¹ I am indebted to such essays as those by Alfred Nutt, in the Voyage of Bran, vol. i; A. C. L. Brown, Yvain, in Harvard Studies and Notes, vol. viii; E. J. Becker, Mediæval Visions of Heaven and Hell, Baltimore, 1899; W. A. Neilson, The Court of Love, Harvard Studies and Notes, vol. vi; T. Wright, St. Patrick's Purgatory, London, 1844; Baring-Gould, Curious Myths of the Middle Ages, Longmans Green, 1914; Graf, Miti, Leggende e Superstizioni, Torino, 1892, vol. i. Professor F. N. Robinson, of Harvard University, has kindly looked over this paper with regard to the Celtic material; Professor G. A. Barton, of Bryn Mawr College, in regard to the Oriental documents mentioned.

² Zimmer, ZDAlth. xxxiii, pp. 287–8, thinks the Irish Paradise was possibly identical with Adam's lost Paradise.

³ Thus Nutt comments (Voy. Bran, i, p. 321, n. 1) on the fact that the Vedic heaven is essentially aristocratic. No deformed person could enter Yima's enclosure in the Avestic heaven. Note also in the Jewish heavens the various realms for various types (Hebrew Encycl., “Paradise,” p. 516).

⁴ See Schirmer, Zur Brendanus-Legende, Leipzig, 1888, pp. 17 ff.; Zimmer, ZDAlth. xxxiii, pp. 280 ff. This view is not limited to the Celts: cf. note 6.

⁵ See Helge's journey to the north on the coast of Finmark (Pydberg, Teutonic Mythology, London, 1889, p. 211); Nutt, Voy. Bran, i, pp. 298 ff.; see the voyage north taken by Gorm, Rydberg, pp. 212 ff., and Saxo's Hist., Elton's Trans., pp. 344 ff.; see Elton's intro. to Saxo, p. lxxv: “The dark, fuelless, starless land, seems like a myth built on the facts of the Arctic islands.”

⁶ Note the garden “Eastward in Eden,” Genesis ii, 8 ff.; travels to the east in the vision of the Monk of Eynsham (Arber's Reprints, no. 18); “The garden of delight lieth on earth in this world in the regions of the east,” D'Ancona and Bacci, Manuale delle letteratura Italiana, i, pp. 437 ff.; Dante enters his garden of Eden from the west; see the scene on the hill Caucasus, Thoms, Prose Romances, iii, p. 242; see Baring-Gould, Curious Myths, pp. 251, 253, 255, 257, 258, 525; T. Wright, St. Pat. Purg., p. 94 (opposite the Ganges); (in India) Abhandlungen der Philologisch-historischen Classe der Königl. Sachs. Gesells. der Wiss., Leipzig, 1876, viii, p. 123, § 13. See a comparison of Eden with the Babylonian Paradise at Eridu, Jeremias, Bab. Conc. of Heaven and Hell (trans. Hutchinson), London, 1902, p. 39; Hibbert Lectures, 1887, Sayce, p. 238; Jastrow, Hebrew and Bab. Traditions, N. Y., 1914, pp., 218 and 209. See also Graf, Miti, Leggende, vol. i, pp. 1 and 3.

Compare, however, the Egyptian journey with the sun-god to the west, Maspero, Dawn of Civilization (trans. McClure), third ed., N. Y., 1897, p. 197; the Greek isles of the Hesperides and the Elysium (Od. iv, ll. 563 ff.); and the Fortunate Isles. Compare also Cockayne—“bi Weste Spaygne,” and Baring-Gould, Curious Myths, pp. 525 ff. It is reported as a common saying when a man is killed in the fighting in France to-day that he has “gone west.”

⁷ See the two men of copper in Huon de Bordeaux, vv. 4553–4570 and 4715; Paton, Fairy Mythol., p. 168; note also the men of copper, Perlesvaus, branch xvii, title xiii; the armed figures at the bridge of the Fata Morgana, Bojardo, Orl. Innam., ii, vii, 42 ff.

⁸ No foreigner returns from the land of Meleagant in the Chev. Char. (see des. of the land, ll. 641 ff.,). See also Bojardo, Orl. Innam., ii, viii, 39 ff.

⁹ See the Voy. Bran (when one man returns to Ireland, he falls into a heap of ashes), Brown, Yvain, pp. 58 ff., and Zimmer, ZDA, xxxiii, pp. 258 ff.; see the romance of Thomas the Rymer, and that of Ogier the Dane and Morgan the Fay, Child, Eng. Scot. Pop. Ballads, i, p. 326; see D'Ancona and Bacci, Manuale, i, pp. 437 ff.; Baring-Gould, Cur. Myths, p. 546; Campbell, Pop. Tales, ii, p. 74.

¹⁰ The fée bids her lover not to tell of her in the Debility of the Ultonian Warriors, Brown, Yvain, pp. 31 ff. (Windisch, Berichte der Gesells. der Wiss. zu Leipzig, Phil.-hist. Classe, xxxii, p. 336, and Hull, Cuchullin Saga, pp. 97 ff.). The same is true of the fée in the Launfal story, see Romania viii, p. 50.

¹¹ See the Chostel d'Amors, Neilson, Court of Love, p. 28, where no fire is required because love makes perpetual summer. See the four portals in the palace of Andreas Capellanus, Neilson, p. 46, and compare the four portals in Fregoso's Dialogo di Fortuna, ed. 1531, cap. xiii-xv, and the similar palace in Prester John's letter, Zarncke, Abh. der Phil.-hist. Classe der Gesells. der Wiss., Leipzig, 1876, vol. 8, pp. 123 ff., §§ 35 ff. (see § 42). And see the constant use of the elements of crystal, the pillars, the garden, the fountain, the river, the streams, the mountain, etc.

¹² Claudian flourished circ. 400 A.D., but may be included in the study as a precursor of the middle ages.

¹³ See Claudian, de Nuptiis, ll. 49 ff. Summarized by Neilson, pp. 15 f.

¹⁴ Neilson, p. 124. See the summary by G. Ehrisman, PBB, xxii, pp. 303 ff.

¹⁵ Ibid., p. 137. The English version alone is accessible to me. See the “Castel of Love,” published by the Philol. Soc. (Early Eng. volume), edited by Weymouth, 1865, p. 30.

¹⁶ Ibid., p. 162. See ed. of Douglas by T. Small, Edinburgh, 1874, vol. i, pp. 51 ff.

¹⁷ Ibid., p. 87.

¹⁸ Ibid., p. 91.

¹⁹ The material on the Fortune tradition offered here is taken mainly from the chapter on “Fortune's Dwelling Place” in my as yet unpublished dissertation. There I have made a study of possible sources of this early description in the Anticlaudianus, together with a more detailed investigation of other points in this type than I can present here. Other material on the mountain is to be found in Graf, Miti, Leggende, pp. 7 ff. See also Harvard Studies and Notes, v, p. 174, n. 1 and passim.

