Tijdschrift voor Nederlandse Taal- en Letterkunde. Jaargang 111

[p. 310]

Norris J. Lacy
Convention and Innovation in the Middle Dutch Walewein^*

Abstract - Measured by standards imported from Gallic romance, both the character and the adventures of Walewein prove striking. Whereas French romances often depicted Walewein's flaws and failures, the Middle Dutch narrators are resolute in their presentation of his inevitable successes even in the face of the dire consequences they predict for him. They thereby confirm his ability to prevail against all odds. Concomitantly, they transform or invert traditional Arthurian motifs, including the Perilous Seat (in the Dutch, a seat with protective powers), the Grail (corresponding to the chess set in the Dutch), and even Walewein's adventures, which become progressively more threatening even as he accomplishes them with increasing ease and an almost humorous nonchalance. The result is a thorough redefinition and renewal of Arthurian character and theme.

Read against the extensive background of French romances, or perhaps even without that tradition, the thirteenth-century Middle Dutch Walewein¹ is a surprising, fascinating, and sometimes perplexing creation. It is long (over 11,000 lines), complex, teeming with plots and subplots, and further complicated by the fact that it is the product of two authors, Penninc and Pieter Vostaert, of significantly different levels of skill and artistry.²

In its simplest outline, the romance offers an unusually clear structure in the form of several chained quests, each of which must be deferred until the next in the series is completed.³ To succeed in the primary quest (to obtain for Arthur a magic chess set that has floated into court, l. 48), Walewein will first have to recover a marvelous sword; he then learns that, to acquire the sword, he must bring back a particular young woman (Ysabele). Eventually he achieves all his quests.

Yet into this ordered framework intrude a profusion of battles, marvels, and intrigues. Like many another romance, this one focuses less on the successful accomplishment of the quests (since that is a predictable conclusion) than on the process by which events repeatedly force a deferral of resolution. In fact, in the Walewein, the reader's impression of structural clarity progressively diminishes, owing to the increasing randomness of incidents, to the introduction of a protracted secondary quest within the larger series, and to a mixture of tones.

And animating all this is a character, Walewein, who is the Middle Dutch incarnation of Gawain/Gauvain but is scarcely recognizable as the same figure. The French tradition in particular exploited Gauvain as a rich source of drama (and sometimes irony), owing to his combination of chivalric excellence and personal or moral flaws.

* This is the second contribution in the series ‘De Walewein in internationaal perspectief’; see TNTL 111 (1995), p. 193-205.

1 See Penninc and Pieter Vostaert: Roman van Walewein. Ed. and transl. David F. Johnson. New York, 1992.

2 One sign of the inconsistency that may well be due to dual authorship is confusion about the marvelous Sword with the Two Rings, the loss of which Walewein laments even after he (apparently) had regained it; then he finds it (yet again?) in ll. 9444-45. Vostaert, in particular, is given to narrative lapses, sometimes resorting to authorial commentary to correct apparent errors or, as David Johnson puts it, to pick up a dropped ‘stitch’. See l. 8429 (‘Hear now what I have forgotten to tell’) and Johnson's note to that line; see also n. 14 below.

3 This plot is a reworking of a traditional fairy-tale structure, identified by folklorists as Aarne-Thompson 550; see Walewein. Ed. Johnson (n. 1), p. xii.

[p. 311]

Indomitable but frivolous, he often serves, especially in Chrétien de Troyes's romances, as a foil for the hero, who is destined to equal and then to surpass him.

It has been said that in the Dutch romance, on the other hand, the hero is perfect.⁴ Even though that statement will require some qualification, it is clear that Walewein is by no means the Gauvain of French tradition.⁵ He is not characterized by inconstancy or cupidity; he is not motivated by the desire for fame; he is no longer possessed of a minuscule attention span. Thus, the major flaws of his French counterpart have been excised, and that fact cannot fail to influence our response.⁶

But a reading of the text confirms that he still has enough imperfections to allow the creation of a space within which the authors can dramatize some doubts, occasional fears, and at least rare vulnerable moments in combat. He is prodigious but not indomitable in battle; three times he is forced to surrender, albeit by heavily superior forces. He is occasionally subject to fear: although he can face hundreds of knights in battle, he is afraid, for example, to cross the Sword Bridge. In that instance the concern is double: fear of the physical danger if he crosses but also a stronger fear that he will be ridiculed if he does not. Indeed, he is motivated from the start by this desire to avoid ridicule: as he first sets out from court to seek the chess set, he sees it floating in the air so close to him that he could grasp it, thus concluding the quest even as it begins. Yet he chooses not to do so, because he dreads the mockery that would be heaped upon him if he then lost it again.⁷ In other words, his fear of disapproval - perhaps a rare remnant of his character in the Gallic tradition - is responsible for all his future adventures and ordeals.⁸

