his
enemies, especially since no other hope for his
deliverance was at hand than for himself to make an
effort lest pleasant victory pass from himself to his
enemies. Therefore he, striking first, assailed the
approaching Knight with the Surcoat for his Armor and

with his sword inflicted a wound on his forehead which

 

 

 

153

was unprotected by the helmet, and if the nosepiece
below which projects from the helmet had not served as

a guard, he would have caused death together with the
wound. Now the injured Knight with the Surcoat for his
Armor becomes violent in mind and, fearing that his
sight would be impaired by the blood flowing down,
attacks the king to exact punishment for the injury

done by him, and bringing down his sword in a sidelong
swipe he cuts off Milocrates' head together with his
right arm. As the king dies, those who had stood firm
by him slip away in flight, in which rested their only
hope for safety. But the centurion, wishing to spare
the multitude, commands that a signal be given with a
trumpet to his knights not to pursue those fleeing, he
knowing that, their leader having been overthrown,

those who were subordinate would yield to himself
without a battle. Then after collecting the spoils of
the enemies, the Romans march into the city in a victory
procession, and a triumphal arch is raised for them.24
The queen, the niece of the emperor, coming out to meet
them, leads them into the royal palace and with all dili-
gence provides refreshment to them very fatigued from

the war. She commands that burial be given to those
killed, that medical care be given to the wounded, and
she showed herself to be most munificent to all and

remunerated all with deserved rewards.

 

 

 

 

 

154

Now the centurion, sojourning on this island for
fifteen days, gave the country over to his army for
plundering and consigned the nobles and magistrates to
barred wagons because they had conspired with the enemy
of the Roman people, and he punished the people with a
heavy assessment of tribute. Then after leaving a part
of the military there for safeguarding the island; and
after sending the queen, the niece of the emperor, back
in the company of chosen men to her lawful husband, the
king of Illyria, from whom she had been seized by force;
the centurion took two hundred knights of that province
with him, and together with his companions climbed
aboard the refitted ships to fulfill the mission which
he had begun. When the centurion had completed a day's
journey over the waves of the sea, behold King Milocrates'
brother whose great power had remained intact met him
with no very small fleet. He had been sent by King
Milocrates, as was mentioned above, before the war was
waged, and was to besiege the centurion's fleet, so that
surrounded on both sides—-both on land and on sea--refuge
would be shut off for him. But coming to the armada--
that is, to the supposed location of the centurion's
ships--he had found neither ships nor army. To be sure,
the centurion had reinforced his camp a little farther
off-~away from the sea--by positioning those vessels all

around on the outside as a fortification for himself.

 

 

 

155

Now King Egesarius-—for thus was the brother of King
Milocrates called--thinking that the Romans had fled,
turned his oarsmen around, and was conveyed back out
into the deep sea, where he was tossed about for three
days by violent waves. While he was trying to reseek
a harbor, he was driven away to regions distant by a
five days' journey as a result of storms raging on all
sides. But now the wind blowing more gently, he was
returning and in the middle of the sea encounters the
fleet of the centurion.

Now by chance the centurion himself, with the
Knight with the Surcoat for his Armor at his side, was
standing in the tower which had been erected as a bul-
wark on the stern. Scanning widely with his sight the
expanses of the sea, at first he descried just the
figures, built in the shape of a cock or some other
thing, which are attached to the masts to determine
which way the vessel is being driven by the wind. For
indeed to whichever part of the world the weather's
blowing is directed, they always stand opposite it with
their front facing it. Therefore thinking that these
standards flying on the masts, while they were being
propelled now higher now lower by the driving breeze,
are kingfishers, he calls the ship's pilot and says:
"Listen, in my opinion a mighty tempest is threatening

us. For indeed look how those birds flapping their

 

 

 

156

wings are directing their courses in circles through the
air, as if prescient of future events they are foretasting
their joys; they signify that our bodies are about to be
food for their crop; indeed with a storm threatening,
birds of this kind are accustomed to make frequent
flights now in a flock now separately by circling around
those rowing, and their motions are wont to portend
future disaster."25
Now the Knight with the Surcoat for his Armor
standing beside him and recognizing the situation as it
was, said: "Sir, your opinion is mistaken. For cer-
tainly they are not birds which you think you discern,
but images affixed to the tops of masts. And you should
realize beyond a doubt that the enemy fleet is approach-
ing, the one sent to proceed against us a long time ago
by the king subjugated by your forces. Perhaps indeed
with some tempest driving them, they were forced to seek
strange territory, which was the reason for their delay
up to the present time. But now with the breeze favoring
their wishes, they are returning. Command the knights,
therefore, to take up arms lest our adversaries find
us unprepared."
Therefore at the command of the centurion those
who were on that ship arm themselves, and trumpeters
give signals to the other vessels to do the same-~for

there were thirty: the fifteen, that is, which he had

 

 

 

 

157

brought there, and just as many from the subjugated
island which he had added to the former. They are
arranged to attack the enemies from the front, from the
right and from the left, and also to surround them by
lying in ambush as it were. Now five of the ships he
had were furnished with rostra, in the first of which
he himself was, and these ships he placed in the front
in order to suddenly assault the advancing enemy galleys.
Indeed pirates engaging in naval combat use this kind
of ship most of all, whose strength is so immense that
whatever vessel it rams, it splits the hull from top to
bottom. For this reason they are rightly called "ros-
tratae," because all the space projecting between the
prow and the keel is covered with iron, having a ridge
fortified in front with iron hooks all along the length
of the prow, and on the top they bear iron heads for-
tified with crested rostra, like a cock's head. Bul-
warks are also erected in which the strongest men are
stationed in order to curb from above with rocks and
arrows the assault of the antagonists. The transport
ships, however, the centurion locates behind so that,
if instructed, they could sail away from the soldiery
and at least themselves escape the hands of the plun-
derers.

Therefore after all the vessels had been

positioned as was expedient, and the anchors cast, they

 

 

 

 

 

158

awaited the arrival of the enemies. When the hostile
fleet appeared, the sight gave credence to the words

of the Knight with the Surcoat for his Armor, and proved
him not to have been wrong in his expressed opinion. The
enemies also divide their fleet into units, nor with
less astuteness do they provide for every necessity

for such a crisis. Now the Knight with the Surcoat for
his Armor, seeing them approach all ready for war, com—
mands that his ships be hastily set free by raising the
anchors, and committing the sails to the winds, he also
orders that the vessels be propelled with oars. With
his soldiers positioned all along the rowers' banks

and the decks, he is first to ram the galley on which
the leader of the enemies was riding. Shattering its
prow together with its keel, with his impetus he carried
the tremendous blow all the way to the mast which was
broken by the rostrum smashing into it and was forced

to seek the waves in a whirl. Other vessels also are
present as a support for the Knight with the Surcoat

for his Armor, and they surround the battered ship and
overwhelm those fighting back, although they were
defending themselves strenuously. The Romans roll

some of them into the billows, others they cut down
with battle axes and swords. But the remaining they
subdue with fetters. After the enemy commander has

been killed while fighting manfully lest he fall alive

 

 

 

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into the hands of his enemies, they snatch up the supplies
and equipment and sink the skiff in the main.

Now after the overthrow of these men, the Knight
with the Surcoat for his Armor advances more boldly
against those remaining. But intercepted by their
joined forces he is surrounded by them with a war cry;
separated from his own forces he is vehemently attacked
from every side. You could see the air darkened from
the hurling of missiles, and the surface of the sea
covered with a great number of them. A vast quantity of
jagged rocks was launched from here and from there, whose
crashing noise produced no less horror than danger.

Those striving to do violence to the vessel of the
Knight with the Surcoat for his Armor bombard it with
every kind of weapon, but because each one of its boards
was covered with iron plates, none was broken by any—
one's blows, and although he was being pressed by such
great wedge-formations of the enemies, nevertheless he
was performing no less deeds than he was suffering. When
his foes understood his pertinacity, and that he pre—
ferred to die rather than be conquered, and that he
neither could be brought under their power nor would
yield safely to anyone pressing him, they threw fire--
that is to say, Greek fire26--at his boat.

Now fire of this kind is made in various ways;

but its power to accomplish the business to which it

 

 

 

 

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is applied is greater and more persistent if it is pre—
pared in this manner. Those who have skill in making it,
first take a copper caldron and catch as many poisonous
toads as they can crowd into it, and feed them in it

for three months with the flesh of doves and with honey.
After this time has been completed, they leave them unfed
for two or three days, and then attach them to the teats
of some beast productive in milk and offspring, whose
milk they drink by sucking so long that ultra-sated

they die. Now swollen with venomous fluid, the toads

are put in a large vessel with a funeral pile set under-
neath. Added to them are chelydri--poisonous water
snakes--which previously had been placed in a tomb where
they had fed on a human cadaver for ten days. Also
included is a venomous and deadly asp bearing three
heads on its one neck, whose name escapes my mind, but

a poisonous animal destroying anything it might strike
with its incurable pestilence. For indeed at the
venom's touch the earth is made barren of its grass

and crops, water of its fish, trees of their fruit; and
what is more to be wondered at: if the most minute drop
should contaminate a tree, no matter how thick it may be,
gnawing away at it in the manner of a cancer, it cuts

it through the middle at the place where it is being
eaten and spreads it out on the ground. It has been

found that no remedy is effective against this scourge

 

 

 

 

 

161

so that it does not kill men and domestic animals imme-
diately if it so much as touches the surface of the skin
and penetrates therein. How great this asp's potency is
can be seen especially from the flame shooting forth
from its mouth, by which the forest which it inhabits
is quite often set on fire when the asp itself is burn-
ing with great rage. Now from the slaver flowing from
its three gaping jaws three herbs are produced; that is
to say, one herb from the slaver of each jaw. The first
of which, if anyone should use it for food or drink, he
would be turned to madness, his mind having been changed;
the second causes death for anyone savoring it with one
taste; and the juice of the third infects with leprosy
anyone who drinks it or anoints himself with it. Now
when these plants have matured, the infamous monster
feeds upon them if it can find them. Also, after it
has been captured, it is fattened by their nourishment
for the space of one week before it is used for the
above-mentioned business.27
Moreover, the gallbladder and testicles of a
werewolf are not absent from the recipe. This werewolf
is of the kind that is begotten by the wind and the air,
and whatever he touches, he takes onto himself the shape
of the thing touched.28 Now a ligure stone found in the
furthest part of the world occupies not the least impor-

tant place among the other things. It is thought to

 

 

 

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come from the lynx's hardened urine29 inasmuch as it is
endowed with the same quality. Truly nothing hinders
the eyesight of a lynx, so that even when standing on
one side of a material object, he can see with true
clarity what takes place on the other side.30 In
addition, the head, heart and liver of a crow that has
lived for nine generations are added to increase the
strength of these other ingredients.31 Now by no means
excluded from the above named items are sulphur, pitch

and resin, oil, tartar32

and bitumen, which quickly
snatch up the heat of any flame applied to them and are
slow to put it aside.