²⁰ Migne, Pat. Lat., 210, col. 557 ff., §§ 397. This mountain Jean de Meun took over with the rest of the description into the Rom. de la Rose ll. 5941 ff., as noted by Langlois, Orig. Sources, Paris, 1891, pp. 96 ff. Petrarch apparently refers to the account in Alanus, ed. Mestica, canz. xviii, ll. 77. Again it appears in Taillevant's Régime de Fortune, p. 713 (Bal. iv, Les Oeuvres de Maistre Alain Chartier, ed. du Chesne, Paris, 1617). From the French of the Roman the tradition goes to Lydgate's Disguising at London, noted by Brotanek, Eng. Maskenspiele, pp. 309 ff.

²¹ ii, ll. 45–6.

²² Dis de L'Escharbote, ed. Scheler, 1868, p. 399 f.

²³ See the Panthere, ll. 1958. See Sypherd, Studies in the HF, pp. 117 f. He notes the Palace of Mars in the Teseide (vii, 32) which is built of ice. Chaucer's house of Fame is restored to Fortune by Sir William Jones in the Palace of Fortune (see Koeppel, Eng. Stud., xxviii, pp. 43–53). It was used by Ben Jonson in his Masque of Queens, and apparently by Dekker in his Troia-Nova Triumphans (see my note, MLN, xxxiii, p. 177).

²⁴ See the summary, part two, Gorra, Studi di Critica Letteraria, Bologna, 1892, pp. 45 ff.

²⁵ Dial., ed. 1531, cap. xiii ff. For the slipperiness see n. 30 below on the glass mountain.

²⁶ (Baudoin de Condé, ed. Scheler), 3, p. 54, ll. 160.

²⁷ As the wheel of Fortune: Rime e Satire, Florence, 1824, p. 207 (Sat. iii).

²⁸ Trissino, Tutt. le Op., Verona, 1729, Ital. Lib., ii, pp. 78 f. (Lib. xi).

²⁹ Skeat, EETS, London, repr., 1899, ll. 4630:

³⁰ See the ship of glass in the Celtic story of Connla the Fair, Brown, Yvain, p. 29; pillar of silver and glass in the Serglige Conculaind, ibid., pp. 34 ff.; the sea resembling green glass, Imram Mailduin, § 22, Brown, p. 60, Stokes, Rev. Celt., ix, pp. 447–495, x, pp. 50–95; the seven crystal walls in the Fís Adamnain, § 11 (Boswell, An Irish Precursor of Dante, London, 1908); the tower of glass, Brown, Roman. Rev., 1912, p. 158, n. 28; Lydgate's Temple of Glass; the sea of glass like unto crystal in the Book of Rev., also the city of pure gold like unto clear glass, the river of the water of life clear as crystal; the stones of crystal, Book of Enoch, xiv, 10, and the building of stones of ice, lxx (I have used the text of Dr. Richard Lawrence's translation, copied by Becker, Med. Visions, pp. 22 ff.); the wall of crystal, Monk of Eynsham, Arber's reprints, no. 18—see Becker, Med. Vis., p. 96; the crystal building, Neilson, Court of Love, p. 43; the chamber with ceiling of transparent crystal in the Midrash Konen, Hebrew Enc., “Paradise,” p. 516. See also the Celtic palace of glass, Baring-Gould, Cur. Myths, p. 536; the glass mountain in Teutonic mythology, ibid., p. 539 (bears' claws were buried with the dead to assist them in climbing) ; on the slipperiness, see the four very smooth steps leading to the palace in Giraut de Calanson, Neilson, p. 24; the Insula Vitrea or Isle de Voire, Romania xii, p. 510; Nutt, Voy. Bran., i, pp. 236 ff.; Romania, xxiv, p. 502, and xxvii, pp. 529 ff., for the connection with Glastonbury, and see Rhys, Arthurian Legend, pp. 333, 312, and 354. See the walls of crystal in the underground realm of Sir Orpheo. See the “erber of crystal walls” as of bright gold within the cumly hill in the fifteenth-century poem quoted by Wright, St. Pat. Purg., p. 85. See the ice bridge in the Breton mystère of Owain, cited by Miss Hibbard, Rom. Rev. iv, p. 174, and the bridge of glass in the Imram Mailduin. For the glasberg, see Harvard Stud. and Notes, v, p. 159, p. 171 and note 3. See the mountains of ice in the Vision of Alberic, Becker, op. cit., p. 43. Also see Heinrich von dem Türlein's Diu Crône, ed. Scholl, ll. 12947. Crystal and glass and ice are obviously used everywhere in Otherworld descriptions. For gold in the Otherworld, see Miss Paton, Fairy Mythology of Arthurian Romance, pp. 133 ff. See also Couronnement de Louis, SATF, Langlois, 1888, ll. 1795–6, l. 1827 (the gold of Avalon).

³¹ See Munsalvaesch. See the striking instance of this in Der Jüngere Titurel (Deutsehe National Literatur, Hoefische Epik, Piper, Stuttgart, pp. 466 ff.), ll. 319 ff., the mountain all of “onichel.” See the learned study Tannhäuser and the Mountain of Venus, Barto, Oxf. Univ. Press, 1916, which, however, fails to discriminate carefully in the matter of chronology and tradition.

³² For this I must refer to Miss Paton's Fairy Mythology, p. 185: the original is not accessible to me.

³³ See Gervase of Tilbury: “In Sicilia est mons Aetna … Hunc montem vulgares mongibel appellant. In hujus deserto narrant indignae Arturum magnum nostris temporibus apparuisse,” Ot. Imp., ed. Liebrecht, p. 12; Caesarius of Heisterbach: “In monte Gyber; ibi habet dominus meus Rex Arcturus. Idem mons flammas evomit sicut Vulcanus,” Dial. Mir., ed. Strange, Dist. xii, cap. xii. Barto, Tannhäuser, p. 16, says that Arthur's court was originally located within the mountain, but that later that idea seemed incomprehensible and the picture of Arthur's court on the mountain top “better fitted the usual conception of the grail-realm.” This will obviously not explain the origin of the conception of other courts on top of a mountain. I have a further referenec, which I have been unable to verify, to Morgain's castle on Mongibello in Italy, according to the thirteenth century Floriant et Florete. See further, Barto, Journal of Eng. and Ger. Philol., xv, pp. 377 ff.

³⁴ There are, of course, the underwater realms, the realms cut off from the world by mist, etc. These I shall take up in more detail later. They involve no conflict here. In his study of the Celtic Otherworld Nutt observes two main types: the oversea and the hollow hill (Voy. Bran, i, p. 229); so too Zimmer, ZDAlth., xxxiii, p. 277. MacCulloch mentions all four types (Relig. of the Anc. Celts, Edinburgh 1911, p. 362).

³⁵ Brown, Yvain, p. 59, n. 1; Stokes, Rev. Celt., x, pp. 214 ff.

³⁶ Brown, Yvain, p. 28; Windisch, Kurzgefasste Irische Gram., pp. 118–120; Nutt, Voy. Bran, i, pp. 144 f.; Zimmer, ZDAlth, xxxiii, pp. 261 ff.

³⁷ See also the Wooing of Etain, Nutt, Voy. Bran, i, pp. 174 ff.

³⁸ Child, Eng. Scot. Pop. Ballads, i, p. 326.

³⁹ Ll. 333. See for a study of the matters in this romance the article by Professor Kittredge, Amer. Jour. Philol., vii, pp. 194 ff.

