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)
The Lady and the Monster, with a princess won by the hero's happily
directed choice. [187]
All of these features will appear again when we come to discuss
variants which combine the compound types The Grateful Dead + The
Poison Maiden or The Ransomed Woman with The Water of Life. They may,
therefore, be passed over for the present, together with the question
as to whether such a simple combination as The Grateful Dead + The
Water of Life may be regarded as being the original from which the
more complicated types have sprung. It is sufficient for the moment
to recognize the tendency of the simpler variants to fall into groups
on the basis of the residuum left by subtracting traits belonging to
The Grateful Dead.
Let us now consider the tales where a thankful beast plays the part
of the grateful dead through at least a portion of the narrative,
and where there is still no trace of either The Poison Maiden or The
Ransomed Woman. The change of beast for ghost is so obvious and easy
that the separation of these variants from the preceding appears at
first sight to be of merely formal use. Yet thus considered, they may
serve to define the sub-divisions already noticed. Nine such versions
have come to my knowledge: Walewein, Lotharingian, Tuscan, Brazilian,
Basque I., Breton IV., V., and VI., and Simrock IX. All but one are
folk-tales, and that, curiously enough, an episode in a thirteenth
century [188] Dutch romance translated from the French. [189]
Walewein, the variant in question, has the following form: Walewein
(or more familiarly Gawain) sets forth from Arthur's court to secure
a magical chessboard. He is promised it by King Wonder if only he
will get the sword of rings from King Amoris, who in turn will give
that up if Walewein will bring him the princess of the Garden of
India. On this quest the hero mortally wounds a certain Red Knight,
who prays him for Christian burial and is properly interred. He then
proceeds to the castle of King Assentin, whose daughter recognizes
in him the ideal knight whom she has seen in a dream. He is led
under the dark river which surrounds the castle by the Fox Roges,
and wins the princess. The lovers and the fox (a prince transformed)
escape by the help of the Red Knight's ghost. After many adventures
they come together to the court with a chessboard, which is given up
by King Wonder in exchange for the sword. Walewein is able to keep
the princess for his own because of the death of Amoris.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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