Therefore when these things have been collected
in the order that I have mentioned, they are put into
a very clean cooking pot made of copper. Having been
arranged all the way to the mouth of the vessel, they
are superfused with the blood of a red-haired man and
of a dragon. Indeed in the blood of a red-haired man
there is believed to be a fiery nature, since both the
color of his hair and what especially is accustomed to
flourish in a person of this kind--quickness of temper-—
clearly show this. Now a young man who has a red beard
and a red head of hair, and who has pimples of the same
color dotting his face, is led into a beautiful apart-

ment and by the preparation of all kinds of feasts is

delicately fattened for the space of one month. On

 

 

163

each day the hearth is kindled in front of him, and he
is inebriated with wine to increase his blood, but is
sedulously kept from feminine embraces. Now after the
month has been completed, in the middle of the house
on either side along the length of his body fiery coals
are strewn, between which he, after being gorged with33
food and drink, is exposed-~his garments having been
laid aside——and he is turned toward the fire on each
side as if he were on a spit. Now having been made
sufficiently warm, and with his veins now swelling over
his entire body, he is bled; this is done by the muscle
tissue of each arm being cut crosswise. Certainly in
the meantime while he is losing blood, he takes morsels
of bread dipped in wine to revive his mind, lest the
desired fluid clot up as a result of his mind becoming
enfeebled or rapt in a trance. The blood is allowed

to flow out until faintness leading to death is about
to drive his soul from his body. The blood of a dragon
is first mixed through it, and the mixture is kept warm
for a very long time; then it is poured over the other
things, suffusing them all at the same time.

Now if it is asked how a dragon may be appre-
hended, first the strongest men are chosen to search out
his cavern in which he hides. After finding it, they
strew around its entrance sleep-inducing plants tinged

with various spices. When the dragon comes out of the

 

 

164

opening in the earth and senses their fragrance, he
devours them greedily and immediately is overcome with
sleep. Then the men lying in ambush who have been hiding
in a safe place not far away, surround and decapitate
him. His blood is borne off by them together with the
dragon stone which they pluck out of his shattered brain
and which hence may be used for business of many sorts.34
Now the caldron in which these things are
entrusted is three-footed, and its top part which has
handles is fashioned with a narrow mouth and has a cover
made out of copper. When the vessel is closed with the
cover, both parts fit together so tightly that not even
a slight amount of gaseous vapor may escape from it.
All the ingredients, then, having been placed into it,
fire immediately is set underneath, and it is brought
to boil for seven continuous days and just as many
nights. Pitch and naphtha are thrown into the flame
in order that it might burn more intensely. In addition,
there is a copper rod whose curved end is fashioned as
a spigot, by which the small opening that appears in
the peak of the vessel's cover is stopped up the first
six days. But on the seventh day a flame is kindled in
the cooking pot,35 and an immense rumbling is heard
inside, as if there were an earthquake; or if you were
stationed at a distance from the pot, as if you were

perceiving with your ear the roaring of the turbulent

 

 

 

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sea. Now when the one tending the kindled flame perceives
the well-known sign, he douses the spigot on the outside
with the sharpest vinegar, which penetrating the spigot's
thickness checks the impetus of the flame now trying

to erupt.

Now as many copper bags are prepared as are
needed, into which the fire may be removed; their pliable
seams which are made out of wood and leather are so
tightly put together that they are less likely to be
penetrated by a breath of air than by the flame. But
the bags are quite flexible, being composed more of
leather than of copper, as you would imagine. After the
flame has been restrained from its raging by the vinegar
that was thrown on, the spigot is taken out, and the
flexible tube projecting forward from a bag is placed
to the opening of the caldron. By the drawing of air,
the fire is emptied out of the cooking pot. Immediately,
lest the fire come back out of the bag, the mouth of the
tube is stopped up with a spigot. And thus the fire to
be stored is drawn into the other bags. But a small
amount is left in the cooking pot to which each day fuel
is added by which the fire may be nourished. Moreover,
there are small openings, like little windows, in the
middle of the bags, through which the flame may be fed
lest it become extinguished.36 In this way Greek fire

is prepared. If you ask how powerful it is, no engine

 

 

 

 

 

166

is so strong, no ship so large, but that if the fire is
thrown onto them, it will penetrate every side, burning
up all that stands in its way. Nor can it in any way

be extinguished until the material which it is consuming
ceases to exist. And what is more astounding, it even
burns among the waves; and if it is mixed with common
fire, always keeping itself in one mass it destroys the
common fire as if it were wood.

Therefore, as was said above, when the enemies
realized by experience that the Knight with the Surcoat
for his Armor was invincible by arms, one of them
snatched up a bag in which the unpropitious fire was
stored, and the spigot having been withdrawn from the
tube, he by pressing down on one of the panels of the
bag with his left hand, and by pushing up on another
with his right hand, squeezed them together from both
sides with effort, and ejecting the fire he penetrates
the centurion's vessel with it--right through the
middle——burning up four oarsmen. Without delay the
whole ship is swept by flame, wherefore no small fear
is stricken into those lying in wait for it; indeed
hedged in on the inside by fire and on the outside by
enemies, they did not know what they should do, nor was
the opportunity of either defending or avenging them-
selves given to them. If they should choose to look

to flight, it was not safe to commit themselves either

 

 

 

167

to the waves or to the adversaries. But nonetheless
death was threateningly being extended to those remaining
on the ship. Now the Knight with the Surcoat for his
Armor, considering that unless he hastened to the rescue
as quickly as possible, the situation would turn to
irremediable disaster for himself, and considering that
all things would be decided by this test of his bravery
and might, regains his vigor and leaps armed into the
very ship of those who were pressing him. Cutting down
some of them and rolling others into the billows, he
transfers to that ship his companions snatched away

from the threefold misfortune; namely, the balls of
flames, shipwreck on the waves, and the fury of the
enemies. And inflamed with more violent anger, his

own fleet having been brought together, he hurries for-
ward to avenge himself, and after sinking ten pirate
boats, he ravishes thirty others, now that the bravery
of the enemies has been weakened.

At length when the naval battle had been brought
to an end not without the greatest danger, the Romans
proceed favorably on what was left of the journey, and
arrive safely in Jerusalem by the appointed time.

Having been received with the incredible welcome of
all, they rather delightfully and rather indulgently
with rest and leisure refreshed their limbs fatigued

both from the laborious journey on land and on sea,

 

 

 

 

168

and from the manifold dangers of the trials and battles. A
In the meantime strong bands of soldiers are assembled,
and a multitude of knights is sent to them by neighboring
and foreign princes. The Romans themselves order that
knights be recruited throughout the entire region, that
cities and towns in key places be surrounded with solid
walls and high towers, and be reinforced with the
strongest men, with a complete stock of weapons, and

with a supply of grain and food sufficient for a mili-
tary campaign. Each day throughout the various shrines
of saints public prayer was zealously made to God by

all the people, and pious deeds of fasting and almsgiving
were joined to the prayer, so that He might confer the
desired triumph on those serving Him and so that defeat
might await the adversaries.

Meanwhile the day that was fixed beforehand for
the single combat had dawned, and after the wedge—
formations of the innumerable army of each side—-that
is, of the armed Christians and the pagans—-have been
organized, the two champions covered with armor come
forth into the middle to fight. On the one side is the
Knight with the Surcoat for his Armor, whose boldness
of spirit, publicized bravery, customary prowess, habit
of conquering, and more just cause exhilarated his com-
panions with the hope of triumph. Now the other, of the

opposing faction, Gormundus37 by name—-his long limbs,

 

 

 

169

immense stature, truculent face, the large number of

his wars, his fortitude estimated to be unique among

all men, and the horrifying clanging of his armor

seemed to promise that the trophy would fall to him.

Now each man advanced on foot because, on account of

his immoderate size, no horse was strong enough to bear
Gormundus as a rider. Throwing their shields up before
them and hostilely joining their right hands, they
boldly contend against each other. With as much strength
as is in store, and with as much power as anger supplies,
the one assails the other with drawn sword. They redouble
a thousand blows, and in a thousand ways and with recip-
rocal wounds, they by turns demand to be yielded to.