⁴⁰ Historia, lib. i, c. 27.

⁴¹ Mapes, de Nugis Cur., Dist. i, c. 11, Camden Soc., Wright, p. 83.

⁴² See Remy, Jour. Eng. Ger. Philol., xii, pp. 53 ff.; and Barto, Tannhäuser and the Mountain of Venus, showing that the Grail was sometimes located inside of a mountain (p. 11) ; that Arthur's court sometimes was held to be within the mountain (pp. 11 ff..); and that Aetna, on which the Arthurian court was sometimes situated, was also held to be an entrance to Hell (p. 14). On this last point, see Mausser, die Gesch. vom Höllenberg Walhalla, Leipzig, 1910, pp. 250–8.

⁴³ See Hulbert, Mod. Philol. xiii, pp. 73, 127; Kittredge, Gawain and the Green Knight, Cambridge 1916, pp. 119, 142, 198.

⁴⁴ See the article already cited, Amer. Jour. Philol., viii, pp. 194 ff.; Burnham, PMLA, xxiii, pp. 406, n. 1, and see the connection suggested between the Hörselberg and Erceldoune, pp. 390 f.; Remy, JEGPhilol., xii, pp. 53 ff.; Wright, St. Patrick's Purg., pp. 83 ff.—note p. 85 f. the poem describing the cumly hill. See Staerk, Ueber den Ursprung der Grallegende, 1903, p. 53; Nutt, Voy. Bran, i, p. 187; and a later instance in Campbell, Pop. Tales, ii, p. 74. See also Harv. Studies and Notes, v, p. 167.

⁴⁵ As Barto does in his study of the Tannhäuser legend.

⁴⁶ A. Jeremias, The Babylonian Conception of Heaven and Hell (trans. Hutchinson), London, 1902, see the journey p. 19 and pp. 34 ff.; Mt. Mashu, p. 35. See also M. Jastrow, Hebrew and Babylonian Tradition, pp. 206 ff. In later times the Persians also held that the dead lived inside the mountain, see Vendidad, xix, 31. Jastrow points out that the gods dwell on the mountain and the dead dwell inside (The Relig. of Babyl. and Assyria, Boston, 1898, p. 558).

⁴⁷ Jeremias, op. cit., p. 24.

⁴⁸ See too the mountains regarded as the abode of the dead, Toy, Introduction to the Hist. of Relig., 1913, § 65; the mountain as the entrance to the underworld, Delitzsch, Wo lag das Paradies, Leipzig 1881, p. 117, § 13, and see Aralu of the Assyrians thus conceived doubly as the foundation and as the edifice itself of the abode of the dead, p. 120. See for the Chaldaeans, Z. A. Ragozin, The Story of Chaldaea, N. Y., 1890, p. 276 and p. 153.

⁴⁹ Referred to by Grandgent, Dante, N. Y., 1916, p. 205. Printed by D'Anconi and Bacci, Manuale della Letteratura Italiana, i, pp. 437 ff.

⁵⁰ Thoms, Prose Romances, iii, p. 242. Referred to by Becker, Med. Vis., p. 92.

⁵¹ Curious Myths of the Middle Ages, p. 255.

⁵² Brendan climbs a mountain to see in the distance the land of Promise and he remains there three days, Schirmer, Zur Brendanus-Legende, Leipzig, 1888; Zimmer, ZDAlth., xxxiii, pp. 135 ff. See the mountain of stones which constitutes one island in the English Voyage of St. Brendan, Percy Soc., xiv, p. 2. See also the mountain on an island in the Imran Mailduin, Rev. Celt., ix, p. 483, and the cliffs which are not dissimilar to those near the house of Fortune in the Anticlaudianus. See Brown, Yvain, p. 48.

⁵³ Paul Hagen, Der Gral, QF, 85, Strassburg, 1900; W. Staerk, Ueber den Ursprung der Grallegende, Tübingen und Leipzig, 1903, p. 47. See also Peebles, The Legend of Longinus, Baltimore, p. 196.

⁵⁴ For the text of the Book of Enoch, see selections in Becker, Med. Vis., pp. 22 ff. Note the use of the mountain in Prester John, Zarncke, Abhandl. der Phil.-hist. Classe der Königl. Sächsisch. Ges. der Wiss., Leipzig, 1876, viii, p. 123, § 13: “4 montes, quorum montium cacumina minime videntur. … et in cacuminibus montium est paradysus terrena, de qua Adam eiectus est, et non est aliquis qui habeat accessum ad montes illos propter tenebras,” etc.; § 16, Thomas buried in the church on a mountain top. See also Abh., vii, p. 839, §§ 23, 28. Note the use of Prester John in Mandeville, Abh., viii, p. 135, §§ 20 ff. It is worth while to note in Prester John the many elements used in romance: the whirling castle (referred to by Hagen, op. cit., p. 13) in Abh., viii, p. 166, § 33: “Et ibi est speciale palacium presbiteri Iohannis et doctorum, ubi tenentur concilia. Et illud potest volvi ad modum rotae, et est testudinatum ad modum coeli.” For the revolving castle in the Otherworld of romance, see: Brown, Yvain, p. 79 (Celtic uses); the revolving fiery rampart, Voy. Mailduin, Stokes, Rev. Celt., x, p. 81; the Mule sanz Frein (ed. R. T. Hill, Baltimore, 1911), ll. 440; the Perlesvaus (the “Castle of Endeavor” in S. Evans's translation, The High Hist. of the Holy Grail, Everyman's Lib., pp. 206 ff.) an episode that seems somehow related to that in the Mule; Sypherd, Studies in the House of Fame, the use in Chaucer, pp. 144 ff., 173 ff.; Kittredge, Gaw. and the Green Knight, p. 245, n. 1.

⁵⁵ See also the Apocalypse of Peter (Becker, Med. Vis., pp. 31 f.) where the twelve disciples go up to a mountain and have the vision of heaven. See the mt. of joy in the Vision of Thurcill, § 10 (Becker, p. 98). See the striking use of the mountain figure—a cliff where men and women were hurled down, compelled to climb again, and hurled down—suggesting an Oriental source indirectly for the similar figure in the Fortune tradition—in the Vision of Alberic, and in the Apocalypse of Peter (Becker, pp. 41–2).

⁵⁶ See Vendidad, Fargad xxi, 20; Khorda-Avesta, xxvi, 12; also the Bundahis, xx, 1 ff.; Spiegel, Avesta, iii, liv; Dillmann, Genesis (Edinburgh, 1897), i, p. 109; Delitzsch, Wo lag das Parodies, pp. 112 f.

⁵⁷ MacDonald, The Religions Attitude and Life in Islam, Chicago, 1912, p. 289.

⁵⁸ See M. Jastrow, Relig. of Babyl. and Assyr., p. 489; Jeremias, The Babl. Conc. of Heaven and Hell, pp. 19, 34 ff. For the doctrine that the dead lived inside of these mountains, see note 46 above.

⁵⁹ Jastrow, Heb. and Babyl. Trad., p. 26 and p. 170. See Exodus, xix; II Esd. viii, 52. See the Buddhistic figure, E. W. Hopkins, Relig. of India, pp. 359, 461, 532.

