The Three Days' Tournament

In the latter part of the Prose Lancelot, the section represented by the Dutch translation, we find Arthur holding a tournament, which has been suggested by Guinevere with the view of recalling Lancelot, who has long been absent, to court, and heightening his fame. Lancelot returns secretly, unknown to all but the queen, who sends him a message to come and discomfit the knights who are jealous of him. Lancelot appears in red armour and overthrows them all. The queen demands another tournament in three days’ time, when Lancelot appears as a white knight, with the same result. After this he reveals himself to Arthur.15

But the best parallel is that contained in the Lanzelet of Ulrich von Zatzikhoven. Here Lanzelet makes his first appearance at court at a three days’ tournament; the first day dressed in green, the second in white, the third in red; overthrows all opposed to him, including Kay,16 and takes his departure, without revealing himself.

With these repeated parallels before us, it seems impossible to doubt that when Hue de Rotelande referred to Walter Map, in connection with the tournament episode of Ipomedon, he had in his mind a version of the Lancelot, which also contained such a story, and which was attributed to the latter writer.

But what could this version have been? Certainly not the Prose Lancelot in its present form. As we remarked before, this romance is the result of slow growth and successive redactions, and the two parallels contained in it bear marks of modification and dislocation. In my recent studies on the Lancelot legend17 I have pointed out that in the process of evolution it certainly passed through a stage in which it was closely connected with, and affected by, the Perceval story. Gradually the popularity of the hero of the younger tale obscured that of the elder; and in the Lancelot, as we now have it, the traces of Perceval influence have almost disappeared from the majority of the printed versions, though interesting survivals are still to be found in certain manuscripts and in the Dutch translation. Now one of the best known adventures attributed to Perceval is that in which the sight of blood-drops on new-fallen snow—caused by a bird having been wounded, or slain, by a hawk—recalls to his mind the lady of his love, and plunges him into a trance; in which he is rudely attacked by Kay, who would bring him by force to court. He retaliates by unhorsing the seneschal with such force that he breaks, in one version both arms, in others, an arm and a leg.18