Before I withdrew from the "debate" on things Arthurian with Dr. Linda Malcor and her supporters, I had dared state that her one and only strong argument in favor of the Sarmatian influence supposedly present in the romance literature - the one linking the story of the tossing of Excalibur into the lake with another sword deposition found in Ossetic folklore - was, in fact, no argument at all. As her other "proofs" of Sarmato-Alanic origin for Arthurian motifs rely upon gross errors in linguistics and distorted historical/archaeological sequences, the sword-lake tale took on a supreme importance in her overall theory. Although I had dealt with the Celtic elements of the episode in some depth before (see https://mistshadows.blogspot.com/2020/07/king-arthurs-sword-excalibur-lightning.html), and had gone so far as to begrudgingly concede that a late, Continental romance writer may have had access to a folk motif similar to that of the Batraz story and had cleverly applied it to the Arthurian context, I had never bothered to do a true, comparative-contrast treatment of the two stories. It is to remedy that oversight that I offer the current blog article.
To begin, let's discuss the beginning of the Vulgate version (https://books.google.com/books/about/Lancelot_Grail_The_death_of_Arthur.html?id=d-jFvu5lp8EC:
To begin, let's discuss the beginning of the Vulgate version (https://books.google.com/books/about/Lancelot_Grail_The_death_of_Arthur.html?id=d-jFvu5lp8EC:
24. The Death of Arthur (Lancelot-Grail, Vol. 7, tr. Norris J. Lacy):
[Arthur:] "Where will you find any man who will use you as well as I have, unless you fall into the hands of Lancelot? Oh! Lancelot, most worthy man and best knight in the world, may it please Jesus Christ that you have this sword and that I know you have it!..."
Then the king called Girflet and said to him, "Go to that hill, where you will find a lake; and throw my sword into it, for I want it to disappear from this kingdom, so that it won't fall into evil hands."
"Sir," he replied, "I'll do your bidding, but I would much prefer, if it please you, that you give it to me instead."
"I won't do that," said the king, "for you would not use it properly."
Then Girflet climbed the hill, and when he came to the lake, he drew the sword from the sheath and began to look at it. And it seemed to him so good and so beautiful that he thought it would be a great pity to throw it into the lake as the king...
As is well known, Girflet is an Old French attempt at Welsh Gilfaethwy, a hero of the MABINOGION. I have elsewhere discussed the probable etymology of his name and his association with the 'druidic' isle of Anglesey, with its lake of sacred votive deposits (again see https://mistshadows.blogspot.com/2020/07/king-arthurs-sword-excalibur-lightning.html).
The emphasis on Lancelot in this passage is critical to our understanding of the hidden, sacred nature of the story. For Lancelot's origin lay in the lake, and he was called 'of the Lake.' The name/epithet Lancelot of the Lake does not, as Malcor has always claimed, derive from a French version of Alan (itself of Breton name wrongly linked to the Alanic tribe). It is, instead, transparently (as can be shown through a step progression from Irish and Welsh) from Llwch (W. form of the god Lugh) + Llaw-caled (Ir. Lamh-calad) for "Lugh of the Strong-hand." By saying he wants Lancelot to have the sword, and then casting the weapon into the lake, he is, in effect, giving the precious item to the god of the lake.
We should recall that Arthur's sword came from the lake originally. It was thus appropriate that it be returned to the same place.
As for the remainder of the Vulgate account:
We now put alongside the Vulgate sword-deposition story that belonging to the Ossetic tradition:
[https://www.scribd.com/book/
Finally a small portion of them was left alive, and they beseeched Batraz not to
drive the Nart race to extinction and to offer some chance for them to escape from
his attack. Then Batraz showed mercy toward them and answered that after having
inflicted such misery on them it was enough and that he would die. But up until
that time he had not been able to die because his sword Dzus-qara had not been
thrown away into the sea. He said that he was fated to die only in that way. Other-
wise he would live and bring death upon them until they were all exterminated.
Again, the Narts were in misery. How were they to throw the sword of Batraz
into the sea? They decided to speak as though they had already done so, to per-
suade him that the sword was already thrown into the sea and that the time for him
to die had come. The Narts went and said to sick Batraz, with varying assurances,
that his sword had been thrown away and that the end of his life had come. Batraz
asked them what they had seen when they had thrown the sword away. The Narts
finally answered that nothing special had happened to the sea.
“Thus you must know,” said Batraz, “the sword Dzus-qara has not been thrown
into the sea; otherwise you would have seen several miracles.”
Upon these words of Batraz, the Narts hastened with all their strength and
might to carry out the wish of Batraz. With the help of the few thousand still living
they dragged Batraz’s sword to the shore and threw it into the sea. When the sword
was cast away a great storm rose up and the water erupted into waves. The sea it-
self began to boil and took on the color of blood. The Narts were astonished by
these miracles and their gladness was boundless. They went and related to Batraz
what they had seen. He, persuaded of their truth, at last give up his spirit, after
which it was easy for the Narts to give his remains to the earth.
Firstly, as I have previously explained, there is no possible philological relationship between the names Batraz and Bedwyr (who replaces Girflet in the Stanzaic Morte Arthur and Malory). Any supposed resemblance of the two names is purely coincidental.
We have a difference right away: it is not a lake the sword is cast into, but the sea. And the motivation for the respective actions are totally unrelated. In the Batraz tale, the sword must be gotten rid of before the hero himself can die. The deception is present, due the reluctance of the Narts to lose the sword. But the triple motif is absent. What happens when Batraz's sword is cast into the sea bears no resemblance to what happens when Excalibur is deposited into the lake. Batraz dies on the spot when his sword has vanished beneath the waves, while Arthur is ferried away to the Isle of Avalon to be healed of his wounds by his sister Morgan.
As far as I can tell, then, the only similarity between these two accounts is that a wounded or soon to be dead hero has someone cast his valuable sword into a body of water. Now this may well be deemed a motif common to the Arthurian and Ossetic traditions. But the problem we always have in these kinds of cases is how to determine transmission. If such transmission can't be demonstrated or seems counter to other evidence or even good argument, then we must allow for the very real possibility that we are dealing with an archetype, i.e. a mythological or folkloristic element that arose independently in two separate cultures. These occur rather frequently and are due to the identical structure and functioning of the human brain, our shared perception/experience of the world and the uncannily similar belief systems we develop.
My examination of the two sword deposition stories leads me to believe that they are, in fact, not related through transmission. We merely have an instance in which two different cultures both had relics in their tradition of the ancient, ritual deposition of weapons in bodies of water. We know the Celts did this, as we have numerous archaeological examples of such a practice. I have not studied whether there is evidence of such votive depositions being made by the Sarmatians or related tribes, but I have little doubt that some research might well reveal this to be the case.
No comments:
Post a Comment
Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.