They smite and are smitten; they drive forward and are
driven back; and the wheel of Fortune revolves with
varying chance between them. Whatever there may be of
valor and fortitude, absolutely nothing is left behind,
and the eyes of all remain fixed on them. It is not
known who is quicker in striking or more courageous in
suffering; such frequent strokes and such heavy blows
were dealt out between them without interruption that

it could hardly be discerned who gave or who received
them. You could not determine which of the two was

abler with his might, while the more they persisted

in the fight, the more strongly they longed for the

struggle. At times they intersperse their strokes with

 

   

 

170

smart gibes; at times they exasperate each other's minds
with impudent taunts; at times out of breath they draw
themselves back; then refreshed-—a breath of air having
been taken-—they clash more sharply. Their strength
having been renewed, they come together with more fervid
violence; and their minds rage more furiously as if
nothing had been done furiously by them before. You
could see them standing their ground in contending
against each other, just like two very ferocious wild
boars in single conflict; now the boars assail each
other with curved tusk in a sidelong blow, now their
sides collide, now feet trample on feet; meanwhile
smoking foam at one time besmears their gaping jaws,

38 If indeed

at another time glowing fire shoots forth.
the one man presses more vigorously, the other giving
ground is driven further back; but if the other gets
the upper hand, the one is forced to go backwards.

This one endeavors to inflict a wound by lying in
ambush, as it were. That one, if anything is exposed
to the sharpness of his sword, eagerly cleaves it.
However, each of the two with not unequal skill deludes
and brings to naught the effort of the other. The
clashing of arms resounds very far away, and the
hardness of the armor blunts and dulls the sharp edges
of the swords. Indeed from their collision flame quite

frequently leapt forth, and because of the excessive

 

 

171

effort of the men, salty sweat ran down over all their
bodies from their crown to their soles. It was uncer-
tain to whom the victory would fall, since anyone would
estimate the strength of the two to be equal. Thus with
wondrous bravery and with wondrous prowess the battle was
fought that day by each, and in the contest that lasted
from the first hour of the day all the way to sunset,
nothing happened by which either the one could be pre—

ferred to the other, or the palm branch ascribed to

 

either. Therefore as it was growing toward evening,
the men free from deep wounds are separated to fight
again on the morrow and to begin the struggle anew.

Now as the dawn appears, the helmeted phalanxes
assemble in twofold battle array and bring forth the
combatants into the arena. There is a clash, there
are war cries; each man strives for the violent death
of the other. The fight is renewed with greater
rivalry, because the more the one had experienced the
mettle of the other, the more cautiously and forcefully
he conducted himself against him, and it caused each
of them shame to yield even a little to the other. It
was established in the judgment of all that they were
proven to be of equal strength. If you had happened
to witness their conflict that day, you would have sworn
that they had frolicked on the day before, and you would

have been amazed with the greatest wonder how, against

 

 

 

172

such frequent thrusts and against such heavy blows, either
the sharp edges of the swords were able to last without
bluntness, or how the hardness of the armor was able to
remain undamaged, or indeed how they themselves were
able to continue for so long a time unexhausted and
unwounded. To be sure, with such vigor and with such
force swords were struck against helmets, were beaten
against shields, that the air glittered from sparks
flying forth; dashed together, steel repelled steel
and sent it flying back against him by whom it was
brandished. They stir the air with frequent breezes,
setting lunges against lunges, thrusts against thrusts.
With one mind they press on, they carry on a most bitter
fight and display their ardor for fighting protracted
battles. They stand chest to chest and at every step
endeavor to attack and resist. The animosity of the
one provokes the boldness of the other, and each man's
pertinacity rendered more strenuous the tenor of the
other's courage. Their mutual bravery provided fuel
for their mutual strength, and the vigor of each increased
after measuring itself against the other's.

Now most of the day was spent with both having
equal fortune, until the Knight with the Surcoat for
his Armor shrewdly devised something: when he feigned
that he was going to strike Gormundus on the left knee

and when Gormundus as a result brought his bronze shield

173

down to that place, the Knight moving his right arm
swiftly higher to the right thrust the point of his
unexpected sword into him-—in the middle of his unpro-
tected mouth—-and this blow knocked out four front teeth
and broke the left side of his jaw. Nevertheless, the
wound was not serious. What seemed to have been pro-
duced was rather an incitement to wrath than the stimu—
lation of pain, so that the wounded man's strength
increased with greater rage than the uninjured man's.

So wrath having been conceived together with the
inflicted wound, Gormundus conducts himself in the
manner of a madman, but shouts nothing more: his
strength must be spared. Then like a wild beast he
charges toward the Knight with the Surcoat for his
Armor, and raising his arm up high, he brought his

sword down on the Knight's shield with such force that
the inlaid arrangement of gems was broken to pieces and
flew in all directions; the sword also tore away the
boss and the top of the shield, and cut into the Knight's
brow causing an outpouring of blood. More furious now
also, the Knight with the Surcoat for his Armor takes
him on; with fury on both sides, the battle is fought
most furiously, and the matter approaches a turning
point. The Knight with the Surcoat for his Armor, find—
ing an opportunity, rushes with drawn sword against the

unprotected side of his foe, but Gormundus skillfully

 

 

 

174

avoids the thrust. However, as the Knight's attempt is
brought to naught, his sword is caught by Gormundus'
shield that was thrown in the way, and is broken off
at the hilt. Nor could the thickness or the hardness
of bronze bear the immensity of the blow; yea, the
bronze shield of Gormundus, having been cracked and
split through the middle under the boss, flew into
minute pieces. Immediately there arises an immense
roar from the entire army, on the one hand from those
who are grieving, and on the other hand from those who
are scoffing. Indeed the greater danger belonged to
the Knight with the Surcoat for his Armor, for whom
there was nothing at all available by which he might
either defend himself or drive his foe away from him-
self now that his sword was broken. On the other hand,
although it had happened for Gormundus that his shield
was shattered, yet he had a whole sword, with the hard
double-edged blade of which he struck without inter—
ruption at his adversary's temples. However, the Knight
with the Surcoat for his Armor skillfully extended his
shield in every direction against his attacks, and if
Phoebus by setting had not rather quickly put an end
to the battle, the Knight without a doubt would have
incurred the greatest injuries. Indeed a marker had
been designated; and it was agreed that as soon as the

shadow of the setting sun should reach it, the two

 

 

 

175

contenders had to be separated, every excuse or delay
being put aside. Therefore when the shadow reaches the
marker, they are parted, the pagans being unwilling and
scarcely keeping themselves from rioting, and whatever
of the single combat remained was put off until the next
day.

The solar radiance had put to flight the shadows
of the night, and after the hosts crowded together on
the opposite sides, the champions protected by new arms
truculently rush at each other. To be sure, a hateful
and nearly fatal quarrel had arisen between the two
armies as to whether a sword should be granted to the
Knight with the Surcoat for his Armor, and a shield to
Gormundus: whether to both or to neither, or indeed to
one and not to the other. For a long time they disagreed
on this matter and argued greatly, until at last they
all reached this accord: that it would be fair that
new weapons be allowed to both men, because neither
could the one defend himself without a sword, nor
could the other with a broken shield protect himself
from hostile attack. Therefore, as was written above,
when the bands of infantrymen and the troops of cavalry-
men of both sides had drawn themselves up in battle—
order and when the multitude of the other armed men
had pressed closely together, the single combatants

fitted with hauberks, crested with helmets, dreadful

 

 

176

to behold, head for the arena, enter upon the hazardous
game of war, challenge each other to the fight, and with
very powerful impetus rush forward and spring at each
other. Without delay the thunder of war resounded, the
clash of arms rang out, the thud of blows erupted loudly,
and the fiery collision grew terribly hot. A very dif—
ficult sport, the battle is waged, and while they fight
most wisely and persevere most resolutely, the air
reverberates and resounds with horrible ringing, and
the hollows of the hills magnify the stridor of the
percussion in the air.

The horrendus nature of war! No rest was given
to the tired men, no respite to them out of breath.
They press on in every way; they do their best using
every means so that one of them will either succumb
or obtain the victory. Neither did the heat of the
burning sun hamper them, nor did their continual toil
or effort keep them from persisting ever more stead—
fastly and from striking each other by turns ever more
insuperably. As they performed under arms, they were
animated by boldness, invigorated by animosity. If you
had been a bystander at the spectacle of these men, the
fight of the Lapithae would have come to your mind.39
As often as the Knight and Gormundus redoubled their
blows, so often would you have imagined the anvils of

the Cyclopes to have been beaten with their hammers.40

 

 

 

177

But when most of the day had passed, Gormundus began to
grow hot both from the heat and from the assiduous
harassment of his foe. The fight was pressed against
him much more heavily, and the whole burden of the combat
weighed him down. Therefore he was hiding behind his
courage, but was moving more slowly and more feebly;
backing up he was gradually giving ground to his
assailant, nor was he with the same valor as before
either defending himself or assaulting his foe. Notic-
ing this, the Knight with the Surcoat for his Armor set
upon him more vigorously and rendered his anxious spirit
more anxious. Nor did he desist until he had driven him
outside the limit of the circle by which they were
bounded.

