Book VI

. (p. 169) he diverges from the story in order to explain what he feels to be a difficulty, and to defend Kay at some length. The Northern French poets apparently felt the same, and as Kay is generally represented as Arthur's foster-brother they invented the fable that the unknightly traits in his character were due to his having been committed to the care of a peasant nurse when his mother took charge of the infant Arthur.

Page 85, line 652--'_The maiden Kunnewaaré_.' The 'laughing damsel' seems to be an archaic and misunderstood element in the Grail romances. A common incident of folk-tales is for the hero, fool, lout, or tatterdemalion, to win to wife a princess who has not laughed or spoken for years by inducing her to do either of these things. