Please let me know what to add/subtract. In some cases I have subdivided a single motif to show how different aspects may reflect different traditions. See below for a second table outlining some of the analogues in more detail, with many thanks to Ken Waldron for pointing these out.
A third table attempts to reconstruct the "original" archetype of the lady-at-the-fountain story.
Now there is a fourth table, courtesy of Sakal
but also incorporating a suggestion by Jerry Schechter, which presents
the relationship between Chretien's poem (the whole thing), the Welsh tale,
and the Didot Perceval. In this case, the two other authors probably knew
Chretien's poem but may also have known related folk material which they
incorporated into their versions.
| Motif, names, etc. | Possible sources/analogues |
| Arthur asleep at Pentecost | (contradicts tradition of display at this feast, from Geoffrey of Monmouth) |
| Knights telling stories | classical dialogues? |
| The ugly herdsman | (exercise in describing ugliness) |
| The marvelous fountain in Broceliande (water causes storm) | Wace, Roman de Rou |
| Birds singing in harmony | Voyage of St. Brendan |
| Husband defending lady associated w/body of water | Diana of Nemi, cf. Ovid |
| Desire to avenge cousin | |
| Desire to beat Arthur to the marvel | |
| Desire to travel to see the marvels described | St. Brendan |
| Horse cut in two by portcullis | |
| Room within castle wall | |
| Yvain & Laudine & a fountain | Life of St. Kentigern (see below) |
| Laudine difficult of access, requiring duplicity | Kentigern (see below) |
| Ring of invisibility (stone turned in or out) | Gyges story in Cicero's De Officiis |
| Female bestows protective invisibility on man
while he encounters hostile but desirable woman ruler |
Virgil's Aeneid I |
| Man falls in love with woman seen through window | Pyramus & Thisbe? (Ovid, French lai) |
| Body bleeds in presence of murderer | Nibelungenlied? Folklore |
| Hero kills eminent man, marries widow | Gyges (various versions) |
| Hero kills defender of woman/water; becomes defender | Nemi |
| Woman persuades widow to remarry to defend her lands | Anna and Dido in the Aeneid |
| Widow grieves violently then bonds immediately to next man | Widow of Ephesus fable (Marie de France)?? |
| Arthur comes to visit marvel | |
| Kay & Gauvain fight hero | (most of Chretien's romances) |
| Gauvain flirts | " |
| Conflict of uxoriousness and chivalry | " Mercury rebuking Aeneas? |
| Protective ring of love | Scottish Lai of Desiré, Marie de France's Yonec (see below) |
| Lover forgets/betrays promise, loses woman's love | Desiré, Marie de France's Lai of Lanval (see below) |
| Ring withdrawn by maiden | |
| Lover goes mad on losing ring, becomes "wild man" | Desiré; images of wild men with rings cited by Ken Waldron |
| Raw and cooked meat; vegetarianism | Ovid's interest in meat-eating? |
| Hermit and knight/madman | |
| Ointment to recover senses | |
| Morgan's ointment | Erec |
Table of stories of fairy lovers with Lowlands Geographic connection
| Life of St. Kentigern | Desiré | Yvain | Lanval/Yonec (Marie de France) |
| Ewan & Lot's daughter | Yvain & Laudine | Yonec=Yvain-et | |
| Ewan son of Urien | Desiré son of the lord of Calatir in Scotland, loved by the king. | Yvain son of Urien, trying to outdo Arthur | Lanval, son of a (continental?) king, out of favor in Arthur's court near Scotland |
| Ewan approaches Lot's daughter twice near a fountain; he decieves and rapes her. | Desiré tries to rape a woman with basins near fountain near hermit's lodging | Yvain is protected by Laudine's handmaiden Lunete after disturbing fountain | Lanval takes a nap by a stream, is awakened by women with basins. |
| Woman leads D. to her lady, promising her love, which he obtains politely | Lunete obtains Laudine's love for Yvain, then leads him to Laudine. | The women lead him to a lady who loves him. | |
| The lady gives D. a gold ring which he will lose if he does not behave properly; and if he loses it, he loses her. She urges him to continue to be a good knight. | L. marries Y. and gives him a ring with a magic protective stone which will keep him from being hurt physically. He is not to lend it to anyone. | The lady gives Lanval great wealth and promises to come to him whenever
he thinks of her, so long as he doesn't tell any one about her.