At this there is raised to the heavens roaring
and groaning, yelling and wailing by his incredulous
people, and in masses they sadly cried out to him:
"Gormundus, go back! Gormundus, go back! What are
you doing? Where are you fleeing, distinguished knight?
To put to flight, not to take flight, has been your
custom up to now! Go back! Oh sorrow! Go back! Lest
in the end disgrace obscure all the deeds that you
earlier performed so well. This is not the place for
flight! To be conquered or to conquer is necessary
here." At their voices Gormundus, overwhelmed by

shame and recovering his breath a little and encouraged,

 

 

 

 

178

planted his feet more firmly and manfully drove back

his harassing adversary. Brandishing his sword he
delivered such a blow that he forced the Knight to fall
down and seek the ground. The Knight's limbs were folded
and his knee bent from the power of the blow, but yet
his breastplate remained impenetrable. Then the Knight
with the Surcoat for his Armor, exceedingly fierce in
mind and provoked, got up; he completely shock with
rage; he composed himself in his armor, shot forth his
right arm and shouts: "This blow will end our game!"
Bringing the double—edged blade of his sword down on

the top of Gormundus' helmet, smashing, shattering and
penetrating everything--Gormundus' armor now being hot
and on that account not resistant-—he drove the blow

all the way to the bottom of his chest: not a desirable
medicine for his stomach. Withdrawing the sword from
the wound, he cut off the head that had been cleaved
into two parts, and as the brain flowed out, the victor
drove the head away from himself with his foot. Now
that Gormundus had been overcome and cruelly slaughtered,
the pagans with boundless sorrow prolonged their final
lament and mourning over him. They would have taken

up arms and rushed upon the Knight with the Surcoat

for his Armor out of revenge for Gormundus had they

not been prevented by the laws hallowed among themselves.

 

 

179

Therefore, since their defender had been given up
to a violent death, they surrendered themselves to
Roman authority according to the established conditions
of the covenant. After peace was affirmed and hostages
given, and after a large amount of tribute was imposed,
they went back disconcerted to their own lands. But the
Knight with the Surcoat for his Armor, having illus-
triously and most Victoriously received the trOphy and
having been honored by the nobles of Jerusalem with many
gifts, in due time returned to Rome and was welcomed by
the emperor and the senate with a triumphal procession.
The emperor, decreeing him to be counted among the number
of his familiars to the extent that the Knight had
attained the first place, resolved to exalt him with
very high honor and to present him with a deserved office.

When these things had thus taken place and since
no one was presuming to take up arms against the Roman
Empire, the Knight with the Surcoat for his Armor,
loathing peace and always desirous of warfare by which
his valor and prowess might be exercised, eagerly began
to inquire whether any region was disturbed by the
tumults of war. As soon as the famous name of King
Arthur of Britain--his uncle but not yet known to him—-
and his distinguished exploits which were now being
broadcast throughout the entire world, had been reported

to him, and because he esteemed lightly all that [had

 

 

 

180

been given] to him by the emperor, he time and again
humbly entreated [the emperor to let him go to Britain].41
Now although the emperor had already planned to promote
him to a most honorable position and did not doubt that
the departure of so great a man would be a loss to him—
self, nevertheless so that the Knight would be able to
know from whom he received his origin, and confident
that through the Knight he himself would gain possession
of the kingdom of Britain which had broken away from the
Romans a long time ago, he granted him what he asked.
The emperor bestowed on him fine riches and precious
gifts and handed over the case containing the evidence
of his parentage which was to be delivered to King
Arthur. He added his own rescript in which he bore
witness that all the things which the document said
were authentic and reliable. And he forbade the Knight
to look into the coffer before he had come to King Arthur.
He also sent orders to the rulers of Gaul, through whose
territory the Knight was about to pass, to receive him
honorably, be of service to him, furnish him with neces—
sities, and lead him safely through their land all the
way to the ocean. And so, farewell having been bidden,
the Knight departed, leaving the emperor behind.

The Knight with the Surcoat for his Armor, then,
with everyone taking his departure sadly, set out on his

proposed journey, crossed the Alps, and after travelling

 

 

181

through Gaul, arrived safely in Britain. Upon inquiring
where King Arthur was residing at that time, he was
answered that Arthur was staying in the City of Caerleon
in Demetia, which he had been accustomed to frequent
before the other cities.42 That territory to be sure,
planted with groves, abounding in wild beasts, rich in
resources, luxurious with the meadows' greenness, and
scenic with the rivers' flowing--namely, the Usk and

the Severn--offered in itself a most pleasant place to
live. Situated at Caerleon was the metropolitan see of
Demetia; there the legions of the Romans used to spend
the winter; there King Arthur often celebrated solemn
feasts and had been crowned with the diadem; and there
assemblies of the barons of all of Britain were held

in his presence. When he had learned where Arthur was
staying, the Knight with the Surcoat for his Armor
directed his course to that place; he intended to hasten
there without leaving off from his journey either by day
or by night. Now when he was proceeding on the night
before he was to arrive in the City of Legions, a huge,
unexpected storm with high winds and rain assailed him
near the town of Usk, which was six miles distant from
the city, and owing to its vehemence all of his com-
panions either strayed from the road or were unable to

follow him.

 

 

182

Now on that same night King Arthur was lying in
bed with his wife Queen Gwendolen;43 since sleep was
loathsome to them because of the long duration of the
night, they talked with each other about many things.
Queen Gwendolen was truly the most beautiful of all
women, but she was skilled in magic, so that many times
she communicated the future by her divinations. There-
fore among other bits of conversation with the king, she
said: "My lord, you glory and extol yourself so much
about your prowess; do you think there is no one equal
to you in power?"

Arthur said: "That is right. Are you not of
the same opinion?"

The queen: "Forsooth, at this very hour tonight
a certain knight from Rome is coming through the walled
town of Usk and is directing his course here; doubt not
that he will prove superior to you in valor and fortitude.
He is riding a noisy-footed steed to which no other can
be compared in vigor, strength or beauty. His armor
is impenetrable, and there is no one who can remain
standing when his right arm strikes. Lest you think
that I am uttering nonsense, you shall have a proof of
the matter: I predict to you that he will send to me
very early in the morning a golden ring and three coins44

together with two horses."

 

 

183

Now Arthur, recalling that she has never been
wrong in prophecies of the kind, determined to put the
matter to a test, but without her knowing it. For it
was his custom, as soon as he heard that some doughty
man was coming, to go out and encounter him, so that the
mutual skirmish might show who was the stronger.

Therefore a little later, the queen having fallen
asleep, he got up; after arming himself he mounted his
horn-footed destrier and rode off, having only Kay his
seneschal as a companion for the way. He met the Knight
with the Surcoat for his Armor who had paused at a
certain stream flooded from the rain storm. The Knight

had been delayed near it for a short time45

while looking
for the crossing of a ford; indeed deceived by the
hideous darkness of the night, he had thought that
this was the channel of a deep river. Arthur, noticing
him from the luster of his armor, shouts: "Where are you
from, you who are wandering about this country in the
silence of the night? Are you an exile, or a robber,
or a spy?"

The Knight with the Surcoat for his Armor
replies: "I am in fact wandering since I do not know
the way, but neither does the flight of an exile drive
me on, nor does the plunder of a robber incite me, nor

does the deceit of a spy make me hide."

 

 

 

184

Arthur: "You are depending on your eloquence;
I am acquainted with your cunning; I know by experience
that you are one of the three that I just mentioned.
Therefore, unless you on your own accord lay aside your
arms and surrender yourself to me as quickly as possible,
you shall feel me punishing your villainy without delay."

And he: "It is the mark of a foolish and
cowardly spirit to take flight before a war or to sub-
mit himself to the enemy before necessity requires it.
Now if you are so desirous of my arms, I call you to
witness their strength, you who are about to judge them
by their hard blows on your ear."

And so in this way with the words between them
breaking out into threats and taunts, Arthur, incited
to wrath, set his horse to a run with his spurs so as
to cross the brook at once and make a rush at him. But
the Knight with the Surcoat for his Armor, meeting him
with lance extended and lowered, struck him just as he
was crossing and knocked him, his feet upturned, into
the midst of the flowing water, and seized by the reins
his noisy—footed destrier that had been carried over
to him in the running. Key the Seneschal followed to
avenge his lord, and giving his horse free rein, meets
the Knight with the Surcoat for his Armor, but in the
same manner he also on the first blow is thrown down on

top of Arthur in one heap. Moreover, the Knight with

 

 

 

185

the Surcoat for his Armor drew Kay's horse to himself
by using the point of his spear. However, the darkness
of the night kept Arthur and Kay unharmed, and they who
had come there on horseback returned home on foot with
no little shame. Arthur then went back to bed. Queen
Gwendolen asks him stiff with cold and completely drenched
both from the rain and the water of the stream where he
had tarried so long and how he had become so wet.

Arthur: "I heard a commotion outside in the
courtyard like that of men fighting; going out to them
I put a stop to it by making peace among them, and with
the pouring rain falling heavily on me, I happened to get
wet."

The queen: "Be it as you say; but tomorrow my
messenger will make known where you went and what happened."

Meanwhile the Knight with the Surcoat for his
Armor, who neither crossed the rivulet nor was aware of
with whom he had had the conflict, stopped at a certain
nearby village and lodged there. But right at daybreak
he set out for the City of Legions. Upon meeting a
certain boy two miles from there, he asks him whose
servant he is.

The boy says to him: "I am the queen's messenger,
whose secret mandates it is my duty to carry out."

And to him the Knight says: "Will you do what I

shall charge you with?"

 

 

186

The boy replies: "I am ready to do what may
please you."