Despite those imperfections, however, the narrator will leave no doubt that Walewein is a character of unquestioned chivalric and moral excellence. This fundamental redefinition of a hero widely known from other traditions will be for many readers the most striking and dramatic characteristic of the Dutch romance. But that redefinition inevitably has implications for other narrative features of the text, and Walewein offers a brilliant illustration, before the fact, of Henry James's observation concerning the interrelation, if not identity, of plot and character: ‘What is character but the determination of incident? What is incident but the illustration of character?’⁹ Thus, having transformed Gauvain into Walewein, a radically different character, the Dutch text necessarily transforms the nature of the narrative that reveals him. Or, to put a finer point on it, individual episodes - battles and adventures - may in many cases resemble those we know from other romances, but their combination, their direction, and the ways they both shape and reveal character differ considerably from those in French or other romance.

There is a third essential element in this mix. No less remarkable than the transformation of Walewein and the construction of incident is the guiding hand of the narrator, an unusually intrusive consciousness that colludes with the hero to lead him and us through a maze of adventures. Having remade the character of Walewein, the authors¹⁰ are required to forge new methods of presenting him, as well as new responses on his part to the events he experiences. Their first task is the creation of a narrator who, with no attempt to conceal his own presence, dramatizes and promotes a hero whose success is both deserved and destined.

4 See in particular Bart Besamusca, ‘The Netherlands’. In Medieval Arthurian Literature. A Guide to Recent Research. Ed. Norris J. Lacy, forthcoming in 1995. Elsewhere Besamusca has written that Walewein is ‘the ideal courtly knight’ and that the authors present him ‘without a trace of irony’ (‘Gauvain as Lover in the Middle Dutch Verse Romance Walewein’. In: The Arthurian Yearbook, 2 (1992), p. 3). That comment is entirely correct but requires qualification. Walewein's ‘perfection’ does not in fact preclude irony, but it is an irony of an order different from that of the French. In the latter, it consists of a disparity between Gauvain's chivalric superiority and his flawed character. In the Walewein, it is shifted to the level of story, contrasting the apparent difficulty of adventures with the actual ease of their accomplishment by the hero.

5 The English tradition is another matter entirely: in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, the hero is a virtuous and admirable knight. He is not perfect, as his wound indicates, but he is very unlike the French Gauvain. Similarities between the Dutch and English are provocative; see below, n. 25.

6 Janssens has suggested that the work is a manual of courtliness prepared for a public and a court unfamiliar with French courtoisie (and presumably with French romances). That may well be, but the depiction of the Dutch hero is surely more dramatic and intense if the text is read, as we are doing, against the backdrop of French Gauvain romances. See J.D. Janssens: ‘Oude en nieuwe wegen in “het wout zonder genade”. Terreinverkenning voor onderzoek van de Mnl. niet-historische Arturroman.’ In: De nieuwe taalgids 75 (1982), p. 298-299.

7 ‘Si mochter mede hare sceren maken’ (‘they would make a mockery of him’, l. 223). All quotations and translations are from Johnson's text, see n. 1.

8 Finally, the fact that his ethic does not preclude sexual encounters might be taken as another sign of his imperfection. See lines 7936-49. However, it is uncertain that the text imposes such a conclusion: few romances, other than the French Queste, suggest that sexual experience constitutes moral disqualification.

9 ‘The Art of Fiction’. In: The Future of the Novel. Ed. Leon Edel. New York, 1956, p. 15-16.

10 I use the plural, assuming that the two authors contribute to the creation of similar if not identical personas.

[p. 312]

Any thorough analysis must address these three corners of the narrative triangle: the central character, the narrative through which he moves, and the narrator who presents both and directs the reader's response to them. These three are intricately interrelated in any text, but in none are they more closely linked than in Walewein.¹¹ In examining the romance, we will have occasion to see not only how the authors capitalize on an unfamiliar conception of Gawain/Walewein, but also how they manipulate reader response and how they rehandle and sometimes renew numerous themes and motifs already familiar to readers of Arthurian romance.

11 It might be noted that, when we deal with a ‘perfect’ literary character, the locus of drama is shifted from that character to external incident or, sometimes, to other characters. The best example is Galahad (in the French Queste), a hero unencumbered by imperfections and guilty desires. In his story, we may find impressive pageantry, and we may take some esthetic satisfaction in the accomplishment of inevitable success; we will not find drama. To compensate, the French text surrounds Galahad with flawed characters who can fail, feel shame, yield to temptation, and they are far more interesting than Galahad. In the Walewein, on the other hand, the narrative focus is rarely if ever removed from Walewein himself, and the characters around him are allies or adversaries, but not the direct focus of attention. See La Queste del saint Graal. Ed. Albert Pauphilet. Paris, 1921.

