Produced by David Starner David Widgerand the Online Distributed Proofreading TeamARTHURIAN ROMANCESUnrepresented in Malorys Morte dArthurNo IVMORIEN ARTHURIAN ROMANCESUNREPRESENTED IN MALORYS MORTE DARTHURI SIR GAWAIN AND THE GREEN KNIGHTA MiddleEnglish Romance retold in Modern Prose with Introduction andNotes by JESSIE L WESTON With Designs by M M CRAWFORD 1898 2snetII TRISTAN AND ISEULTRendered into English from the German of Gottfried of Strassburg byJESSIE L WESTON With Designs by CAROLINE WATTS Two vols 1899 4snetIII GUINGAMOR LANVAL TYOLET LE BISCLAVERETFour Lays rendered into English Prose from the French of Marie de Franceand others by JESSIE L WESTON With Designs by CAROLINE WATTS 19002s net Illustration They deemed they had seen the Foul FiendhimselfMORIENA Metrical Romance rendered into English prose from the Mediæval Dutchby Jessie L Weston with designs by Caroline Watts PrefaceThe metrical romance of which the following pages offer a prosetranslation is contained in the mediæval Dutch version of the_Lancelot_ where it occupies upwards of five thousand lines formingthe conclusion of the first existing volume of that compilation So faras our present knowledge extends it is found nowhere elseNor do we know the date of the original poem or the name of the authorThe Dutch MS is of the commencement of the fourteenth century andappears to represent a compilation similar to that with which Sir ThomasMalory has made us familiar _ie_ a condensed rendering of a numberof Arthurian romances which in their original form were independent ofeach other Thus in the Dutch _Lancelot_ we have not only the latterportion of the _Lancelot_ proper the _Queste_ and the _Morte Arthur_the ordinary component parts of the prose _Lancelot_ in its most fullydeveloped form but also a portion of a _Perceval_ romance having forits basis a version near akin to if not identical with the poemof Chrétien de Troyes and a group of episodic romances some ofconsiderable length the majority of which have not yet been discoveredelsewhere Footnote _Cf_ my _Legend of Sir Lancelot du Lac_Grimm Library vol xii chapter ix where a brief summary of thecontents of the Dutch _Lancelot_ is givenUnfortunately the first volume of this compilation which wasoriginally in four parts has been lost consequently we are without anyof the indications so often to be found in the opening lines of similarcompositions as to the personality of the compiler or the material athis disposal but judging from those sections in which comparison ispossible the _Lancelot_ _Queste_ and _Morte Arthur_ the entire workis a translation and a very faithful translation of a French originalIt is quite clear that the Dutch compiler understood his text well andthough possibly somewhat hampered by the necessity of turning prose intoverse this version contrary to the otherwise invariable rule of thelater _Lancelot_ romances being rhymed he renders it with remarkablefidelity The natural inference and that drawn by M Gaston Pariswho so far appears to be the only scholar who has seriously occupiedhimself with this interesting version is that those episodic romancesof which we possess no other copy are also derived from a Frenchsource Most probably so far as these shorter romances are concernedthe originals would be metrical not prose versions as in the case ofthe _Lancelot_ sectionsIt is true that with regard to the romance here translated _Morien_the Dutch scholars responsible for the two editions in which it hasappeared MM Jonckbloet and Te Winkel the former the editor of thewhole compilation the latter of this section only are both inclined toregard the poem as an original Dutch composition but M Gaston Parisin his summary of the romance _Histoire Litteraire_ vol xxx p 247rejects this theory as based on inadequate grounds It must be admittedthat an original Arthurian romance of the twelfth or thirteenth centurywhen at latest such a poem would be written in a language other thanFrench is so far unknown to us and although as a matter of fact thecentral _motif_ of the poem the representation of a Moor as near akinto the Grail Winner Sir Perceval has not been preserved in any knownFrench text while it does exist in a famous German version I for onefind no difficulty in believing that the tradition existed in Frenchand that the original version of our poem was a metrical romance in thattongueSo far as the story of _Morien_ is concerned the form is probably laterthan the tradition it embodies In its present shape it is certainlyposterior to the appearance of the Galahad _Queste_ to which itcontains several direct references such are the hermits allusion tothe predicted circumstances of his death which are related in full inthe _Queste_ the prophecy that Perceval shall aid in the winningof the Holy Grail a quest of which in the earlier version he is soleachiever and the explicit statements of the closing lines as toGalahads arrival at Court his filling the Siege Perilous andachieving the Adventures of the Round Table As the romance now standsit is an introduction to the _Queste_ with which volume iii volumeii of the extant version of the Dutch _Lancelot_ opensBut the opening lines of the present version show clearly that inone important point at least the story has undergone a radicalmodification Was it the Dutch translator or his source who substitutedAgloval Percevals brother for the tradition which made Percevalhimself the father of the hero M Gaston Paris takes the former viewbut I am inclined to think that the alteration was already in theFrench source The Grail of Sir Aglovals vision is the Grail of CastleCorbenic and the _Queste_ unless we are to consider this vision as theaddition of the Dutch compiler who when we are in a position to testhis work does not interpolate such additions we must I think admitthat the romance in the form in which it reached him was already at astage in which Perceval could not without violence to the then existingconception of his character be considered as the father or thebrother of Morien To reconstruct the original story it would benecessary not merely to eliminate all mention of Agloval as suggestedby M Gaston Paris but the Grail references would also requiremodification As