In Yonec, the lady's lover says that she must be sure no-one know about his visits. Later, he gives her a magic ring which will prevent others from remembering their relationship. |
|
| King Lot's daughter, after many sorrows, gives birth to a son, Kentigern | During a lengthy liaison in which he visits her frequently, the lady bears Desiré two children, a boy and a girl. | Yonec is the son of the lady and her lover. | |
| (In a later episode): a queen gives her ring to her lover; the king sees it on the lover's finger, throws it in the river, and accuses her of adultery when she can't produce it. | On his way to visit the lady, Desiré stops and confesses to the hermit; the ring disappears. D. can't find the lady any more. | When Yvain overstays his promised time at Arthur's court, a maiden sent by Laudine takes the ring back, telling him Laudine doesn't want to see him any more. | Lanval admits the liaison when pressed by Guenevere. He can no longer
find his lady.
When Yonec's mother's husband becomes suspicius, he sets a trap for the lover, ending the liaison. |
| The queen languishes in prison and repents her adultery, confessing to Kentigern | D. becomes ill with grief and languishes for a year. | Y. goes mad but is helped by a hermit and, eventually, some women. | Lanval becomes despondent and is willing to be executed for a crime
he has not committed.
Yonec's mother jumps out a window but is not killed. |
| Kentigern gets her the ring back (from a fish) | His lady comes to him when he is alone, denies that she has ensorceled him or that their relationship is sinful, and offers to go to Mass, receive the Eucharist to prove her goodness. His son returns the ring to him. | During their liaison, Lanval's lady comes to him when he is alone.
Yonec's father proves his goodness by receiving the Eucharist. He comes to her when she is alone. |
|
| D. attempts to visit the lady as she lies on a bed in a castle; he jumps in through a window which is the only possible access, alerting the guards who wound him, but is saved by a servant-girl. | Early in the romance, Yvain first sees Laudine through a window in the castle; he is battered by the castle guards and attended by Lunete. | Yonec's father visits his mother through the castle window which is the only access to her. This is where he is wounded. Also, when she comes upon him lying on a bed in his own castle, she is in danger of attack by his people. | |
| ...and the marriage is re-established. | The lady comes to the king's court with her children, asking for marriage to D. | At the end of the romance, Laudine accepts him again in marriage, as a replacement for himself | Lanval's mistress comes to the king's court to save him. |
| D. is invited by his wife to leave the court forever, though their children remain there. | Lanval chooses to leave the court with his lady. |
12th-c French/Anglo-Norman stories of knights
with fairy lovers
Note: my reconstruction is definitely influenced by an awareness of
the goddess Diana's patronage of hunters and of chaste persons, and her
proclivity for bathing, and also of the story of Narcissus, which involves
a youth who prefers hunting to love and finds his comeuppance at a fountain.
I assume that the 12th-c writers would also have seen a continuity between
the lais or aventures they told and the Classical stories (there is a contemporary
Lai
of Narcissus, which has a happy ending!).
To these might be added Marie's Guigemar, in which a youth who
refuses to love is wounded while hunting a white deer and carried by Solomon's
unmanned ship to be healed by a lady who becomes his lover and ties a knot
to bind him to her. We could also include Chaucer's Wife of Bath's
Tale, which begins with a rape to which the fairy lady must provide
a solution.
| "Archetype" (?) | Desiré (anon) | Lanval (Marie) | Graelant Mor (anon) | Guingamor (anon) | Yvain (Chretien) |
| Potiphar's wife/Hippolytus motif: wife of lord tries to seduce hero | no | later in story | yes | yes | No, though she is present when he resolves on his quest |
| Narcissu motif:
Hero declares he has never known love |
no | no | yes | yes | no |
| Hero is out of favor with lord | no | yes | yes | no | no |
| Hero goes hunting for a white animal | no, wandering cheerfully | no, wandering sadly | yes, though it begins as a wander | yes, to prove himself | on a quest, not a hunt |
| Hero comes to a fountain | yes | no, stream | yes | yes | yes (a specific famous magic fountain) |
| Diana motif: Woman is bathing in fountain with attendants | no, but a woman with two basins and bare feet is there | women with basins and towels | yes | yes | no |
| Rape attempt
(cf. Kentigern) |
yes, on the secondary woman | no | yes, hero rapes the primary woman | no, but he tries to take her clothes | no |
| Woman agrees to be hero's lover but exacts a promise | never to tell | never to tell | to remain in the area for a year
(also apparently never to tell) |
(1) to stay 3 days
(2) to eat nothing |
She marries him;
he promises to return in a year |
| Hero breaks promise | yes (maybe) | yes | ? apparently | yes (2) | yes |
| Hero suffers | Can't find woman, languishes | loses contact with woman, languishes, is prosecuted | loses contact with woman, languishes, is prosecuted | Suddenly is 300 years old | loses woman,
goes mad |
| Lady comes to hero to rescue him from suffering | Twice, once in church and once at court | at court | at court | She sends ladies to rescue him | Yvain embarks on a quest to earn her love. She makes no overtures. |
| Hero ends up following lady to Otherworld | yes, on the same horse | yes, on the same horse | on a different horse | he is taken in a boat across the perilous river | He will return to defend the fountain. |
Yvain and two later works which may incorporate related motifs not used by Chretien.