The Knight with the Surcoat for his Armor says:
"Take these two noisy—footed steeds and lead them forth
to the queen on my behalf and ask her to graciously
accept this sign of my prowess as a pledge of my friend-
ship." Handing over also a golden ring together with
three gold coins to be delivered to her, he divulged his
name and made it known that he would follow him forth—
with. Now the messenger carries out those things which
were enjoined to him. He took the gold coins and led
the horn-footed destriers away with him.46

Meanwhile Queen Gwendolen, inasmuch as she was
prescient of the future, was standing in the top of a
high tower looking out upon the road which led to the
town of Usk. Seeing in the distance her messenger
returning, leading two horses with their trappings, she
understood the matter; she thereupon came down and met
him just as he was entering the royal castle. To be
sure, the boy conducts his business splendidly, speaks
according to his mandate, hands over the things that
had been sent, and announces that the Knight with the
Surcoat for his Armor will be there presently. The
queen, smiling when she hears his name, accepts the
gifts and expresses her thanks. Leading the horses

into the bedchamber she makes them stand before the bed

 

 

 

 

187

of King Arthur who was still resting inasmuch as he had
spent the whole night sleepless from his exertions. She
says to him now awakened from his sleep; "My lord, lest
with your official censure you accuse me of a falsehood,
behold the ring and the gold coins which last night I
promised would be delivered to me today. And besides,
as predicted, the knight sent to me these two destriers
which he said by messenger he had captured last night,
their riders having been thrown down into the stream."

King Arthur, recognizing his horses, is filled
with shame, seeing this made public which he was hoping
would be kept a secret.

Then Arthur went out to an assembly of nobles
whom he had summoned to a meeting for pressing reasons
and had ordered to be present that day. While he was
sitting with them in front of the castle under the shade
of an ash tree, behold the Knight with the Surcoat for
his Armor enters the gates on horseback and advancing
into the presence of King Arthur nearby, salutes him
together with the queen and the body of knights sitting
in conference. But Arthur, not ignorant of who he was,
extended to him a grim face and rather indignantly
answered his greeting. Nevertheless the king asks from
where he had come, where he was going, and what he was
seeking in these regions. The Knight with the Surcoat

for his Armor replies that he is a Roman knight and that,

 

 

 

188

because he had heard that King Arthur, pressed by war,
was in need of soldiery, he had come to proffer assistance
to him and at the same time had brought mandates from

the emperor. Then he produced the sealed case and pre-
sented the letter to the king. Now after accepting the
missive, Arthur withdrew from the crowd and ordered it

to be read to him. Understanding the testimony of its
contents together with that of the document, as well

as the evidence afforded of course by the cloak and the
ring, he is greatly astonished, and with all his desire
longed for it to be true. From his immense joy he

could not believe this; namely, that the Knight was

his nephew. He remained incredulous of this thing

until, each of the Knight's parents having been sum-
moned--King Loth of Norway and Queen Anna, who by chance
had been ordered to come to Caerleon with the other
leaders--he carefully investigated and sought out the
truth of the matter from them. When they had seen the
evidence, they confess that this is true and swear by

an oath put to them that he is their son. Arthur is
exhilarated with incredible joy that this man upheld
with so many commendations by the emperor and exalted
with honors for such great deeds of prowess, unexpectedly
is connected to him by such a close relationship. Never-
theless King Arthur purposely determined that nothing

be divulged to him then until the Knight had performed

some remarkable feat in his presence.

189

Returning to the assembly, therefore, and calling
the Knight before everyone, Arthur says: "My friend,

I do not need your assistance at the present time;
besides, I do not know at all which flourishes more

in you: prowess or lack of skill. There exists for me
a large enough force of knights of incomparable prowess,
endowed with strength and valor; it is their wont to
separate the unskilled and cowardly man from the doughty
and the brave, to attempt to unnerve spirits from their
accustomed boldness and prowess. Even without the
military service of men like you, a very great number
willingly serve me as knights among whom my Excellency
thinks you should not be ranked or even rated unless
you shall have deserved it first."

Exasperated now by his remarks, the Knight with
the Surcoat for his Armor responded: "It has happened
that I in desiring to serve you, have incurred from you
a strong repulse and an unexpected injury, I who always
formerly without entreating with many pleas nor attended
by great riches, but only by volunteering was deemed
worthy to render assistance to men more powerful than
you. And I am certain that anyone I might serve would
not find me inferior even when, if I should stretch my
imagination to such an extent, I might find myself
somewhat inferior. But yet, since the desire to engage

in military service has brought me here and since, if I

 

 

 

 

190

should depart from here, it might be ascribed to cowardice
and lack of skill, I hope you deem me worthy to be in the
number of your military on this condition, if I alone
should accomplish that which your whole army shall have
failed in."

Arthur said: "I swear by my crown, if you should
carry out that which you have stipulated, I not only
shall ascribe you among them, but shall set you above
all of them." The proposition pleased the king and all
his barons, and so he retained the Knight in his presence
on the aforementioned condition.

Twice six days had not passed when a serious
matter compelled Arthur to set out on a military expe-
dition. In the northern part of Britain there was a
certain castle called the Castle of Maidens, presiding
over which by the right of governance was a damsel dis-
tinguished and famous both for her beauty and for her
nobility, and very closely united to Arthur by ties of
friendship. A certain pagan king, captivated by her
excellent character and the greatness of her beauty but
disdained by her, was besieging her in the above-named
castle. With his war machines indeed set up and his
platforms erected and situated, he was threatening as
if to break through and capture her. Inasmuch as she
was not able to endure his continual incursions and

daily assaults, she through a messenger calls on Arthur

 

 

191

for succor for herself. She averred that she was shut
up in her tower since the outer wall had been occupied
by the enemies, and that she would have to surrender

to them without delay unless he brought assistance very
quickly. Now Arthur, fearful of the danger [threatening]47
her castle, immediately assembles, equips and draws up
in order of battle the strength of his soldiery. After
making the final preparations, he set out on his march
to where he had been summoned, although he was constrained
with the greatest dread. For oftentimes he had met and
contended with the same king, but it was well known that
Arthur was always repulsed and overcome. Now another
messenger comes up at a rapid pace to Arthur who is pro-
ceeding to the siege, and he with hair falling down over
his lacerated cheeks announces that the fortress indeed
has been taken by assault, moreover that the damsel has
been seized and abducted, and that she begs Arthur to
show her the same kind of love in adversity with which
he had cherished her in prosperity. Therefore Arthur
pursues the adversaries loaded with spoils; he furiously
attacks their rear guard which he thought would not be
expecting it, but is taken on by them with evil fore-
boding; to be sure, the armed men, having been informed
beforehand of his coming, had been marching in battle

order, had placed the strongest men of the entire army

 

 

 

 

192

in the rear unit for defense; they could not easily be
thrown into confusion by a sudden onslaught.

Therefore at the tumult the first phalanxes of
the rear guard turn back and surrounding Arthur they
press him in, assail and harass him from every side. The
battle is waged most bitterly, and a bloody slaughter is
inflicted on both sides, but Arthur who was in the very
center of the enemies was vehemently pounded, was made
anxious and became weakened; and if he had not very
quickly hurried his flight by opening a way with swords,
he would have been undone, slain with his entire army.

He therefore committed his welfare to flight, reckoning
it to be more sensible to escape unharmed by fleeing than
to incur loss by pressing himself further.

Now at the outset of the battle the Knight with
the Surcoat for his Armor had withdrawn to a high, remote
place to observe how his fellow knights would fare in
the battle. When he found that they were slipping away
in flight, he went to meet Arthur who was fleeing with
the first ones, and taunting him with a smile he said,

"0 King, are you chasing stags or hares, you who are
running so widely scattered through the byways?"

To him Arthur indignantly responded: "Now I
have your prowess sufficiently tried, you who while the

others were undertaking the fight, hid yourself in the

 

 

 

193

recesses of the woods." And without saying more he
passed by with his adversaries pursuing him.

Now after smartly and facetiously gibing at each
one of Arthur's knights coming his way, the Knight with
the Surcoat for his Armor meeting the pursuing enemies
rushed into their ranks. Penetrating through the middle
of their compact and crowded wedge-formations like a
winter storm, he wounded no one at all, unless fortune
offered someone resisting him. When he saw the king's
battle array, setting spurs under his horse, he imme-
diately put the horn—footed destrier to a gallop in that
direction, and brandishing his lance he unexpectedly
thrust the shining iron up under the king's hollow breast.
As the king sinks to the ground dying, the Knight seizes
the damsel's horse by the reins and very quickly begins
to return by the way he had come.

Now the troops that had been stationed around the
pagan king—-their lord who had been slain in their midst-—
with a war cry confusedly pursue the one departing, and
with drawn swords set upon and assail him. He rushes
into all of them and they all rush at him. Some hurl
missiles at him from a distance, others with their
double—edged swords smite at him without interruption,
so that, like a deluge of rain, a mass of blows poured
on him. But he, leaving man upon man decapitated, ever

continued on his journey. Yet he was greatly hampered

 

 

 

194

because he had to defend not only himself, but also the
damsel. However, not far away there was a very large
and very deep ravine dividing the boundaries of the two
countries. Its narrow access and passageway admitted
the entering of only one person, and for this reason was
declared the limit and separation of those borders.
Therefore the Knight with the Surcoat for his Armor
hastily coming to this ravine, put the damsel inside its
embankment for protection, enjoining her to wait for him
there in the remote places while he went back. Again
plunging himself right into the wedge-formations of the
pursuing adversaries, he repelled, routed and scattered
them, and roaring like a lion when its cubs have been
lost, he raged against them with cruel slaughter. No
one could bear his violence, nor did anyone, whom the
heavy might of his right arm struck, go away unharmed.
Wherever he turned, they fell away from him as if from
the face of a tempest; sending them continually to ruin
he massacred them without pity. Nor did he desist until
all who had turned to flight--all of them--he handed
over to destruction; while part of them threw themselves
headlong from steep cliffs, part of their own free will
buried themselves in the billows in front of them, and
he himself tore to pieces the survivors with a slaughter.
So having gained the victory without injury to

himself, the Knight with the Surcoat for his Armor cut

 

 

195

off the king's head which bore the diadem, and fixed it
on the staff of his banner; holding it up high he went
back with his damsel to King Arthur nearby. After
triumphantly entering the hall where King Arthur was
sitting sadly mourning over his misfortunes in war, he
shouts: "Where are your renowned champions, 0 King, about
whom you boasted so much as to say there was no one their
equal in valor? Behold the head of the man whom with

his entire army of knights I overwhelmed and destroyed
single-handedly; alas, it is a shame that so many
thousands of your fighters were so many times put to
flight and rendered powerless by him. Now do you con-
sider me worthy to be your knight?"

