What is specially noticeable in this account is that Hartmann agrees with Chrétien in the very feature which the French poet does _not_ specify, _i.e._ the cause of the queen's abduction--a boon rashly granted, though he transfers the asking from Kay to the knight; while he differs from Chrétien in the feature which he _does_ specify, _i.e._ that Kay takes Guinevere _after_ the knight. Further, he adds details which would clear up some of the inconsistencies in Chrétien's own account: _i.e._ if Gawain were not present at the time, and all the knights followed one after the other and were defeated by Meleagant, we can quite understand that when Gawain returned the next day and followed on the trail, he _would_ find traces of the severe and bloody conflict for which Chrétien's version leaves no room. On the face of it, Hartmann's version is much the more logical and coherent of the two. I have remarked above on the extreme awkwardness of the action at the outset of the story; that Meleagant should carry off Guinevere by a ruse similar to that employed by Gandîn in the _Tristan_ poems is far more in accordance with mediæval tradition. If Hartmann's divergence is a mere 'invention,' he not only deserves praise for his sagacious skill in constructing a story,[48] but excites admiration for the acuteness which enabled him to detect the leading _motif_ of the adventure to which his source afforded absolutely no clue. Wolfram von Eschenbach's references to the _Charrette_ adventure are curious; at first sight it seems certain that he is referring to Chrétien's poem, but on closer examination the matter is not so clear. Thus he says that Lancelot crossed the sword-bridge, fought with Meljakanz (Meleagant), and freed Guinevere--all of which agree with Chrétien.[49] But, on the other hand, he mentions Kay's suspension on the tree (Hartmann's version), and does not know that Meleagant was slain by Lancelot, or that the captive Bretons were freed by his coming--both Meleagant and the Breton knights are fighting at the tournament of Beaurösch.[50] Indeed, Wolfram appears to know far more of these latter than can be gathered from Chrétien's poem. Of course, we cannot here say whether these references are due to Wolfram or to his source, which, as recent research has clearly shown, was certainly the work of a man of varied and extensive learning.[51] Nor is it at all clear that Wolfram knew Lancelot as Guinevere's lover; he simply says that her imprisonment grieved him '_im was gevancnisse leit, die frou Ginòvêr dolte_,' which might be postulated of any loyal servant of Arthur's. Again when, at the beginning of Book xii., the poet recites Gawain's love-sorrows, he compares his pains first to those suffered by various heroes in the achievement of knightly deeds in general, and then rehearses the parallel cases of sundry lovers. In the first list Lancelot and the sword-bridge appear in company with Iwein and the