The Grateful Dead: The History of a Folk StoryGerould, Gordon Hall
General
The Grateful Dead: The History of a Folk Story
Gerould, Gordon Hall
Dead -- Folklore; Folk literature -- Themes, motives; Grateful dead (Tale)
Rittertriuwe is of the same romantic character. When Graf Willekin von
Montabour had spent his substance in chivalrous exercises, he learned
that a beautiful and rich maiden had promised her hand to the knight,
who should win a tourney, which she had established. Thereupon he
set forth and came to the place announced for the combats. There he
found lodging in the house of a man, who would only receive him if he
would promise to pay the debts of a dead man, whose body lay unburied
in the dung of a horse-stall. [51] Willekin was moved by this story
and paid seventy marks, almost all his money, to ransom the corpse
and give it suitable burial. He then had to borrow from his host in
order to indulge in his customary generosity. On the morning of the
jousting he obtained from a stranger knight a fine horse on condition
of dividing everything that he won. He succeeded in the tourney above
all the other contestants, and so wedded the maiden. On the second
night after the marriage the stranger entered his room and demanded
a share in his marital rights. After he had offered instead to give
all his possessions, the hero started from the room in tears, when
the stranger called him back and explained that he was the ghost of
the dead, then disappeared.
A brief summary of Sir Amadas, [52] the last of the six variants,
must now be given. Amadas finds himself financially embarrassed,
and sets forth for seven years of errantry with only forty pounds
in hand. This he pays to release and bury the body of a merchant who
has died in debt. When thus reduced to absolute penury, Amadas meets
a White Knight, who tells him that he will aid him on condition of
receiving half the gains. The hero finds a rich wreck on the seacoast,
and so with new apparel goes to the court, where he wins wealth in a
tourney and the princess's heart at a feast. After he marries her and
has a son born to him, the White Knight reappears and demands that the
accepted conditions be complied with. Hesitatingly Amadas prepares to
divide first his wife and afterwards his son, but he is stayed by the
stranger, who explains that he is the ghost of the dead merchant. So
Amadas is at last released from misfortune and lives in happiness.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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