⁶⁰ See Z. A. Ragozin, The Story of Chaldaea, N. Y., 1890, pp. 153 and 276.

⁶¹ See G. Maspero, The Dawn of Civilization, (trans. McClure) 3d ed., N. Y. 1897, p. 199.

⁶² Olympus is clearly not to be equated with anything like the Celtic sîdh. Cf. Nutt, Voy. Bran, i, pp. 282 f.

⁶³ See note 55.

⁶⁴ See the tradition among the Miztecs of Mexico that the gods once built a sumptuous palace on a mountain and that there the gods first dwelt on earth. This myth is reported (without reference to source) in Bayley's Lost Language of Symbolism, London, 1912, ii, p. 224. See the myth in West Java of paradise on a mt., E. B. Tyler, Primitive Culture, London, 1871, ii, p. 55.

⁶⁵ Claudian's De Nuptiis, Neilson, p. 15 f. See too the fountain in Apuleius, Neilson, p. 14. Such contrast in qualities, characteristic often of matters which have to do with Fortuna, is found everywhere. See the two fountains (one sweet, one bitter) from which Fionn drank, Nutt, Leg. of the Holy Grail, London, 1888, p. 201; two wells, one clear and one muddy, the Eng. Voy. of Brendan, Percy Soc. xiv, p. 12. Instances of other kinds may be worth recording: the island in the Imram Mailduin (Rev. Celt., ix, pp. 480–1, § xiii) where all objects placed on one side of a brazen palisade become black, those on the other become white; cf. the Welsh Peredur, Loth, Les Mab., ii, p. 87, where the sheep on one side of the river are white, those on the other are black; and the tree in the Peredur half green and half in flames; the island in the Imram curaig UaCorra, Zimmer, ZDAlth. xxxiii, pp. 189 ff.: one side inhabited by dead men, the other by living men. See too the divided valley in the vision of Charles, described in William of Malmesbury, GRAngl., Rolls Series, ii, § 111: one fountain of boiling water, one pleasant and cool (noted by Wright, St. Pat. Purg., pp. 20 ff.). See also the Fortuna-like figure of Adam in the Vision of Thurcill, who with one eye weeps for the damned and with the other laughs for the blessed (Becker, Med. Vis., p. 98. Note also his vest of various colors.)

⁶⁶ See the fountain in the Imr. Mail. (§ 20), which on Friday and Wednesday gives water, on Sundays milk, and on feast days wine. See also the fountain in the Imram curaig UaCorra (Zimmer, ZDAlth., xxxiii, pp. 189 ff.) : when the travellers waken from the sleep which has been brought on, they discover that the stones which they collected are transformed.

⁶⁷ See the fountain of nectar in Capellanus' De Arte Honesti Amandi, Neilson (Court of Love), p. 46, where the wonderful tree has its roots—cf. the Norse Ygdrasil with its roots over the fountains of Mimir and Urd; Aen. Sylvius, “frigidi fontes,” Op. Omnia, Basileae 1571, Pont. Ep. Lib. I, Ep. cviii; Echtra Cormaic, Zimmer, ZDA, xxxiii, pp. 264; Baring-Gould, Cur. Myths, p. 535 f. (the spirits drink and obtain life) ; Brown, Yvain, Slothful Gillie, pp. 104 ff.; the fountain in Yvain, Graelent, Melusine, and other stories where the fée appears; the Mule sana Frain l. 385; the magic fountain restoring health, in the Babylonian, Jeremias, Bab. Conc. Heaven and Hell, pp. 34 ff.; the Qur' An, lv, 45; Baring-Gould, Cur. Myths, p. 251 f. and p. 255; the fountain of youth in India, E. B. Tylor, Researches into the Early Hist. of Mankind, N. Y., p. 363; the two fountains (one of milk, one of pleasure) in Lucian's True History; for the Norse fountains of Mimir and Urd, see Rydberg, Teut. Myth., pp. 223, 225, 317, and § 72; see also the well Hvergelmer, Rydberg, p. 353. Mimir's fountain seems to be the source of wisdom, see ibid., p. 357. For the position of Ygdrasil over the fountains, see ibid., pp. 225, 285 f., See also the casks of mead in the Serglige Conculaind (Brown, Yvain, pp. 34 ff.) and in the Norse Otherworld (Rydberg, p. 223); the wells of balm and wine in the Land of Cockayne, Furnivall, Early Eng. Poems and Lives of the Saints, 156; Fortune offers great urns of good and bad fortune; see too the drink of the blessed in the East Indian heaven, H. Oldenberg, die Religion des Veda, Berlin, 1894, pp. 530 ff.

⁶⁸ See Zimmer's summary of the traits of the Celtic Otherworld, ZDAlth., xxxiii, pp. 280 ff.

⁶⁹ The Anglo-Saxon version, Grein, Bibl. A.-S. Poesie, Leipzig, 1897, iii¹, ll. 62.

⁷⁰ Midrash Konen (Hebrew Encycl., p. 516). For other streams in the Otherworld gardens, see the river of Paradise in Raoul de Houdaing, Jubinal, Rutebeuf, ii, 227–260 (Voie de Paradis), cited toy Wright, St. Pat. Purg., p. 109; see the fairy pavilion of Aalardin del Lac on the banks of a stream, Paton, Fairy Mythol., p. 168.

⁷¹ Anticlaudianus, referred to above.

⁷² See J. E. Harrison, Pr. to the Study of Greek Relig., Cambridge, 1908, 2d ed., pp. 574 ff.

⁷³ D'Ancona and Bacci, Manuale, i, p. 437.

⁷⁴ Abhandlungen (Sächsische), viii, p. 123, § 14; p. 168, §40. See also vii, p. 839, § 23.

⁷⁵ Hebrew Encyc., p. 516.

⁷⁶ Rydberg, Teut. Mythol., pp. 208 ff.

⁷⁷ See also the rivers Pison, Gihon, Hiddekel, and Euphrates, Baring-Gould, Cur. Myths, p. 251. Although cf. the four streams (springing, to be sure, at the four corners of the earth) in Amer. Indian tradition,—D. G. Brinton, Religions of Primitive Peoples, Putnam, 1897, 2d series, pp. 126 f.

⁷⁸ Compare the rivers of milk, wine, honey, and balsam, in the Jewish Paradise, Hebrew Encyc., p. 517.

⁷⁹ Baring-Gould, Cur. Myths, p. 255. See also p. 253 and p. 258, the reference to Hugo de St. Victor. The land of Parnapishtim, in Babylonian faith, was “at the confluence of the streams”; see Jastrow, Relig. Bab. and Assyr., p. 489. For other examples of the four rivers, see Avitus, Mon. Germ. Histor., Auct. Antiq., vi, 2, p. 208; see Honorius of Autun, Migne, Pat. Lat., clxxii, col. 123; L. Twining, Symbols and Emblems, London, 1852, plate xvii, fig. 4, xxxvi, fig. 8; Mone, Lat. Hymn, i, pp. 159–160.

