When I chose the Conte du Papegau as the focus of my essay for this volume, I did not realize I was following a tradition. The Papegau figures among the studies given to Hans-Erich Keller in 1993, Douglas Kelly in 1994, and Karl Uitti in 2000. Since the authors of these dedicatory essays are Norris Lacy, Jane Taylor, and Lori Walters, I feel that I am in excellent company. Something in this atypical Arthurian romance may make it particularly fit for celebrating the works and career of a colleague, mentor, and friend. I therefore propose to transform an unspoken nascent practice into the custom that all future Festschrift offered to a specialist of French medieval literature include a study on the Papegau.

For Gaston Paris, the Conte du Papegau was a conte à dormir debout. The expression implies that if a story induces you to fall asleep on the spot, it is not because the story is deadly dull but because it is as absurd, inconsistent, and implausible as a dream. Modern scholars would agree with Paris about the oniric quality of the Papegau, but after Freud, Jung, and surrealism, it is difficult to reject a work of art under the pretext that it feels like a dream.