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XXIV.—Sir Perceval and The Boyish Exploits of Finn

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 December 2020

Roy Bennett Pace
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Extract

The relations between the English romance, Sir Perceval, and its counterparts in French, German, and Welsh have been frequently and extensively investigated. Efforts have been made also to show connections between the story of Perceval (especially the boyhood portion) and various other stories—the “Fair Unknown” (Libeaus Desconus) group, the romance of Fergus, the lai of Tyolet, and the Irish tales of Cuchullin.

Another Irish story which has not, it seems to me, received the attention it merits in this connection is The Boyish Exploits of Finn. The resemblances between it and the English romance were first pointed out by Alfred Nutt in 1881. He believed The Boyish Exploits to he a fifteenth-century composition; and he repeated this belief in 1888, 1891, and 1910. This late date was supported in long arguments by Zimmer in 1890 and 1891; and it has been generally accepted by students of the story, including d'Arbois de Jubainville, Newell, Miss Paton, Miss Weston, and Professors Schofield and Griffith.

Type
Research Article
Information
PMLA , Volume 32 , Issue 4 , 1917 , pp. 598 - 604
Copyright
Copyright © Modern Language Association of America, 1917

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References

1 For bibliog. see Wells, Manual of Writings in M. E. (New Haven, 1916), pp. 71-74, 772-3. To this add: Martin, ed. of Parzival (Halle, 1900-1903), vol. ii; Hertz, Die Sage v. P. u. d. Gral (in his trans. of Wolfram's Parzival, Stuttgart, 5th ed., 1911, pp. 413-550), and Rosenhagen, Nachträge (ibid., pp. 551-572); Voretzsch, Einf. in d. Stud. d. altfranz. Lit. (Halle, 2nd ed., 1913), pp. 322-345; Foerster, Wörterbuch zu Kristian (Halle, 1914), einl., pp. 145-202.

2 For reference on Lib. Des., see Wells, p. 772; on all four, see Voretzsch. On Fergus, see also Heinzel, rev. of Martin's ed., in Zt. f. d. oest. Gym., xxiv (1873), pp. 156-167. Marquardt's Der Einfluss Kristians auf den Roman ‘Fergus‘ (diss. Göttingen, 1906), although the most extended study of this romance, is unfortunately of little value. Innumerable other possible connections are suggested in Chamberlain's The Child and Childhood in Folk-Thought (N. Y. and Lond., 1896), esp. chap. xxiv, “The Child as Hero, Adventurer, etc.”, a book written from the point of view of anthropology rather than that of literary origins. The bibliog. (pp. 495-434) is valuable.

3 “The Aryan Expulsion-and-Return Formula,” Folk-Lore Record, iv, pp. 1-44.

4 Ibid., p. 16.

5 Studies Leg. H. G. (1888), p. 158; The Fians, ed. Campbell (1891), “Bibl. Notes,” p. 284; Folk-Lore, xxi (1910), p. 400.

6 G. G. A., 1890, 2, pp. 521 ff.; “Kelt Beiträge,” Z. f. d. A., xxxv (1891), pp. 1 ff.

7 d'Arbois, Essai d'un catalogue (1883), pp. xxxviii, 174; Newell, Leg. H. G. (1902), pp. 88, 92; Paton, Fairy Myth. of Arth. Rom. (1903), p. 181; Weston, Leg. Sir P. (1906), i, p. xix. Schofield does not refer to The Boyish Exploits; but he would hardly take the fifteenth-century Lay of the Great Fool as evidence for the existence of such stories in early Celtic if he knew an earlier story embodying substantially the same features. (See his Eng. Lit. Norm. Conq. to Chaucer, p. 228.) Griffith, although he mentions The Boyish Exploits several times, makes clear his acceptance of a late date by saying: “I have made no inquiry into Old Irish literature.” (Sir P. of G., Diss. Chicago, 1911, preface.)

8 O'Donovan, Trans. Oss. Soc., iv, p. 284; Hull, Text-Book of Irish Lit., i, p. 244; ii, pp. 26, 43; MacNeill, Duanaire Finn, I. T. S. (1908), p. xxix; Meyer, Z. f. c. P., vii (1909-10), p. 524; Fianaigecht, R. I. A., T. L. S., xvi (1910), p. xxviii.

9 Folk-Lore, xxi (1910), p. 110; Arnold's Study of Celtic Lit. (1910), p. 166.

10 This account of the ms., which I have not seen, is based on Todd, Proc. R. I. A., ii (1840), pp. 336 ff.

11 Z. f. d. A., xxxv, pp. 119 ff.

12 On the subject of dating, see Nutt, Z. f. c. P., ii (1898-9), p. 320; Meyer, King and Hermit (1901), p. 5, n. 1; Brown, Mod. Phil., vii (1909-10), p. 204; Nutt, Folk-Lore, xxi (1910), pp. 239-240; Cross, Mod Phil., x (1912-13), p. 292.

13 For approximate dates see Griffith, op. cit., pp. 1-3; Schofield, op. cit., App. i (pp. 458-465).

14 Cf. Brown, Iwain, p. 120: “A student of literary origins early learns that, altho incidents survive and may safely be used to trace a source, the name of the hero of any particular incident changes with considerable facility.”

15 Text and trans. of The Boyish Exploits in Trans. Oss. Soc., iv (O'Donovan); text (Meyer) in R. G. v (1881-3), and trans. (Meyer) in Eriu, 1 (1904). Figures under the Finn incidents refer to pages in Eriu, 1. Figures under Sir Perceval incidents refer to lines in the edition of the romance by Campion and Holthausen (Heidelberg, 1913).

16 Nutt, F.-L. Rec., iv; Woods, “A Reclassification of the Perceval Romances,” P. M. L. A., n. s. xx (1912), pp. 524-567. The subject of “formulas” seems to me to be sadly overworked; see, for instance, Heyman, Studies on the Havelok-Tale (diss., Upsala, 1903), p. 92; Schoepperle, Tristan and Isolt (Frankfort and Lond., 1913), i, pp. 206, 214, 221, 223; ii, p. 280; nearly the whole of Deutschbein, Studien zur Sagengeschichte Englands (Cöthen, 1906). All such attempts at classification should be considered in the light of Windisch's caution in Das kelt. Brit. bis zu K. A. (Leipzig Abhandl., 1912), pp. 198-9.

17 Griffith, op. cit., p. 114.