⁸⁰ Ed. du Méril, Paris, 1856, ll. 1721–1844. O. M. Johnston, Zeits. f. Roman. Philol., xxxii, pp. 705–10, noticed the Otherworldliness of this landscape. The romance has Oriental affinities as a whole, and I think that this part of it can be related to Oriental lore with a good deal of certainty.

⁸¹ The castle has 140 maidens; see Johnston, op. cit., p. 709. For the Celtic maidenland, see Weston, The Leg. of Sir Gawain, 1897, pp. 32 ff.; Nutt, Voy. Bran, i, pp. 169, 198; Zimmer, ZDAlth, xxxiii, pp. 280 ff.; Brown, Yvain, p. 29; Imram Mailduin, §§ 17, 28; The story of Ciabân, Brown, op. cit., p. 96, Zimmer, op. cit., pp. 269. There is no need to pile up instances in Celtic. It is generally assumed that this feature is a sure mark of the Celtic Otherworld, although some references to the contrary are cited by MacCulloch, Relig. Anc. Celts, pp. 185 ff. See the theme in Oriental literature: the Qur' An, lv, 45, the maids of modest glances and the bright and large eyed maids, and see xxxviii, 50, and lvi, 20; note “the well-shapen, strong and tall-formed maid, with the dogs at her side,” who “makes the soul of the righteous one go up above the Hara-berezaiti,” Vendidad, xix, 30, See the isle of Calypso and the description in the Tenth Pythian Ode and the isle of the Hesperides. See the twelve red-clad maidens of the Otherworld in the Norse story of Helge Thoreson, Rydberg, Teut. Mythol., p. 211; Saxo, Dan. Hist. (trans. Elton, London, 1894), lxviii; the daughters of Gudmund in the story of Gorm, Rydberg, pp. 212–14, Saxo, pp. 344–352. It is interesting to note that the setting of the Arthurian Castel Puellarum is not in the west, as that of the Celtic Otherworld, but “in aquilonari parte Britannie.” Again, in Percyvelle of Gaylles, Lufamour of Maydenland is besieged by the Sultan (who, to be sure, was the usual villain of the mediaeval story). In De Ortu Waluuanni the champion against whom Gawain fights is named Gromundus (cf. the Norse). For the Arthurian material see: Lot, Romania, xxiv, p. 330 (Avalon), xxvii, p. 553; Bruce, PMLA, xiii, pp. 380 ff.; Brown, PMLA, xx, pp. 697. In many of these romances, the royaume aux demoiselles is separated from us not by the ocean, as in the Celtic, but by the river, which I shall discuss in the last section of this study.

⁸² See the Serglige Conculaind, Brown, Yvain, pp. 34 ff., the trees of purple, silver, and the three-score trees nourishing the three hundred men apiece. See Nutt, Voy. Brom, i, p. 187, for the tree of golden leaves. Note the branch of leaves of gold, silver, blue, and green, and wonderfully sweet fruit in the Italian story, D'Ancona and Bacci, Manuale, i, pp. 437 ff.

⁸³ See the apple brought toy the strange lady in Connla the Fair, Brown, Yvain, p. 28; the “pomeriferous and odoriferous” trees, de Arte Honesti Amandi, Neilson (Court of Love), p. 46; the interpretation of Avalon as the isle of apples, Lot, Romania, xxiv, p. 502. For the Celtic in general see MacCulloch, Relig. Anc. Celts, pp. 178 ff. See also the Tree of Life in Revelation, which bore twelve manner of fruits and yielded her fruit every month, and the leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations. See the Vision of Tundale, Becker, Med. Vis., p. 84; Bk. of Enoch, ibid., p. 24, § xxiv; the Persian Gaokerena, which has the white Haoma (a fruit driving away sickness), Spiegel, Avesta, iii, liv; see the tree hung with precious stones found by Gilgamesh, Jeremias, Bab. Conc. Heav. Hell, pp. 34 ff.; for the Hindu, see, Hindu Lit. (World's Gt. Classics), Col. Press, 1900, Poems of Toru Dutt, p. 463; Bayley, Lost Lang. of Symb., ch. xx, and ii, p. 369, the tree in the happy isles of the Eastern Ocean, coiling its leaves 3000 miles high, with the golden cock sitting at the top; see Nutt, Voy. Bran, i, p. 249, the trees in Barl. and Jos., which make music; see Staerk, Ueber den Ursprung der Grallegende, p. 45; see the wood where each tree is as straight as an arrow and higher than earthly man ever saw, Baring-Gould, Cur. Myths, p. 255; see the tree the emblem of life among the Amer. Indians, Brinton, Religions of Prim. Peoples, 1897, 2d series, pp. 126 f.

⁸⁴ Dial di F., cap. xiii.

⁸⁵ Le Rommant des Trois Pel., ed. 1511, Pel. de l'Homme, fol. lxvj vo. Cf. the tree in Sir Gilbert Hay, Buke of the Lowe of Armys, ed. Stevenson, STS., 1901, i, pp. lxxiii. In the Fortune tradition, Alanus de Insulis has of course two trees—one in full blossom, and one quite barren.

⁸⁶ Cf. the mountain conceived as the sacred pillar around which the heavenly spheres revolve, Ragozin, Story of Chaldaea, p. 276, and p. 153.

⁸⁷ It too is a universal conception. See the pillar of silver and glass, Serg. Conc., Brown, Yvain, pp. 34 ff.; the silver column with a net hanging from its summit, Imram Mailduin, § 26 (Rev. Celt. ix, pp. 447 ff., x, pp. 50 ff.); the columns of heaven, Bk. of Enoch (Becker, Med. Vis., p. 23, § xviii) ; three pillars, Vis. of Thurcill, (Becker, p. 96) ; the burning pillar reaching to heaven, Vision of Tundale (Becker, p. 84) ; columns of gold, Apuleius (Neilson, Court of Love, p. 14) ; pillars representing the months, Neilson, p. 42; see also ibid., p. 50 and 124; Sir Orpheo, l. 353, the fair pillars; the column in the Imago Mundi, Wright, St. Pat. Purg., p. 95; pillars in the Hebrew heaven, some of silver and gold, one that plays music automatically, Hebrew Encyc., p. 516. Cf. also the Norse Irminsûl.

⁸⁸ See Neilson, Court of Love, pp. 216 ff., where the tradition is studied. See for example, the Messe des Oisaus.

⁸⁹ See the bird-songs in the island described by the lady of Mag Mell, Voy. Bran (Brown, Yvain, pp. 58; Nutt, Voy. Bran; Zimmer, ZDAlth., xxxiii, pp.258 ff.) ; note the island of birds, 1mram Mailduin (Brown, op. cit., p. 60); the birds which are really souls in the Fís Adamnain, Boswell, An Irish Precursor of Dante, § 33; Schirmer, Zur Brend. Leg., p. 34; (also the old man in white garb of feathers); the birds singing psalms and canticles in the Imram Snedgusa (Zimmer, ZDAlth., xxxiii, p. 212; see Boswell, op. cit., pp. 163); the bird matins in the Eng. Voy. of St. Brendan, Percy Soc. xiv, p. 10; birds in the Imram curaig UaCorra, Zimmer, op. cit., pp. 189 (the birds are souls which come forth from Hell on Sunday, the three streams of them differentiated by markings); also note the purple-headed birds; the feathered roof in the Echtra Cormaic, Zimmer, op. cit., pp. 264. See Zimmer's summary of the Otherworld qualities, op. cit., pp. 280 ff., and Brown, Yvain, p. 85. Note also the swan maidens in the Norse and in Celtic, Cross, Mod. Philol., xii, p. 620; the geese in Cockayne (Furnivall, Early Eng. Poems, 156); the land of the Phoenix.

