Some Notes on Medieval Studies and Folklore

Abstract

E VERY scholar acquainted with the most important manuals of folklore, social anthropology, and oral tradition will be familiar with some aspects of the influence exercised by medieval tradition on modern folklore. Who would overlook, for instance, the medieval background of modern folk traditions, while investigating the material amassed in Aarne-Thompson, in the Motif-Index by Stith Thompson and in his The Folktale, in the Handworterbuch des deutschen Aberglaubens, and in the monumental collection of versions and annotations by Bolte and Polivka?1 Perhaps half of the motifs included in the Motif-Index must be regarded as material of medieval provenance, and had Bolte been only a folklorist without thorough knowledge of the Middle Ages, we would not attribute the same immense value to his work. Plots and motifs of many folktales go back to medieval sources, and there are many international tales associated with medieval tradition. I mention here only a few examples: An early version of the Grateful Dead (Type 505-508) appears in medieval literature as a short exemplum or Predigtmirlein.2 The late Paul Delarue, who in the introduction to his recent type-index of French folktales3 briefly deals with some interconnections of folktales and medieval literature, demonstrates that the famous medieval romance Berthe au grand pied is linked with the folktale The Black and White Bride (Type 403); among the Lays of Marie de France there are several with such a popular background as the international folktale types 432 (The Prince as Bird), 400 (The Man on a Quest for his lost Wife) and 612 (The Three Snake-Leaves). Swahn in his recent monograph on Types 425 and 4284 refers in this connection not only to the twelfth-century Danish Chronicler Saxo Grammaticus and his Otherus and Syritha but also to several romances of medieval chivalry such as Parthenope de Blois and Friedrich von Schwaben. These are only a few examples, of course; however, before passing to other subjects, I should like to give here one more example from my own recent experiences. The study of the international tale type 301 (The Three Stolen Princesses) led me to an intensive search of early versions. To my great surprise, I found that there is an inexplicable gap of some sixteen centuries between the supposed earliest known version of this tale, hidden and disguised in the works of Konon (a Greek mythographer and a contemporary of Augustus6), and the second earliest known version (recorded by Galland and found in the Appendix of the Arabian Nights7). I am happy to say that, by a lucky chance, I discovered the first and only full medieval version of Type 301, hidden in a little-known Dutch romance-epic of Torec of the thirteenth century. The Melions episode of Torec 8 is the first complete version of this tale recorded before the eighteenth century. It is peculiar that this version was overlooked so long, in spite of the importance attached to the study of chivalric literature for folktale investigations. A glance at the material in the Handworterbuch des deutschen Aberglaubens will convince