Arthur, recognizing the head of the king hateful
to him above all men, and recognizing that his beloved
damsel had been snatched from the hands of the enemies,
rushed delighted into his embrace and answered: "Truly
you are a knight to be deemed worthy, one to be wished
for and to be accorded special honors. But because up
to now we have been regarding almost as doubtful who you
are who have come to us, make known more clearly, I bid
you, what the land of your birth is, from whom you
derive your origin, and what name you have been assigned."

And he: "Indeed the truth of the matter has it

that I was begotten by a Roman senator in parts of Gaul,

 

 

 

 

196

was brought up in Rome, and was given the name 'Knight
with the Surcoat for his Armor'."

Arthur: "You are quite mistaken; your opinion
is lacking in truth, and you should know that you are
wholly deceived in this belief."

The Knight: "How so?"

Arthur: "I shall show you," he says, "the line
of your descent, the knowledge of which will be the reward
for your effort."

Then with both of the Knight's parents present——
namely, King Loth and Queen Anna of Norway--Arthur com—
mands that the letters directed to him by the emperor
be brought forward, and after being brought forward
to be read aloud in the hearing of the multitude of the
commoners and the nobles. When the letters had been read
to all in attendance, incredible joy together with great
astonishment is born in the minds of all, and they con—
gratulated the happy parents for such a fine offspring.
Then King Arthur looking at him with a cheerful coun-
tenance says, "My dearest young man, you must recognize
that you are my nephew, the son of this my sister, and
that for her to have brought forth such a fine son must
be ascribed not to disgrace but to the greatest kindness
of fortune." And he added: "In your boyhood, to be
sure, you were called 'Boy Without a Name,‘ and from

the beginning of knighthood to the present 'The Knight

197

with the Surcoat for his Armor'; now you shall be
addressed by your proper name 'Gawain.'"

As Arthur was saying these things, three or four
times "Gawain, nephew of King Arthur" was repeated and
proclaimed by the entire assembly. So from father to
son, from uncle to recognized nephew,48 the magnitude of
joy is increased, both for the recoverer of a lost family
and for his incomparable valor and fortitude.

Whoever wishes to know Gawain's other remarkable
deeds of valor which follow, let him obtain this from
an authority with a plea or a price, knowing that just
as it is more dangerous to engage in a war than to
recount it, so it may be more difficult to compose a
romance in a finished style of eloquence than to pub-

lish it in the vulgar tongue.

 

 

 

DE ORTU WALWANII--NOTES

1The author follows Geoffrey of Mbnmouth and Wace

in giving the name Anna to Arthur's sister. In Les
Enfances Gauvain, in the Vulgate Merlin and in the First
Continuation of Perceval, she is called Morcades.

 

 

2For this adage the author may have been inspired
by Ovid's Metamorphoses IV.64, where in telling about
the love of Pyramus and Thisbe for each other which they
had to keep hidden, Ovid uses this metaphor: "Quoque
magis tegitur, tectus magis aestuat ignis" (The more the
fire is covered up, the more, having been covered, does
it burn).

 

3Narbonne, located in the southern part of France
on the Mediterranean Sea, was an important port city in
the Middle Ages.

4Viamundus, which occurs nowhere else in Arthurian
romance, appears to be a cue name; i.e. a name whose
etymological interpretation gives the reader a metaphoric
hint as to the nature of the character. The literal
meaning of "Viamundus" is "the way of the world."

5This is a variation of the age-old proverb,
"Occasio facit furem" (Opportunity makes the thief).

6Because of the lack of more details, it is doubt-
ful that our author had any specific barbarian invasion
in mind. With regard to the picture of Rome the author
presents, see my discussion of the setting in Chapter IV.

7Publius Cornelius Scipio Africanus, also known
as Scipio the Elder, lived from 236 to 183 B.C. and was
one of the greatest Roman generals. By his military
campaigns he gained possession of nearly all of Spain,
defeated Hannibal at Carthage in 202 B.C. to end the
Second Punic War, and established Roman power in Asia.
Concerning his house, see the section on the setting of
the romance in Chapter IV.

198

 

 

 

199

8The praetexta was a style of toga or outer gar-

ment worn in ancient Roman times by magistrates and by
freeborn children until about the age of sixteen when
they assumed the adult toga. White in color, the prae-
texta was distinguished by a purple border along its
straight edge. Like other styles of the toga, it was
usually made of wool, was semicircular in shape, had a
length of about three times the wearer's height and a
center width of slightly more than his height, and was
draped elaborately around the body. At the beginning

of the second century A.D. the toga went out of fashion
as the ordinary dress of a Roman citizen, but was retained
as a ceremonial costume until about the fifth century.

See Mary G. Houston, Ancient Greek, Roman and Byzantine
Costume and Decoration,‘2nd'ed.7TLondon, 1947), pp. 87-92.

 

9Historically there has never been a Pope Sul-
picius. The author probably derived the name ultimately
from Geoffrey of Monmouth who mentions that Loth sent
Gawain to serve in the household of POpe Sulpicius and
that the pope dubbed Gawain a knight. See Geoffrey of
Monmouth, The History of the Kings of Britain, trans.
Lewis Thorpe (Baltimore, 1966), p. 223. Where Geoffrey
obtained this name, no one knows. There was an ancient
Roman gens named Sulpicius, some members of which were
statesmen, jurists, orators and teachers. Robert Fletcher
says that Pope Sulpicius is perhaps an historical per-
sonage--Pope Simplicius (A.D. 468-483). See his The
Arthurian Material in the Chronicles, 2nd ed. (New7York,
1966), p. 80. However,I7tend to think that Sulpicius
is a corruption of "Supplicius" etymologically meaning
"one who prays," which would be an appropriate one name
for a pope.

10This seems to be a parenthetical remark by the

author rather than part of the speech of Viamundus, even
though the editor does not set it outside of the quotation.

11The Latin is "Puer sine nomine." Not only is it
common for romance heroes to assume a nickname, but as
Bruce points out, some of these heroes like Gawain in
De Ortu Walwanii pass under nicknames out of necessity,
until they finally learn their true names. Bruce cites
the cases of Lancelot du Lac in the Vulgate Lancelot;
Lanzelet in Ulrich von Zatzikhoven's Lanzelet; and Guin-
glain, the son of Gawain, whose nickname Le Bel Inconnu
(The Fair Unknown) in the French romance of that title
and in the English Libeaus Desconus resembles Gawain's
in our romance. See J. D. Bruce, ed., Historia Meriadoci
and De Ortu Waluuanii (Baltimore, 1913), p. lv, n. 1.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

200

Loomis observes that similar mystery surrounds the youth-
ful Perceval in addition to Lancelot and Guinglain, and
that the motif can be traced back to Irish legends of
Finn and Lug. Roger S. Loomis, "The Latin Romances," in
Arthurian Literature in the Middle Ages, ed. Roger S.
Loomis (Oxford, 1959), p. 476. we find a parallel also
in Gawain's prototypes in Celtic lore. See my Chapter II.

 

A 12Knightly surcoats became popular about the
twelfth century. The one which Gawain wears is of the
kind that is put on by pulling it over the head, as is
implied by the word superinducens. This style was evi-
dently more pOpular than the one which fastened down the
front. Although the garment is not described in our
romance, in medieval England it was generally sleeveless,
hung in loose folds to below the knee, was slit in front
and behind almost to the crotch for convenience in the
saddle, and was open from the shoulder to the hip on
either side. Around the beginning of the fourteenth
century it was cut short in front, level with the hips,
and was often made to lace or button at the sides, while
the hind-skirt retained its original length. The old
school of thought held that the purpose of the surcoat
was to protect the armored knight from the burning sun
and from rain and cold, but now it is generally believed
that it was worn for the same reason that Gawain wears
it in our romance: for ornament. The knights generally
had their coats of arms emblazoned on the surcoat. See
Francis M. Kelly and Randolph Schwabe, A Short History
of Costume and Armour Chiefly in England, 2 vols. (New

_‘-

York, 1931), I, 54-58.

 

13 - . . .. .