The Character of Walewein

It is easy enough to see why commentators might attribute perfection to Walewein, for that is precisely what the narrator appears to do. He rarely misses an opportunity to praise Walewein without qualification; he frequently intervenes to punctuate his adventures with an approbative epithet, presenting him at every turn as Walewein the Brave, Noble, Pure, Good, Mild,¹² Fearless, Valiant, or Daring.

No less important, we unexpectedly discover that, beginning with the third quest (to seek Ysabele), a spiritual dimension and a rudimentary allegorical structure have been overlaid on Walewein's chivalric adventures. Speaking of a stream flowing through the place where Ysabele is to be found, the narrator explains that the source of the water is a spring in the Earthly Paradise (ll. 3554-57). Later, a burning river is identified as Purgatory (l. 5825). Even were there no change in the presentation of the hero, these references would surely invest the text with a new resonance: the story appears to have advanced to a different level, assuming the contours of a spiritual quest or journey such as we might expect more of Dante's pilgrim than of Walewein.¹³ Moreover, the hero now - and somewhat abruptly - begins to evince a rigorous piety not previously apparent.

Prior to this point, Walewein had offered precepts of chivalric duty and conduct (see, e.g., ll. 2140-43), but never religious instruction. Yet now, after defeating a Red Knight who had abducted and beaten a woman (see ll. 3696-3709, 3782-84), he brings water to his adversary and tends to his wounds, whereupon the dying man confesses his sins. Walewein's response, illustrative of his new persona, is an exhortation to the man to repent ‘and pray to the Virgin Mary for mercy’ (l. 3934). He goes on to insist that

Neen alder warelt mesdaet
Sprac Walewein es harde clene
Jeghen die Gods ghenaden allene

Hi mach u wel van uwen zonden
Quiten secse al uut ende uut
Jou biechte nu al over luut

[‘...the sins of the entire world...are insignificant compared to God's mercy alone....He can absolve you of your sins, if you speak your confession now fully and clearly’, ll. 3946-48, 3952-54]

12 On occasion, these epithets appear tinged with irony: in ll. 3786-87, we read that Walewein the Mild ‘became even more enraged than before.’

13 Or perhaps that is an understatement, because Dante's pilgrim has lessons to learn, whereas Walewein may give lessons but does not require them himself.

[p. 313]

And after the Red Knight has confessed, but just before he dies, Walewein entreats the woman to forgive the man for abducting her.

Throughout this section, the author allies martial efforts with religious concerns, creating a crusading spirit and conferring upon the text an almost hagiographic character, though without displacing traditional chivalric themes. And from this point on, Walewein's piety pays practical dividends: when he is much later in prison, the soul of the Red Knight comes to speak with him; the hero's chains miraculously fall away, and the soul delivers him from the dungeon (ll. 8333-428).

Walewein's consistent success comes as no great surprise: romance convention virtually dictates it. But we may not have anticipated this ‘elevation’ of the character of Walewein, his transformation into a pious figure, for in the beginning he is presented only as a nearly flawless but purely secular knight of Arthur's court. Yet, anticipated or not, the narrator's juxtaposition of different states dramatizes the only kind of evolution available to a Walewein.¹⁴ Another character (a Perceval, for example) may have flaws that demand remedy; a French Gauvain generally succeeds in spite of persistent flaws. But Walewein can move only from one kind of excellence to another, and he therefore becomes a religious hero as well as a consummate knight.

Even before that change, however, he is clearly privileged, not only in his personal qualities, but also by fate, narrative convention, and the authorial hand, all of which conspire to skew events in his favor. That is to say that, although no spiritual dimension is evident at the beginning, his prodigious ability to overcome obstacles and survive ordeals is matched by a tendency for those obstacles themselves, properly handled by the narrator, simply to dissolve before him.

Yet if the authors manipulate events freely, often passing off that manipulation as narrative accident, their originality is not limited to shaping and smoothing Walewein's way. As a brief survey will demonstrate, they innovate at every turn, recycling narrative nethods and quest conventions alike to produce a highly distinctive romance. And central to their vision is the guiding consciousness of their narrator.

