Nationale, and received in return a letter stating
that the list must have been compiled by one familiar
with the district. Unfortunately, for a year,
from the autumn of 1916, I was debarred from work,
and when, on resuming my studies, I wrote to my correspondent
asking for the promised evidence I obtained no answer
to my repeated appeal. On communicating with
Mr Owen I found he had had precisely the same experience,
and, for his part, was extremely sceptical as to there
being any genuine foundation for our correspondent’s
assertions. While it is thus impossible to use
the statements in question as elements in my argument,
I think it right in the interests of scholarship to
place them on record; they may afford a clue which
some Welsh scholar may be able to follow up to a more
satisfactory conclusion. [14] Had Wauchier really
desired to invent an authority, in view of his date,
and connection with the house of Flanders, he had a
famous name at hand—that of Chrétien de
Troyes. [15] Cf. Legend of Sir Perceval, Vol.
II. p. 307 and note. I have recently received
Dr Brugger’s review of Mr R. H. Griffith’s
study of the English poem, and am glad to see that
the critic accepts the independence of this version.
If scholars can see their way to accept as faits
acquis the mutual independence of the Grail, and Perceval
themes, we shall, at last, have a solid basis for future
criticism. [16] Cf. my Notes, Romania, Vol. XLIII.
pp. 403 et seq.