J. D. Bruce, ed., Historia, pp. xv11-x1x,
remarks that romance writers quitefrequently attributed
to their heroes the introduction of some well-known cus-
tom. He cites the following examples: (1) Lancelot in
the Vulgate Lancelot is said to have been the first to
wear a pennon on his helmet; (2) King Yder in the same
romance is said to have been the first to carry a banner
with his coat of arms and to put armor on horses; (3)
in the Estoire del Saint Graal of the Vulgate cycle the
institution of church treasures is ascribed to Joseph;
(4) in the Huth Merlin the author claims that King Arthur
instituted the "colee"--the blow on the neck with the
flat side of the sword--as part of the ritual of making
a squire a knight; (5) Queen Gloriande, according to
the Prose Tristan, established burning as the punishment
for women conv1cted of adultery. It is true that in the
above examples the heroes are not nicknamed for the
custom they introduced. On the other hand, we do find

 

 

 

 

 

 

201

in Arthurian romance heroes bearing nicknames for their
distinctive apparel. For instance, Brewnor 1e Noyre is
called La Cote Male Tayle in Malory, Bk. IX, Ch. I;
just as Gawain is called Miles cum tunica armaturae in
De Ortu Walwanii.

l4A cubit is an ancient linear unit based on the
length of the forearm from the elbow to the tip of the
middle finger and usually equal to about eighteen inches.
Therefore the maximum height of the inhabitants of this
island was about four and a half feet. I could not find
a source for the description of this people. In tone
and in certain details it resembles the descriptions
of exotic tribes in such writers as Pliny and Solinus.
For example, certain Ethiopian tribes are described in
this way: among the Garamantes there is no marriage,
and children do not know who their fathers are; the
Locust-Eaters do not live beyond forty years; the
Pamphagi will eat anything that grows and can be chewed;
the Gamphasantes avoid intercourse with merchants and
will have nothing to do with strangers. See Solinus,
Collectanea Rerum Memorabilium XLII and XLIII; and Pliny,
Historia Naturalis V.viii and VI.xxxv. The Trispithami
and the Pygmies of India are but three spans, or twenty—
seven inches, in height. See Pliny, VII.ii. On the
other hand, the people in this romance bear some resem-
blance to dwarfs in Celtic tradition and who are diminu-
tive in size but not as small as the Pygmies in Pliny, who
often inhabit an island, live in luxury and have a king
with infallible arms. See Vernon J. Harward, Jr., The
Dwarfs of Arthurian Romance and Celtic Tradition (Laiden,
1958), pp. 19-20, 99-101.

 

 

 

l5E. Brugger in "Zu Historia Meriadoci and De
Ortu Walwanii," Zeitschrift ffir Franzdsische Sprache und
Literatur, 46 (1923), 277, asserts that Milocrates 1s a
Greek name of ultimate oriental origin. It does sound
like a Greek name, but I wonder if it might be a cue
name derived from Latin ([Pu]milio 'dwarf' or miles
'soldier') and Greek (Kpdréw 'ruIe') elements: "ruler
of dwarfs" or "warlordT"_——_

 

16The country of Illyria was on the Adriatic Sea
in the northwestern part of the Balkan peninsula, approxi—
mately where the modern country of Albania is located.

17This sentence in Bruce's edition appears as
three lines of dactyllic hexameter verse, although in
the manuscript it is written as prose.

 

 

 

202

18According to Bruce, ed. Historia, p. xxiv,
Odabel appears to be originally an oriental name. How—
ever, since he is a Roman knight in this romance and not
a resident of Milocrates' island, it seems strange that
he should have an oriental name. Is it not possible that
Odabel was derived from the Latin odi 'hate' and bellum
'war' and means "war hate"? —_—

19Three sentences later his name is spelled
Buzarfarnan, and in the episode of the sea battle he
bears the name Egesarius. Bruce, ed. Historia, p. xxiii,
believes that Buzafarnan is originally an oriental name
which reached our romancer through the opening pages of
the Prose Tristan, where the name Nabuzardan (Naburzadan)
appears. Brugger, pp. 277-78, agrees that it is an
oriental name, but doubts that it is a corruption of
Nabuzardan. On Egesarius, Bruce says, "H. Sachier,
Literarisches Zentralblatt for 1898, col. 980, derives
the name Egesarius . . . from the Eishere of the Monk of
St. Gall (ninth century). Eishere was a giant who
spitted his foes on a spear, like little birds." See
James Douglas Bruce, The Evolution of Arthurian Romance,
2nd ed., 2 vols. (1928; rpt. Gloucester, Mass., 1958),
II, 33, n. 2. Brugger, p. 278, questions whether the
alternate name was really intended, whether Egesarius
was not actually the result of a bad manuscript. In
any case, it seems possible to me that Buzafarnan and
Egesarius are both descriptive names coined from the
Greek, the one coming from BoOf 'Shield' and ¢Epw 'bear'
and meaning "shield bearer"; the other coming from eyefpw
'raise' and 0&0100a 'spear' and meaning "spear raiser.

 

 

20This is not an inconsistency, because along with
Gawain and Odabel went the former's armor-bearer who
took the dead boar back to the centurion; we can presume
that Odabel had an armor bearer also.

21Here the manuscript reads "Nabor," whereas the
other seven times the name occurs, it is spelled "Nabaor."
Bruce, ed. Historia, p. xxiii, thinks the name was derived
from the Prose Tristan. Bruce's footnote reads: "A
variant of Nabon, name of a giant in the Tristan. See
E. Loseth, pp. 48ff. Nabor, however, occurs 1n other
romances, e.g. the Huth Merlin I 206 (Nabur) and the
Estoire del Saint Graal (Sommer, I. l97ff.). In the
latter he is a servant of Nascien."

 

 

   

 

203

22In ancient Roman times a turma 'troop, unit'
consisted of thirty to thirty-two men. However this is
not the case here, since the centurion had only one
hundred men to begin with, forty of whom he had sent to
the queen. So each of his units contains only about
twelve men.

23This whole paragraph is printed in Bruce's
edition as eight lines of dactyllic hexameter verse,
although in the manuscript it is not set off as such.

24According to Charles-Picard, a triumphal arch
is definitely of Roman origin and emerged at the end
of the second century B.C. He describes it as "basi-
cally a monumental gateway consisting of two massive
pylons linked by a semi-circular vault and crowned by
an attic, a rectangular mass of masonry designed to
carry statues. The arch is framed by two or more columns
which are either engaged in the pylons or free-standing
on projecting pedestals." Charles-Picard, Living Archi-
tecture: Roman (London, 1965), pp. 173-74.

 

 

25The author mentions that the centurion thinks
these birds are kingfishers. I believe this was done for
the sake of humor, for a kingfisher or halcyon was not
known as a bird of prey or of ill omen. In fact, accord-
ing to the bestiaries this infrequently seen bird was
regarded as a favorable sign for navigation. For two
weeks during the winter solstice the female is said to
build its nest on the sea, or in sand at the water's
edge, and hatch its eggs, during which time the winds
cease to blow and the sea is calm. See Ovid, Metamor—
phoses XI.744-48; Pliny, Historia Naturalis X.xlv11;
and Florence McCulloch, Mediaeval Latin and French
Bestiaries (Chapel Hill, NIC., 1960), p. 135.

 

 

 

26Although the use of incendiary mixtures of all
kinds was well known in warfare from ancient times
onwards, Greek fire in the strict sense was first used
in 673 A.D. by the Byzantine Greeks against the Arabian
fleet to save the city of Constantinople from attack.
This weapon was to the Middle Ages what nuclear bombs
are to modern times. Its composition was a state secret.
However, the Muslins eventually learned the recipe and
employed Greek fire against the crusaders at the end of
the twelfth century. After the Third Crusade (1189-1192)
the Venetians in Constantinople probably learned the
composition of Greek fire, for thereafter it was used
on both sides. A liquid or semi-liquid, the mixture

 

 

 

 

204

often was hurled in earthenware containers either by
hand or by ballistae, and then ignited by torches or
flaming arrows. Sometimes it was pumped at the target
by a device known as a siphon. One of the reasons this
fire was so effective was that it could burn on water.
In fact, the common belief was that it could be extin-
guished only by vinegar, urine or sand. See J. R.
Partington, A History of Greek Fire and Gunpowder (Cam-
bridge, England, 1960), pp. 1—90. The recipe in our
romance is a humorous one, a product of our author's
imagination, yet typical of some of the alchemical and
hermetic formulae of ancient and medieval times. On

the other hand, it does contain a list of ingredients
found in a real recipe for Greek fire. For the signifi-
cance of this list with regard to establishing a terminus
a quo for the romance, see Chapter I.

 

271 think the reason the name escaped the author's
mind was that he created this animal. Nowhere in classi-
cal or medieval bestiaries, mythologies or folklore could
I find a three-headed asp, much less one that can produce
plants with its slaver. However, the author may have
been inspired in part by Cerberus, the three-headed
watchdog of Hades, from whose foam sprang the poisonous
aconite plant. See Ovid, Metamorphoses VII.4l3-l9.

But he may have got the idea for the particular effects
of the plants——madness, leprosy and death—-from the
effects of asps' bites as described in the bestiaries:
(1) the basilisk's venom could make people hydrophobic
and mad, (2) the praester's venom could cause swelling,
disfigurement, and eventual putrification, (3) other
asps, such as the dipsas, hypnalis, haemorrhois and
seps, were said to cause death. Finally, the three-headed
asp's ability to kill and burn is comparable to that of
the basilisk, the king of serpents, which could destroy
shrubs not only by its touch but also by its breath,
could burn grass and burst rocks, and could kill a man
by spilling only a drop of its poison on him. See Hugo
of Saint Victor, De Bestiis et Aliis Rebus II.xxx and
III.xli. See also Isidore of Seville, Etymologiarum
Sive Originum XII.iv.8 and l3-l7; and Pl1ny, HisEoria
Naturalis VIII.xxxiii.

28This is not an ordinary werewolf, but a demon
or devil. Not only was the wolf identified with the
devil in medieval bestiaries, but it was commonly
believed in the Middle Ages that devils could assume
bodies made out of air and thus appear as anything they
wished and could change their shapes at will. Often
they appeared as wolves or werewolves. See J. A.
MacCulloch, Medieval Faith and Fable (Boston, 1932),

 

 

 

 

 

205

pp. 58-74; and R. H. Robbins, The Encyclopedia of Witch-
craft and Demonology (New York, I959), pp. 132-33, 326—27.
It is possible that our author got his idea to include

the parts of a werewolf, as well as some of the other
ingredients, from Medea's recipe for the potion that made
Aeson young again. Her brew contained among other

things the entrails of a werewolf, the skin of a chely-
drus, and the eggs and head of a crow nine generations
old--all of which animals figure in this recipe. See

Ovid, Metamorphoses VII.262-74. But our author added

the ability of the werewolf to change to any shape and,
instead of the entrails, used the gallbladder and testicles,
which are very appropriate organs for an incendiary mixture.
All things being composed of the four elements--earth,

air, fire and water--the sexual organs were thought to be
dominated by fire. Likewise, the choler or yellow bile
rising in the gallbladder was equated with fire and was
considered to give off heat and dryness to the whole body.
See Robert W. Ackerman, Backgrounds to Medieval English
Literature (New York, 1966), pp.’122¥23.