14 The discussion of unexpected developments calls to mind once again the vow Walewein had made never to use the Sword with Two Rings against Christians. The failure to communicate that oath to us may well represent an authorial inadvertence. But it is also true that Walewein's religious fervor and spiritual presence were unprepared. The almost paratactic juxtaposition of consecutive states, with no attempt to trace the gradual transition from one to the next, is typical of these authors and could almost justify a defense of the abrupt reference to the vow. It is unprepared, but it is not necessarily inappropriate.

The Presence of the Narrator

When Walewein first sets out in quest of the chess set, he pursues it into an opening in a mountain (l. 256), where he is trapped with several dragons. While fighting a dragon, Walewein drops his sword, and the narrator comments, in the first of numerous such warnings,¹⁵ that Walewein ‘would greatly rue this later’, l. 448. Similar warnings are common in medieval romance but generally have substance; for example, when Chrétien de Troyes's Lancelot hesitates briefly before climbing into the cart, the narrator informs us that

Mar le fist et mar en ot honte
que maintenant sus ne sailli,
qu'il s'an tendra por mal bailli.

[‘He would regret this moment of hesitation and be accursed and shamed for it; later he would consider himself ill-fortuned’.¹⁶]

15 Such warnings, to the effect that Walewein (or, later, Ysabele) is in danger or has committed an error, occur frequently (see, for example, ll. 448, 6563, 6724, 7972-73, 8034-36, 8792-94).

16 Chrétien de Troyes: Lancelot, lines 362-64. This is the edition and translation by William W. Kibler. New York, 1981.

[p. 314]

When Chrétien says that no good can come from an event, we can generally believe him, and Lancelot's hesitation will indeed provoke a crisis. Like Chrétien, the Dutch narrator will regularly alert us to impending catastrophes, but unlike Chrétien, he will regularly be wrong. More precisely, he offers warnings that function by antiphrasis: once we learn that the narrator's intent and the conventions of this text ensure success for the hero, the expressions of alarm constitute ironic reassurance that all will be well and that Walewein will extricate himself from danger with little difficulty.

This practice of sounding false alarms raises a fascinating question: if the narrator is consistently wrong in his pronouncements concerning the dangers facing Walewein, should we not also doubt him when he praises the hero without qualification? Given the Gauvain tradition, we might not be surprised to find a narrator, tongue in cheek, praising him only to reveal him then as weak, inconstant, or ridiculous. In the Walewein, though, that simply does not happen. It is true, as we shall see, that he is sometimes presented in humorous contexts, but he himself is never shown as a comical or weak figure.

The fact that Walewein is destined for success, that he is praised not only by the narrator but by others, and that he acquires a near-saintly persona in his third quest - all these elements argue for a literal acceptance of the narrator's praise for him. Consequently, we must accept the fundamental ambiguity of the narrative interventions, which are clearly intended to be taken seriously when speaking in praise of Walewein but designed to be discounted when predicting danger, difficulty, or failure for him. After some early uncertainty, it becomes apparent that the commentary is a transparent rhetorical strategy designed to identify situations that to another knight might well constitute impediments, but that are easily enough overcome by Walewein. Thus, when applied to Walewein (and twice to his ladylove Ysabele¹⁷), the narrator's dire warnings become nothing more than a prediction of success that further illustrates the hero's superiority. Ironically, by proving himself consistently wrong in such cases, the unreliable narrator becomes a reliable shaper of our expectations.

Thus, the loss of Walewein's sword, leading the narrator to imply dire consequences, proves to be of no real consequence, because it happens that he also has a dagger and is therefore able to kill the dragon by stabbing it in the navel and penetrating its heart. But he is in a sorry state: his armor is ruined, his shield gone, his lance broken, his sword lost, and his fine horse Gringolet missing. He is deprived of all the tools and accoutrements of his chivalric trade. But Walewein is never vulnerable for long, and just as we begin to fear the worst for him, he simply finds his sword and his horse. This is a pattern that will be repeated several times: he is deprived of his horse or weapons, but he always recovers them promptly or else finds that he has no need for them.¹⁸ Events that would constitute crises for another knight are temporary inconveniences for Walewein.

On several occasions, and even though the irony is now inescapable, the narrator goes so far as to qualify his own statements in revealing ways. For example, he once notes that Ysabele made a serious mistake, but he casts doubt on his judgment (‘I believe’, l. 7971) and goes on to append a further qualification: it is a serious error unless her luck is excellent (l. 7973). Similarly, he warns that Walewein's obeying a request will bring him bad luck - ‘unless his luck improves’ (ll. 8790-94). In this instance, the act in question is neither dangerous nor foolhardy. Instead, it is humorously trivial: the hero has been

17 See ll. 7971-73, 8034-36. The latter reference is to both Ysabele and Walewein.

18 For example, he gives up his horse Gringolet in l. 1523 but later recovers him (ll. 2204-05). More dramatically, Roges the fox later takes Walewein's sword, horse, shield, and armor (ll. 5166ff.). The solution is predictably close at hand: Walewein strikes the fox, who consequently apologizes to him and returns his belongings, continuing thereafter to serve him faithfully until he regains his human form (ll. 10924-33).