⁹⁰ For the Oriental, Boswell has noted the sacred birds on the tree in the Persian garden (Ir. Prec. of Dante, p. 85; see also p. 174, n. 1, and p. 189) ; see also Spiegel, Avesta, iii, liv; and Bayley, Lost Lang. of Symb., ii, pp. 241 and 301.

⁹¹ See the Echtra Cormaic, Zimmer, ZDAlth., xxxiii, pp. 264 ff.; Nutt, Voy. Bran, i, pp. 187, 190; Zimmer, op. cit., pp. 280 ff.; see the Arthurian Val sames Retor, Paton, Fairy Mythol., p. 82, p. 84, n. 3; see the Welsh Geraint, Loth, Les Mab., p. 170. We must note, however, that the mist also appears in the Norse, see Rydberg, Teilt. Mythol., pp. 220 ff., and in the stories in Saxo (Elton's Trans.), pp. 37, 84—the latter noted by Miss Paton, op. cit., p. 161.

⁹² See Imram Bran, Brown, Yvain, p. 59; Gillie of the Ferule, ibid., p. 101, and Hyde, Irish Texts Soc., London, 1899; the Slothful Gillie, Brown, pp. 104 ff.; Baring-Gould, Cur. Myths, p. 540; Nutt, Voy. Bran, i, pp. 195, 202–3; Miss Paton, Fairy Mythol., pp. 168–9, 169, n. 3, p. 185 (Lanzelet); Gervase of Tilbury, Ot. Imper., ed. Liebrecht, i, c. 13, p. 2 (cited by Wright, St. Pat. Purg., pp. 27–8); compare the idea that Paradise is situated between heaven and earth, Baring-Gould, op. cit., p. 255; Cross, Mod. Philol., xiii, pp. 731 ff.; Hibbard, Romanic Review, iv, p. 167, and see note 1, ibid., for a list of Celtic instances; Brown, Celtic Caldrons of Plenty, Kitt. Ann. Vol., p. 377; and see the realm of the Fata Morgana in Bojardo's Orl. Innam. ii, vii, 42.

⁹³ See Horace's 16th Epode, Lucian's True History, the Greek Hesperides, Elysium, Ogygia, the isle of Calypso, and Atlantis; the Egyptian voyage with the sun-god, Maspero, Dawn, p. 197; Jastrow, Relig. of Bab. and Assyr., p. 489 f.; Cockayne is across the sea; the Fortunate isles (mentioned by Pindar; Plutarch's Lives, ed. Langhome, iv, p. 11; Dietrich's Nekya, 32; Dante, de Monarchia, ii, 387 ff.; Vincent of Beauvais, Spec. Hist., lib. i, c. lxxix; Aen. Sylv., Op. Omnia, p. 355, Hist. de Asia Min. lxxviiii) ; Baring-Gould, Cur. Myths, pp. 253, 257, 258, 543; the Phoenix; Bayley, Lost Lang. Symb., ii, pp. 225 ff. and 307 f.; the island of Fortune in the Anticlaudianus.

Among the Celts, the island theme is found: in the journey to Mag Mell, Connla the Fair, Serglige Conculaind; see Ciabân (Brown, Yvain, p. 96); in the Imram of Bran, of Mailduin, etc.; in the Voyage of Brendan. See Zimmer, ZDAlth., xxxiii, pp. 280 ff.; Nutt, Voy. Bran, i, p. 229; Boswell, Ir. Prec. of Dante, p. 136; MacCulloch, Relig. of the Anc. Celts, pp. 262 ff. There is no need to add further illustrations of this theme, but see the similar theme of the lake bordering on the Otherworld: Baring-Gould, op. cit., p. 255; Curoi's home in the Fled Bricrend, Brown, Yvain, p. 51; cf. Serglige Conc., Labraid lives beyond a “pure lake,” Brown, pp. 34 ff.; Peredur finds the Grail castle near a lake, Loth, Les Mab., ii, p. 56; cf. the sea Pûitika in the Persian, Spiegel, Avesta, iii, liv; cf. the realm of the shape-shifter Proteus, Odyssey, iv, ll. 414.

⁹⁴ D'Arbois de Jubainville, Le Cycle Mythologique Irlandais, Paris, p. 351, says that death is always conceived among the Irish as a voyage. Rhys, Arthurian Legend, p. 358, notes the prevalence of the island theme; see pp. 348 ff. for various islands.

⁹⁵ Miss Paton does draw attention to the fact that William of Malmesbury's insula Pomorum and that in the Vita Merlini are “surprisingly barren of many features characteristic of the Celtic Otherworld,” but that they resemble rather the Fortunate Isles (Fairy Mythol., p. 39 f.). I imagine that much more evidence of this kind might be brought forward with little trouble, She notes (pp. 45–6) the possible influence of the Phoenix or of other Latin models on such descriptions as are found in Geoffrey's GRB. Probably Avalon, originally Celtic, borrowed many traits at a later time from other types of Otherworlds, as I am attempting to show that the Arthurian Otherworld did in general. For evidence that Arthur's pilot Barintus is St. Barri of the Brendan legend and originally a prince of the Otherworld, see Brown, Rev. Celt., xxii, pp. 339 ff.

⁹⁶ For Avalon and the Isle de Voire, see Paris, Romania, xii, pp. 510 ff.; Nutt, Voy. Bran, i, p. 237, and the Leg. Holy Grail; Paton, Fairy Mythol., pp. 74 ff.; Lot, Romania, xxiv, p. 502; xxvii, p. 529; a correction of Lot, MLN, xiv, pp. 93–5. For the Isle de Voire and the scene of the Joie de la Cour, see Philipot, Romania, xxv, pp. 258 ff. The upshot of the discussion concerning Avalon and Glastonbury seems to be that the former is the earlier, and the latter came to be identified with it in the twelfth century. How Glastonbury achieved such a reputation (except because of its name, Glas-ton) is not entirely explained. Avalon was originally the realm of the Welsh Evalach, see Rhys, Arthur. Leg., p. 337, and Kempe, EETS, ES., xcv, pp. xi ff. Note also in this connection the Celtic Dun-an-Oir, Paton, pp. 133–5; and the realm in Huon de Bordeaux, ibid., p. 131. On the realm in the isle of Malta, see Paris, Romania, xx, p. 149, and xxxix, pp. 83–86. See the “water wan” in the ballad of Thomas Rymer (Eng. and Scot. Ballads, no. 37). See the isle and the bridge, Huth Merlin, SATF, ad. Paris and Ulrich, Paris, 1886, ii, p. 59.