 

 

 

 

29"Ligurius" or "lyncurium" literally means "lynx
urine." According to the bestiaries and lapidaries, the
urine of the lynx is said to harden into this precious
stone which can be found in India. Knowing that men
look for this stone, the lynx covers his urine with
dirt or sand, or else hides the stone in his throat, so
that men cannot find it. Scholars identify the ligure
stone with the carbuncle or jacinth or tourmaline stone.
It probably is included in the recipe because of its
brilliant flame color. See Pliny, Historia Naturalis
VIII.lvii and XXXVII.xiii; Ovid, Metamorphoses XV.412-15;
Anglo-Norman Lapidaries, ed. Paul—Studer and Joan Evans
(Paris, 1924), pp. 49, 80, 103, 135-36, 176, 247; and
English Mediaeval Lapidaries, ed. Joan Evans and Mary
Serjeantson, Early English Text Society, Original Series,
No. 190 (London, 1933), pp. 24-25, 44-45, 97-98, 110-11.

 

 

 

 

30The medieval bestiaries make no mention of the
proverbial keen eyesight of the lynx; Pliny, however,
does so in Historia Naturalis XXVIII.xxxii.

 

31As I mentioned in the footnote for the werewolf,

the eggs and head of a crow nine generations old were
included in Medea's youth-giving potion for Aeson in

Ovid, Metamorphoses VII.274. The crow is appropriate

for this imaginative recipe for Greek fire because its
ability to live for so long would give the fire sus-
taining power, and of course the crow traditionally was
regarded as a bird of bad omen. See Pliny, Historia
Naturalis X.xiv; Hugo of Saint Victor, De Bestiis et

 

 

 

 

206

Aliis Rebus III.xxxv; Isidore of Seville, Etymologiarum
XII.v1i.44; and The Book of Beasts, trans. T. H. White
(New York, 1954), p. 142. The head, heart and liver are
the most important parts of an animal. The head contains
the brain which is usually called the animal soul; the
heart holds the vital soul, the principle underlying the
senses; and the liver is the seat of the natural soul
which furnishes nourishment to the whole body. See
Robert W. Ackerman, Backgrounds to Medieval English
Literature (New York, 1966), p. 116.

 

 

32The text reads "cartarum," but the spelling no
doubt should be "tartarum." The items listed here—-
sulphur, pitch, resin, oil, tartar, and bitumen--are the
only ingredients in this recipe which properly belong to
a formula for Greek fire. In fact, they are practically
identical to the ingredients which comprise the Greek
fire recipes in the Liber Ignium attributed to Marcus
Graecus, and De Mirab1l1bus Mundi attributed to Albertus
Magnus. For more on this subject see Chapter I.

 

33The text reads "inpurgitatus." No dictionary
lists the verb "inpurgitare," although I imagine it
could be regarded as an intensive form of "purgitare":
"to purge entirely." However, it seems more reasonable
that at this point the red—haired man would be stuffed
with food and drink for the purpose of "increasing" his
blood. Therefore, I adopted Pio Rajna's suggested emen—
dation: "ingurgitatus." See Pio Rajna, "Sono i1 De
Ortu Walwanii e L'Historia Meriadoci Opera di un Medesimo
Autore?" in Medieval Studies in Memory of Gertrude
Schoepperle Loomis, ed. Roger S. Loomis (New York, 1927),
p. 17.

 

 

34This method of apprehending a dragon can be
found in Pliny, Historia Naturalis XXXVII.lvii; in Caius
Julius Solinus, Collectanea Rerum Memorabilium XLII;
and in Isidore of Seville, Etymologiarum XVI.xiv.7.
Another method specifies that enchanters sing the dragon
to sleep; see Anglo-Norman Lapidaries, ed. Studer and
Evans, p. 229. Pliny and Isidore say that unless the
head of the animal is cut off while it is alive, the
stone will not assume the form of a gem; Solinus says
that the gem must be removed while the serpent is still
breathing, for just as soon as the breath ceases, the
jewel disintegrates. These are details which our author
fails to mention. None of the above authorities specify
any uses for the dragon stone other than decoration,
which is perhaps why our author does not elaborate on

 

 

 

 

 

207

its uses. Some medieval lapidaries identify this jewel
with the carbuncle. See Leo J. Henkin, "The Carbuncle
in the Adder's Head," Modern Language Notes, 58 (1943),
34-39.

 

35To heat a mixture for real Greek fire so that
some ingredients, e.g. the bitumen and the pitch, can
be mixed more easily with the others is reasonable.
However, to ignite the mixture as it is being prepared
would of course be absurd.

36A mixture of real Greek fire, of course, would
be stored in its liquid or semi-liquid form, and not
in a burning form.

37Bruce, ed. Historia, p. lx, thinks the author
is indebted to Geoffrey of Monmouth's Historia Regum
Britanniae, Bk. XI, Ch. 8—10, for the name Gormundus.

381n the standard bestiaries a wild boar is not
mentioned as having smoking foam and fire issuing from
its mouth. Perhaps for the description of the boars
here and the one which the Knight killed in Milocrates'
forest, the author had in mind the wild boar sent by
Diana to ravage the dominion of Oeneus. This one emitted
boiling foam and fire from its mouth. See Ovid, Metamor-
phoses VIII.287-89.

39The Lapithae were a savage mountain race living
near Olympus in Thessaly. At the marriage of Pirithous
the king of the Lapithae and Hippodame, the Centaurs
were among the guests. Eurytus, one of the Centaurs,
became intoxicated at the feast and out of lust attempted
to do Violence to the bride. The other Centaurs follow—
ing his example seized whatever girls suited their fancy,
and the Lapithae came to the rescue. In the dreadful
conflict which followed, many on both sides were slain,
but the Lapithae came out victorious. See Ovid,
Metamorphoses XII.210-535.

40The Cyclopes, the race of giants with the single
eye in the middle of the forehead, had their workshop
under Mount Etna, where they forged thunderbolts for
Jupiter, arms and armor for famous heroes such as Aeneas,
and other wonders such as the walls of Pluto. See Vergil,
Aeneid VIII.4l6-53 and VI.630-3l.

208

41J. D. Bruce, ed. Historia, p. 84, n. 5, says
that some words appear to be lost, even though the manu-
script shows no break here. I have supplied in brackets
the sense of what I think may be missing.

 

42Demetia was a territory in southern Wales and
western England occupied at one time apparently by a
tribe called Demetae. Caerleon itself is located in
southern Monmouthshire in southeast Wales. Bruce in
Historia, p. lvi, n. l and Roger Loomis in Arthurian
Literature in the Middle Ages (Oxford, 1959), p. 475
6bserve that our author took much of this description
from Geoffrey of Monmouth's Historia Regum Britanniae
(Bk. III, Ch. 10; and Bk. IX, Ch. 12). For a comparison
of the two passages in Geoffrey with our author's
description, see my discussion of the setting of the
romance in Chapter IV.

 

 

 

 

43For a discussion of the name Gwendolen, see the
section on the queen's taunt and the combat at the ford
in Chapter III.

44The word which I translated as "coins" is
"myriadas." This is the only place in the romance where
the word occurs (Historia, ed. Bruce, p. 86). I arrived
at the meaning through the synonym used elsewhere:
"aureis" and "aureos" (p. 87) and "aurei" (p. 88). This
synonym is evidently the word which Bruce interprets as
"bridle bits" in his summary of the romance in Historia,

 

 

p. 1xxiv. "Bridle bit" is a meaning of aurea, but the
word in the romance is the masculine aureus, one meaning
of which is "gold coin." Three bridle bits would be an

illogical gift not only because the Knight captures
merely two horses, but because the author later remarks
that the two horses sent to the queen have all their
trappings (p. 88). I see three possible explanations for
"myriadas": (1) If myriada means summa 'a sum of money'
(see Corpus Glossariorum Latinorum), perhaps the word
could have been used for individual coins; (2) there may
have been a gold coin with the nickname m rias 'ten
thousand piece,‘ although I could not verify this
historically; (3) "myriadas" was a scribal or editor's
error for minetas, an alternate spelling of monetas
'coins,‘ which through careless writing could Have been
interpreted as myriadas.

 

 

45The text reads "moram parum uerberat," but I
have adopted the reading suggested by Pio Rajna: "moram
parumper habuerat." See his "Sono 11 De Ortu," p. 17.

209

This would make a smoother transition in thought, and
"habuerat" would parallel the pluperfect tense of the
verb in the second half of the sentence. A literal.
translation of "moram parum uerberat": "he is com-
plaining about (cursing) the delay a little."

46Evidently "anulum" ("ring") was inadvertently
omitted from this sentence by the scribe.

471 agree with Bruce that one or more words is

missing after "discrimini" (Historia, ed. Bruce, p. 90).
The word "minanti" ("threatening") would clarify the
sentence.

48The Latin reads "A patre igitur filio, ab auo
nepote agnito," the second half of which would probably
best be translated "from nephew to acknowledged uncle."
However, I think the second part should have read "ab
auo nepoti agnito," which is the interpretation I used
in my translation. The latter reading would parallel
the word arrangement of the first half, and the prepo-
sition would not be incoherently separated from its
object.

 

 

 

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