[p. 315]

invited to wash his hands. By now, we cannot be surprised that his luck does in fact improve. That is predictable and reliable - which of course means that it is not really ‘luck’ at all - and the narrator's words serves as a wink of complicity to the reader rather than a portent of impending adversity.

The narrator not only continues to offer inaccurate cues concerning the dangers facing the hero, but progressively emphasizes his own unreliability and uncertainty in other ways. He contends, with apparent modesty, that he does not know whether Walewein and Ysabele ‘played the game of love’ (ll. 7944-46), but his profession of narrative ignorance is followed immediately by an accumulation of explicit details - e.g., ‘they gave free rein to their desires’, l. 7950 - confirming that they unmistakably did play that game and that he knows it perfectly well. And even though Walewein's ultimate success is never in doubt, the narrator's uncertainty continues into the conclusion of the romance. There he tells us that ‘there are those who would claim’ that Walewein married Ysabele and later succeeded Arthur as king (ll. 11103-07); he adds that he himself does not believe that, but he chooses not to deny it, because it ‘could well be true’ (11110). He insists yet again (11169-70) that he is not sure whether Walewein married Ysabele, and then, on this note of explicit uncertainty, Pieter Vostaert adds a few details about himself and his continuation of the story. There the romance ends.

The deceptive use of doubt occurs in the narrative as well as in the process of narration, that is, in incident as well as commentary. Repeatedly, Walewein finds himself at an impasse, and we are informed that he can see no way out; he does not know how he can escape or reach his destination. But in this romance, with Walewein's failure virtually inconceivable, the information that a problem appears to have no solution is consistently followed by a remarkably, sometimes ludicrously, simple one. Two brief examples will give a sufficient idea of the narrator's response to the hero's dilemmas.¹⁹

The first occurs after Walewein kills the dragon. He is on the mountain and can find no way down without a perilous fall and the risk of drowning. Preferring death to despair, he has his horse jump into the water (l. 709). His fears prove entirely unfounded, and he and the horse easily make their way to shore.

Later, seeking a castle, he comes to the water and sees his objective on a rock (ll. 2855ff.). He can see no way to reach it, but he determines to try, and he succeeds with almost comical ease: his horse simply walks across to the rock at low tide. Once across, he is ‘trapped’ by the tide rushing in, but when he is in most danger, he suddenly notices a gate before him and rides safely through it (ll. 2940-41).

These situations are typical and recur regularly: once, his horse swims an apparently impassible river (ll. 3735ff.), and twice he makes his way under a river through trap doors (ll. 6044ff., 8419ff.). Only once does he face a genuine challenge at a body of water: he must cross the Sword Bridge (ll. 4958ff.). Otherwise, he faces little real danger and runs few genuine risks.

19 Available examples are however numerous. The first occurs very early in the romance, when Walewein finds his way blocked by the mountain. He sees no way to follow the chess set, but as he is about to despair, he ‘became aware / of where the mountain suddenly gaped open’ (ll. 254-55).

Arthurian Motifs and Conventions

Just as dangers generally prove illusory in the Dutch romance, so do numerous con-

[p. 316]

ventions and motifs exhibit original contours and diverge, sometimes surprisingly, from their expected trajectory. So systematic, in fact, is the recycling of traditional material in this text that we may find ourselves unable in some instances to differentiate between design and accident in the pattern of motival variation.

This basic ‘undecidability’ is illustrated most clearly in the romance's initial sequence. All readers of Arthurian romance are familiar with the custom that often prohibits Arthur and his knights from dining until some adventure has occurred or been recounted at court; the impression is almost that the waiting actually generates the adventure.²⁰ That situation is inverted in this romance, which opens on a scene of a feast, only to have an adventure occur immediately afterward. We assuredly overread if we take this as a deliberate transformation of the motif, for its traditional form is never rigid and invariable; yet this initial scene cannot fail to alert us to the narrative possibility of additional alterations or inversions of the Arthurian motifs we know from other texts. Or, to state matters differently, our later realization that motifs are regularly treated in unconventional fashion in Walewein will require retrospective reevaluation of even the least ‘suspect’ material.