⁹⁷ Dante combines ocean and river in the Purgatorio and thus uses both the mountain and 'island themes as well as the river. The river separates him from the garden just before his vision of Beatrice. See the De Phyllide et Flora (Neilson, Court of Love, p. 34) —at the entrance of the Paradise of Love murmurs a river; see the home of Fortune, “rivo cinctus et muro, duae illic portae et altra cornea, altera candenti nitens elephante,” in Aenius Sylvius, Op. Omnia, Pont. Ep., lib. i, Ep. cviii (the description shows Virgilian influence obviously enough) ; the realm of the Fata Morgana (which is underwater, but that does not affect the point) in Bojardo, Orl. Innam., ii, vii, 42 ff.; one might add the moat surrounding the Celestial City in Pilgrim's Progress, to take a familiar example from a later time. Other examples in the period will be cited in the course of the discussion.

⁹⁸ Philipot, Romania, xxv, p. 267.

⁹⁹ Erec, ll. 5374; see the drawbridge, ll. 5493. Cf. the Geraint, Loth, Les Mab., ii, p. 156: “Une grande rivière, un pont sur la rivière”—here Chrétien seems to have the earlier version. Note, however, the Celtic mist in the Welsh, p. 170.

¹⁰⁰ Brown, PMLA, xx, pp. 697 ff. The original is not accessible to me.

¹⁰¹ Le Grand d'Aussy, Fabl. ou Contes, I, Choix et Extraits, p. 22, second column, ll. 40:

See also p. 23, l. 1. Graelent nearly drowns.

¹⁰² Lanval, ll. 54. The island appears here too, ll. 539, and in Sir Launfal (Ritson and Goldsmid, ii, 1 ff.); Landvall (Am. J. Philol., x, pp. 22, 32) ; Sir Lambewell, PFMS, i, p. 164; Lamwell, PFMS, i, p. 524—note:

¹⁰³ Ll. 391 (ed. Hill). See the bridge, ll. 403 ff. Professor Kittredge draws attention to the description of the river (Gaw. Green Knight, p. 243).

¹⁰⁴ Ll. 777. See the bridge, ll. 660. Once during the fight Lancelot's shield and lance begin floating away, ll. 846–7.

¹⁰⁵ Ll. 3023. See the sword bridge, ll. 677.

¹⁰⁶ Chrétien, Contes del Graal (ms. Paris fr. 794), ll. 7191:

Cf. Wolfram (ed. Bartsch, 1875), x, ll. 962:

¹⁰⁷ Chrétien, CG, ll. 2950:

Cf. Wolfram, v, 1173 ff. See also the river near Pelrepär in Wolfram, iv, ll. 47 ff., and Chrétien, ll. 1685. In the Old French Perlesvaus, the Grail castle is on a high rock above the sea (branch xi, title 1). In the Peredur, the castle is not far from a lake, see Loth, Les Mab., ii, p. 56. See Nitze, PMLA, xxiv, p. 375.

¹⁰⁸ See for the river, Sommer, Vulgate Vers. of the Arthur Romances, vii, Livre d'Artus, p. 144, “la riviere estoit lee et noire et parfonde et plaine de fanc car li pais estoit molt en bas leu et est encores”; see vol. iv, p. ii (Livre de Lancelot), p. 118, also p. 193, p. 200 “roide et noire.” Also P. Paris, RTRonde, Paris, 1877, 5, p. 53; Le Vallon des Faux Amants, Le Grand D'Aussy, Fabl. ou Contes, p. 156; see also the wild mountain torrent in the German Minneburg, Neilson, Court of Love, p. 124; see the boiling torrent, Paton, Fairy Mythol., p. 82; see the river in the Netherlandish poem, clean and fresh and burning like fire, cited by Paris, Romania, xii, p. 508 f.; see the Huth Merlin, ii, 96; see Weston, Leg. of Sir Gaw., p. 230.

¹⁰⁹ See Chev. Char., ll. 3029–30; Contes del Graal, ll. 7194–5.

¹¹⁰ If Glastonbury replaced Avalon, its description would in a measure account for the not-very-distant island or the Otherworld surrounded by a river. It was on a piece of land encircled by marshy country. See Rhys, Arthur. Leg., p. 330. Note also Rhys, p. 240, for Rheged on an island connected with the mainland by a bridge. Cf. the peninsular realm of King Beauvoisin in the Chev. du Papegau, Brown, PMLA, xx, pp. 697. Nitze (Mod. Philol., i, 247 ff.) attempts to show that the Perlesvaus description of Avalon was founded on Glastonbury. Perhaps he is right; but the argument for very general influence of this sort depends on the measure of probability in the idea that one locality with its details of local color was universally borrowed by continental as well as by insular poets for their accounts of the Otherworld, not merely in Arthurian accounts but elsewhere. See note 97 above. Also such a theory fails to account for the quality of the river.

¹¹¹ Evidence is slight on the side of Welsh mythology. There is a possibility, of course, that the answer to everything may be found there.

¹¹² Cf. Eger and Grime, PFMS, i, p. 360, ll. 187, the “running strand”; Lancelot of the Laik, EETS, ed. Skeat, London, 1865, p. 21, l. 683, the river near the land of the Lady of Melyhalt; the moat in the Perlesvaus (High Hist. of the Holy Grail, Evans, Everyman ed., p. 206); the “fair river hight Severn,” Malory xiii, ch. xv; the Anglo-Saxon Elene, ll. 136–7; Watriquet de Couvin (ed. Scheler, p. 246), Tourn. des Dames, ii. 472; the Pearl, ii. 107 ff.; and the rivers mentioned in note 97 above. Good evidence is found in the cases where the river surely cannot represent the Celtic ocean, as surrounding the garden of Dante's Purgatory.

¹¹³ See Hibbard, Romanic Rev., iv, p. 175; Becker, Med. Vis., p. 17; Tylor, Researches into the Early Hist. of Mankind, p. 359; Kittredge, Gaw. Gr. Knight, p. 244, n. 1; Ward, Cat. Romances, London, 1893, ii, 399; Scott, Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border, 1902, iii, p. 168 (for some interesting references).

¹¹⁴ Romania, xii, p. 508 f. See also Baring-Gould, Cur. Myths, p. 248. And see Baist, Zs. f. rom. Philol., xiv, p. 159; Brown, Yvain, p. 124.

¹¹⁵ The Purgatory of St. Patrick and the Vision of Tungdale. See Becker, op. cit.

¹¹⁶ Romanic Rev., iv, pp., 166 ff. See also for material on the bridge, Paton, Fairy Mythol, p. 84, n. 3.

¹¹⁷ Op. cit., p. 179.

¹¹⁸ The bridge of glass (Mailduin, ix)—When anyone stepped on it he fell backwards; the rope bridge, Tochmarc Emere, which resembles the rope bridge in Wolfram, iv, ll. 41 ff., which in turn is like the Oriental bridge famous for its thinness; the bridge of the Echtra Airt, crossing the icy river; and the bridge (Hibbard, Romanic Rev., iv, p. 180, n. 25) in the Tannhäuser legend which crosses a torrent. With the glass bridge cf. that in Harv. Studies and Notes, v, p. 167. The obstacle bridge lends itself easily to variations which the Celtic fancy might contribute.

