From Ritual to RomanceWeston, Jessie L. (Jessie Laidlay)
Religion
From Ritual to Romance
Weston, Jessie L. (Jessie Laidlay)
Grail -- Legends -- History and criticism; Romances -- History and criticism
Bleheris is incomplete, that for his existence appears to be
incontrovertible. Would it not be more honest if such a would-be critic
as the writer referred to said, ‘I do not choose to believe in the
existence of Bleheris, because it runs counter to my pre-conceived
theory of the evolution of the literature’? We should then know where
we are. Such a parallel as that cited above has no value for those
familiar with the literature but may easily mislead the general reader.
I would also draw attention to the fact noted in the text—the extreme
improbability of Wauchier, a continental writer, inventing an insular
and Welsh source. This is a point critics carefully evade.
[10] Cf. _Bledhericus de Cornouailles_, note contributed by M. Ferd.
Lot, to Romania, Vol. XXVIII. p. 336. M. Lot remarks that he has not
met with the name in Armorica; it thus appears to be insular.
[11] Cf. _Revue Celtique_, 1911, _A note on the identification of
Bleheris_.
[12] Ed. Rhys-Evans, Vol. II. p. 297; cf. also _Revue Celtique_.
[13] In the course of 1915-16 I received letters from Mr Rogers Rees,
resident at Stepaside, Pembrokeshire, who informed me that he held
definite proof of the connection of Bledri with both _Grail_ and
_Perceval_ legends. The locality had been part of Bledri’s estate, and
the house in which he lived was built on the site of what had been
Bledri’s castle. Mr Rogers Rees maintained the existence of a living
tradition connecting Bledri with the legends in question. At his
request I sent him the list of the names of the brothers of Alain li
Gros, as given in the 1516 edition of the _Perlesvaus_, a copy of which
is in the Bibliothèque Nationale, and received in return a letter
stating that the list must have been compiled by one familiar with the
district. Unfortunately, for a year, from the autumn of 1916, I was
debarred from work, and when, on resuming my studies, I wrote to my
correspondent asking for the promised evidence I obtained no answer to
my repeated appeal. On communicating with Mr Owen I found he had had
precisely the same experience, and, for his part, was extremely
sceptical as to there being any genuine foundation for our
correspondent’s assertions. While it is thus impossible to use the
statements in question as elements in my argument, I think it right in
the interests of scholarship to place them on record; they may afford a
clue which some Welsh scholar may be able to follow up to a more
satisfactory conclusion.
[14] Had Wauchier really desired to _invent_ an authority, in view of
his date, and connection with the house of Flanders, he had a famous
name at hand—that of Chrétien de Troyes.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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