In any event, from this point on, the reader will find recurrent but sometimes eccentric use of familiar Arthurian motifs.²¹ Conspicuous examples, in addition to the familiarity of some characters (and in particular the sarcasm of Kay, ll. 1719-35), include the Sword Bridge, the corpse that bleeds in the presence of its killer (l. 8832), and the presence of a waste land (l. 9617).

In particular, the Dutch authors demonstrate an affinity for some major motifs drawn from the Grail quest.²² Two prominent examples are the Perilous Seat and the Grail itself. Walewein arrives at a castle where he is placed in a chair with special protective properties: ‘lightning nor thunder nor any other dangerous thing might touch the man who sat in that seat’ (ll. 1018-21). Surely, no one reasonably familiar with the French tradition could possibly read of the special chair in the Dutch text and not be reminded immediately of the Perilous Seat, a place reserved at the Round Table for the chosen knight Galahad, with all others who sit in it destined to perish immediately.

However, not everyone would agree that this chair and the Perilous Seat are related. It might be suggested - as some scholars have done²³ - that the chair's protective rather than destructive properties, as well as the absence of supernatural phenomena associated with it in Walewein, disprove any connection with the Perilous Seat. But in fact, these divergences argue only against an assumption of motif duplication, whereas the relationship between the two seats is no less obvious for being based on inversion or negation. It is precisely the nature of the Dutch text to innovate in such matters, locating itself within the constellation of traditional Arthurian motifs and offering distinctive treatments of them. Even to deny that the two motifs are related confirms their intertextual association; the effect of the inversion is to oblige the reader to measure one against the other, ‘interrogating’ the Dutch romance and thereby assessing its innovations and its characteristic individuality.

The Walewein's counterpart of the Grail quest is the impetus for the entire work. The intrigue is initiated by Arthur's desire to possess the magical chess set, which at the outset of the story simply floats into his court under its own power, radiating a marvelous glow (ll. 47-65). That this is a reflection of the Grail is evident: the Grail, in the French Vulgate,²⁴ floats into the hall where the knights are gathered; it gener-

20 See my ‘On Customs in Medieval French Romance’. In: Dix siècles de littérature française (Marche Romane), forthcoming.

21 For a thorough treatment of Arthurian intertextuality in this romance, see Bart Besamusca: ‘Walewein,’ ‘Moriaen’ en de ‘Ridder metter mouwen’: Intertekstualiteit in drie Middelnederlandse Arturromans. Hilversum, 1993, chap. II (p. 41-83).

22 My discussion assumes that the authors are rehandling Arthurian motifs that were familiar from a number of sources; it is not intended as a comparison of particular passages with their direct source or sources. In regard to the latter, Johnson (Walewein (n. 1), p. xxxix) points out that the French Vulgate Lancelot has often been taken as the Walewein source, either directly, as Jonckbloet assumed, or through the intermediary of the Middle Dutch Lantsloot vander Haghedochte, according to Janssens.)

23 Walewein. Ed. Johnson (n. 1), p. 542-543, n. to l. 1021.

24 In La Queste del saint Graal. Ed. Pauphilet (n. 12), p. 15. Here the Grail enters the room under its own power. It is more often carried into a room (in Chrétien de Troyes's Perceval and the Prose Lancelot, for example), but its brilliant light is a standard and predictable characteristic.

[p. 317]

ates its own light, glowing marvelously; and once it is gone, a quest soon ensues.²⁵

Having perceived these similarities, we are again inevitably struck, though surely no longer surprised, by the differences. Primary among them is the fact that whereas the chess set glows and moves by itself, it does not seem to have other powers, nor does it possess, so far as we know, any religious or mystical significance. It is simply an object with some remarkable properties that pique Arthur's interest.²⁶

Even more dramatic is the difference between the reasons for the two quests. The Grail's significance is obvious and overwhelming: depending on the text, someone is either healed or mercifully permitted to die; the waste land is restored; a new Grail king is chosen. Although the chess set is a marvelous phenomenon, it appears not to possess curative or spiritual powers; and unlike the Grail, it does not later assume symbolic or other value. The only indication that it is anything except an intriguing mystery is a single line in which Arthur says, ‘Hen quam hier sonder redene niet’ (‘it came here not without reason’, l. 70), but the explanation, if there really is one, is nowhere given.

Once again, the Dutch text is remarkable for the authors' innovative treatment of conventional materials. The chess set retains some of the marvelous properties of the Grail but is deprived of both its powers and its religious significance. Thus, although both objects are the focus of major quests, Walewein's lacks the portentousness of the Grail quest. It might be assumed as a result that the Dutch romance presents an exercise in frivolity, with the hero undergoing ordeals and meeting challenges for no reason other than to recover a curiosity. Were that the case, Walewein would share a characteristic with Gauvain, who in the French tradition has a tendency to set off on arduous quests to recover an object (such as an ordinary bridle for a mule²⁷) that possesses no particular value. But in the French, he does so for thrills or for fame, whereas the Dutch gives us no reason to attribute less than noble motives to him.