¹¹⁹ See the previous note. See the water arch in Imr. Mailduin (Rev. Celt., x, p. 59); the active bridge of the cliff in the Wooing of Emer, Brown, PMLA, xx, pp. 688 ff. (Arch. Rev., i, pp. 234–5, 298–306); the bridge spanning the glen in the Fís Adamnain, Boswell, An Irish Precursor, the nethermost hell; the bridge of fairies in later Irish folklore, Campbell, Pop. Tales, ii, p. 74; i, p. 261. Of these it is well to note that the Fís Adamnain shows a good deal of non-Celtic material, see Boswell, p. 184–5; p. 197: “The guise in which it [the bridge] appears in the present place, leads us to suppose that the author's immediate source of inspiration was one of the ecclesiastical legends, though we find the usual difficulty of assigning any given item to some one specific source.” Also note that the bridge is probably an interpolation; note also the four rivers, p. 204. Cf. p. 112: the “connecting link, passing on to the Irish school the bridge incident, belonging to Oriental myth.” Furthermore, the active bridge in the Wooing of Emer appears only in a late ms. (dated 1300, although from the evidence of the rest of the story in the Book of the Dun Cow it does seem as if the incident had once been there too) and that occurs in a version of the post-Norse type—see Meyer, Rev. Celt., xi, p. 438.

¹²⁰ Nutt, Voy. Bran, i, p. 304, says: “I am by no means certain that the Norse Journey to the Otherworld … has not sporadically influenced Irish romance,” but he does not make much of the point. Miss Hull (Cuchullin Saga, pp. 56 ff.) holds that the bridge in the Wooing of Emer came from the Norse. See Boswell, Ir. Prec. of Dante, p. 13. For opportunities for Oriental influence on the early Irish, see Boswell, pp. 114 ff.; Stokes, Ireland and the Celtic Church, London, 1900, pp. 169 ff. See the Celtic appropriation of Ygdrasil, Maclagen, Scot. Myths, p. 73, and see Nutt's account of the Viking influence in Ireland, op. cit., p. 184 and pp. 177 ff. See Paton, Fairy Mythol., p. 193. Of course, the bridge was not the property solely of the Norse or of the Moslems. See Boswell, p. 231 (the Inoits of Aleutia); Tylor, Researches into the Early Hist. of Mankind, pp. 358 ff.; Tylor, Prim. Cult., ii, pp. 50, 84.

¹²¹ Cf. Thurneysen, Keltoromanisches, Halle, 1884, pp. 21 ff.; and Schiavo, Zeits. f. rom. Philol., xvii, p. 74; Foerster, Karrenritter, iv, lxxi. Paris, Romania, xii, p. 509, gives evidence to show that mediæval writers considered the bridge of romance and the soul-bridge identical.

¹²² See for bridges outside of mediæval romance: “Nulli accessus ad portas nisi per pontes, qui tamen cathenis elevati paucis advenientibus dimittebantur,” Aen. Sylv., Op. Omnia, Pont. Ep., lib. i, ep. cviii; the bridge with the two armed figures in the Fata's realm in Bojardo, Orl. Innam., ii, vii, 42 ff.; see the rood-tree used as a bridge, Forster, Northern Passion, i, p. 166.

¹²³ See, however, the river of fire, Voy. Malduin, Rev. Celt., ix, p. 483; the fiery river in the fifth heaven, Fís Adamnain, § 18, Boswell, Ir. Prec. of Dante.

¹²⁴ EETS, 87, ll. 405. See the bridge: “smallere ne non beo.”

¹²⁵ See Becker, Med. Vis., p. 219, who has traced this whole matter. He compares the Acheron and the Styx. See also the bridge in Buddhistic lore, Rig-Veda, x, 63, 10, and ix, 41, 2; see Hopkins, Relig. of India, p. 145, and A. Kaegi, The Rig-Veda, trans. Arrow-smith, Boston, 1898, p. 159, n. 273. See for the river of death among the Hindus, Tylor, Prim. Cult., i, p. 427. See the bridge in Japanese literature, World's Gt. Classics, p. 254, “The Bridge of Heaven.” See the river of precious ointment around the city in Lucian's True History, Nutt, Voy. Bran, i, p. 279.

¹²⁶ § xvii, Becker, Med. Vis., p. 23.

¹²⁷ Becker, p. 44.

¹²⁸ Rydberg, Teut. Mythol., pp. 208 ff.; Nutt, Voy. Bran, i, pp. 297 ff.

¹²⁹ Note in Arthurian romance the animals usually guarding the bridge: the lions in the Perlesvaus (High Hist., Dent ed., pp. 206); in the Charrette Lancelot thinks two lions or leopards are at the other end of the bridge. See the two lions, Sommer, Livre d'artus, p. 144. Note the two dragons in the Val sanz Retor, Paton, Fairy Mythol., pp. 81 ff.

¹³⁰ Crossed by the golden bridge. See Rydberg, Teut. Mythol., pp. 212 ff.; Nutt, Voy. Bran, i, pp. 299; Saxo, pp. 344–352.

¹³¹ Saxo, p. 38, and intro., p. lxviii; Rydberg, pp. 215–16.

¹³² Note the Hadding story, the story of Helge (Rydberg, pp. 211 ff.), the ride of Hermódr, Gylfaginning, xlix (trans. Brodeur, Scand. Classics, v, p. 72 f.), where the ocean voyage does not appear. See Rydberg, p. 222, on the river.

¹³³ Rydberg, p. 162 f. See for the river Gjöll and the Gjallar bridge, Rydberg, p. 222. See for the bridge Bifröst also the Prose Edda, Gylfaginning, xiii (trans. Brodeur, p. 24), xv (p. 28). The bridge connects Asgard and the lower world.

¹³⁴ In the Wooing of Emer (Arch. Rev., i, pp. 234–5, 298–306) the island is not far separated from the mainland, but this is not a typical case among Celtic stories. And even here Cuchullin has to cross the ocean to get home, see i, pp. 302–3. In many of the Celtic instances which I have cited (notes 118, 119) the bridge will appear inconceivably out of place in their landscape setting.

¹³⁵ See the influence of Greek on Celtic, Paton, Fairy Mythol., p. 235. See the studies tracing Oriental material in the Grail, by Hagen and Staerk already mentioned; also by Wesselofsky, Arch. Slav. Phil., xxiii, pp. 32 ff.; Iselin, Der Morganländische Ursprung der Grallegende, Halle, 1909, see pp. 506 ff.; Peebles, Leg. Longinus, p. 196. Also see A Byzantine Source for G. de Lorris's RdlR, PMLA, xxxi, n. s. xxiv; and F. Settegast, Byzantinisch-Geschichtliches in Cliges und Yvain, Zeits. f. rom. Phil., xxxii, pp. 400 ff. See Hodges in MLN, 1917, for a partial rejection of such views in the field of romance; it will be seen that Mr. Hodges' argument holds merely for the ultimate source of the stories and does not affect the view here proposed of later accretions to the romantic scenes.

¹³⁶ The idea may have suggested itself that perhaps the appearance of certain Oriental phenomena in the west is due neither to coincidence nor influence, hut that it is a case of Indo-European survival. But it is strange that the survivals are so irregular; so much so that there is no place at all for some of the elements in certain religions while they are clearly essentials in others.