| Yvain. | Variants in Welsh "Owein"
(from Sakal) |
Episode
in Didot Perceval
(click for text) |
| Carlisle. Arthur asleep at Pentecost | Caerleon on Usk. Not Pentecost. | |
| Knights telling stories.
Calogrenant. |
Cynon. | |
| The vavasour, the bulls, the ugly giant herdsman and the forest animals. The club. | First visits 2 yellow-haired boys and 24 maidens. Herdsman has one leg and one eye. Mound. Iron spear. | |
| The marvelous fountain in Broceliande (water causes storm) | Not Broceliande, but 'in the outermost reaches' (of Arthur's Empire). (2 days' ride). No British geography given. | A ford in the forest owned by the Lady of Avalon. When Perceval attempts to stop the custom, a storm ensues. |
| Birds singing in harmony | Black birds fly down to attack him. They are the fairy's damsels in bird shape, and he wounds one of them. | |
| Husband defending lady associated w/body of water | Urban (=Urien?) prevents people from drinking at the ford; his term is for one year. | |
| Desire to avenge cousin and
prove Kay wrong. |
Less used motivationally. | |
| Desire to beat Arthur to the marvel. Description of visit to Fountain given three times (and again at the end). | Arthur does not set out to try the adventure of the Fountain, but to find Owein, whom he misses. | |
| Desire to travel to see the marvels described | Less explicit motivation. | |
| Horse cut in two by portcullis | ||
| Room within castle wall | No secret catch or passage. Ring is passed through inner gate. | The Avalon castle by the ford is invisible. The fairy and Urban are taken there for healing. |
| Yvain & Laudine & a fountain | ||
| Laudine difficult of access, requiring duplicity | ||
| Female associate of lady helps hero. | ||
| Ring of invisibility (stone turned in or out) | ||
| Female bestows protective invisibility on man
while he encounters hostile but desirable woman ruler |
||
| Man falls in love with woman seen through window | ||
| Body bleeds in presence of murderer | No. | |
| Hero kills eminent man, marries widow | ||
| Hero kills defender of woman/water; becomes defender | ||
| Woman persuades widow to remarry to defend her lands | ||
| Influence of citizens of town. | ||
| Widow grieves violently then bonds immediately to next man | ||
| Arthur comes to visit marvel.
(Damosel Sauvage). |
Not until Owein has been defending the Fountain for 3 years. | |
| Kay & Gauvain fight hero | ||
| Gauvain flirts | ||
| Conflict of uxoriousness and chivalry | ||
| Protective ring of love | No. It is apparently the same ring all the time. | |
| Lover leaves (for a few weeks), but forgets/betrays promise, loses woman's love | Owein leaves for 3 months but is gone for 3 years. | |
| Ring withdrawn by maiden. Maiden appears when Yvain remembers his promise. | Only when ring is removed Owein remembers. | |
| Lover goes mad on losing ring, becomes "wild man" | Grows coat of hair and lives with animals. | |
| Raw and cooked meat; vegetarianism | Not mentioned. | |
| Hermit and knight/madman | Not mentioned. | |
| Ointment to recover senses
- too much used |
His body hair falls out over three months. | |
| Countess' servant who knows Yvain. | Does not know him. | |
| Morgan's ointment | No, but expensive. | |
| Conquers countess' enemy | ||
| Saves and befriends lion | ||
| Rescues Lunete.These last five episodes parallel Yvain's initial adventure. | ||
| The adventure of Yvain, Gawain and the two sisters. | This long episode is not included in the Welsh version. | |
| Castle of oppressed maidens | Same 24 maidens as at beginning? The Black Oppressor. | |
| Return to Fountain and reunion. |