Nonetheless, the seriousness with which Walewein undertakes a quest for an object of uncertain value, as well as the authors' regular practice of removing obstacles or resolving situations in the hero's favor, should lead us to expect unconventional occurrences during Walewein's adventures. We will not be disappointed. The successive quests offer more and more complex adventures and challenges, but also a provocative mix of tones. That is, Walewein's triumphs remain predictable and are even accomplished, in many cases, with an ease that becomes almost humorous.

25 The opening scene of the Walewein actually combines motifs we know through the French Queste and, later, through Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. When he announces his desire for the chess set, Arthur's request is met by silence. No one volunteers, until at last the king himself concludes that he will have to undertake the quest personally. Then, and only then, Walewein volunteers. Gawain, in the English romance, is also a late volunteer - but the only one who prevents Arthur's undertaking the beheading game with the Green Knight. There is to my knowledge no reason to suspect influence of one text on the other, but both of them illustrate the hero's willingness to assist Arthur when all other knights are reticent or fearful.

26 The chess set is to be sought, apparently, for no other reason than that Arthur would like to have it (ll. 67-76, 98). Here he behaves far more like the Arthur of Chrétien de Troyes's Erec et Enide, indifferent to the danger of the hunt for the White Stag and ordering it simply for his personal pleasure, than like a king whose sponsoring of the Grail quest springs from a profound moral imperative.

27 The specific reference here, though a number of others could be offered as well, is to the short romance entitled La Mule sans frein. See, for example, my ‘Chivalry in Le Chevalier à l'épée and La Mule sans frein.’ In: Vox Romanica 45 (1986), p. 150-156.

Walewein's Quests

Leaving Arthur's court, Walewein encounters several challenges and dangers (especially the dragons), but his progress toward the accomplishment of the first quest is largely direct and linear. Once he learns that he must seek the Sword with the Two Rings in order to obtain the chess set, he embarks on the second quest. This one develops with significantly less clarity than the first one. Specifically, much of this part of the narrative is devoted to a young man whose brother has been abducted. Walewein comes to the aid of this youth, gives him his horse so he can go the Arthur's court to be knighted, and later assists him in battle. The young man eventually becomes his squire. Thus, the focus of this quest has been deflected, and instead of following

[p. 318]

Walewein directly to his objective, the narrative presents an unrelated sequence that illustrates his generosity and valor, but in which his goal is virtually obscured. Nonetheless, once this sequence is concluded, he arrives at the castle where the sword, the object of his search, is located.

If the second quest presents a major subplot, it is fair to say that the third has plots within plots. First, there is the encounter with the Red Knight, Walewein's return of that knight's victim to her father, and the burial of the Red Knight; then Walewein has to cross the Sword Bridge, and afterwards he encounters a fox (or, more precisely, a knight transformed into that likeness). At this point, an additional extended quest (to enable the fox to regain his human form) is paired with the primary one, but before either is completed, Walewein must still accomplish his greatest feats. He also falls in love with Ysabele, is imprisoned with her, and escapes, assisted by the soul of the dead knight.

Despite the proliferation of adventures and potential distractions, we can still have no doubt that Walewein will succeed in his quests. Yet that predestination is ironically more conspicuous precisely because Walewein does not appear obsessively or even overtly concerned with reaching them. In fact, except at the end of the first quest (ll. 2672ff.), Walewein, unlike many romance heroes, rarely insists on the urgency of his task and on his need to depart. As a result, the subsequent narrative complications and convolutions constitute less a test of Walewein's resolve, which is not in question, than a deliberate effort to dramatize his status as a hero whose success is assured by his character and by narrative stipulation.²⁸

This comparative ease with which Walewein is able to accomplish his goals, even when he does not appear to focus his attention on them, is most strongly underlined in the scenes that ostensibly - but no more than ostensibly - constitute his most arduous challenges. To achieve his quest and win Ysabele, he must penetrate a series of ten gates set, apparently, in concentric walls of a fortress (ll. 6158ff.). After a battle, the defenders of the first gate retreat to the second (ll. 6201-02), where they are ridiculed by its defenders for fleeing from a single man. Then all of them must retreat to the third (ll. 6324-25), where they are all the subject of ridicule.

This pattern repeats itselfuntil Walewein pursues the guards to the fifth gate. (Here the narrator again warns that this was the hero's ‘great mistake’ - ‘Daer dede hi grote dulheit an,’ l. 6563 - a warning that, as usual, is without foundation.²⁹) The hero kills all who remain at the fifth gate, and before proceeding to meet the massed defenders of the sixth, he has a respite, which is recounted in almost whimsical fashion. He sees a brightly lighted hall and enters to find tables covered with fine food (see ll. 6707ff.). He removes his armor - a foolish move, the narrator argues wrongly (6724) - and then cavalierly drinks, eats, and falls asleep.

By this time his feats of arms have so impressed the enemy that they mistake him for an entire army, and they send out a force of three hundred knights, leaving the gates unlocked (l. 6845). Here Walewein might be expected to be facing his strongest challenge. But this romance is notable for providing the unexpected and for mixing the tones of its own narration, and the next step is in fact his easiest. The sounds of the army awaken him but cause no apparent alarm. He appears to be in no great hurry: before arming himself, he sees the food on the tables and casually breakfasts, saying,

28 It is true that after the Red Knight's death and his captive's return to her father, Walewein resists efforts to persuade him to remain and enjoy hospitality: ‘Inne bleve hier niet om ghene have / Die mi aldie warelt gave / Inne lette toten daghe niet...’ (‘I would not remain here for any treasure / that the world might give me. I shall not wait until dawn...,’ ll. 4655-57). But the urgency of these words is illusory, for it reflects his desire to return, not to the primary quest, but to the dead knight, who requires burial.

29 It is true that Walewein will eventually be captured, but the warning pertains not to his possible foolhardiness in trying to capture the castle, but to his actions at particular points in the process. As such, they are patently false alarms.

[p. 319]

 

Ic ben hier so wel gheseten

 

Ic sal van deser spise eten

 

Eer ic heden up sta God weet

 

Mi es onwijs waer ic dus ghereet

 

Sal vinden alsic henen scede

 

Eten ende drinken bede

 

 

 

[‘I am so well situated here / that I shall eat of this food / before I rise today, by God. / I do not know where I shall find / such ready provisions, both food and drink, / once I have left here.’ ll. 6888-93.]

Throughout this sequence, which might be expected to test his strength and resolve to the limit, Walewein's ordeal requires comparatively little effort on his part. There are several battles, from which his enemies predictably flee; the one that takes place at the fifth gate is large and terrible, but he annihilates the enemy without harm to himself. Following his pleasant evening, provided with copious food and drink and a comfortable bed, his adventures are almost comically simple: when a massed army rides out to meet the enemy (that is, Walewein alone, whom they take to be a full army), the hero merely walks in through the open gates. And then, as the army returns, he simply locks them out. Only when he enters the tenth gate does he face a difficult challenge; the text once again becomes ‘serious’, and Walewein is eventually captured. But it is by now inconceivable that he could long remain in prison, and the narrator soon sends him on his way, hastening and abetting his triumphant achievement of his quests.

As noted, Walewein cannot avoid success, and most often he earns it easily or has it thrust upon him. On occasion he is genuinely tested or endangered, but those events simply defer success or offer dramatic punctuation to a series of episodes of lighter tone and easier accomplishment. Even when he is captured and left in chains, there is no need to fear for him. When narrative chance, such as low tide or previously invisible gates, does not save him, his prowess does. And on the rare occasions when even that will not suffice, the force of his virtue prevails: he and Ysabele are delivered from prison by the soul of the grateful Red Knight - and no less by the narrator's benevolent intervention.

Conclusion

The focus in this romance is rarely removed from Walewein, who remains firmly anchored at the center of virtually all the romance's action. But if he is the point of focus, it takes only the smallest shift of perspective to let us see that the actual center of consciousness in the romance is instead the narrator. He is essential to the achievement of the quests and the shaping of the text, and he regularly asserts rather than conceals his presence. Despite some textual disarticulations (some of them due no doubt to dual authorship), the narrative method throughout the romance remains remarkably consistent, from the explicit expressions of doubt to the overt and immoderate praise for the hero and to the unapologetic manipulation of narrative forces.

[p. 320]

The fictional world thus created by the authors and animated by their narrator is ideally fitted to a novel conception of the character. Thus, not only Walewein (a virtually perfected Gauvain) and his experiences, but also the particular rehandling and reanimation of Arthurian conventions make this an intriguing romance. To those who bring to it assumptions and expectations drawn from French or other Arthurian traditions, it stands as a fascinating case study in the adaptation of romance materials. But it would be unjust, as well as entirely unnecessary, to define it merely as evidence in a comparative study. It stands easily on its own merits, and it richly rewards our reading.

Adress of the author: Romance languages & literature, Washinton University, St. Louis, mo 61130 usa.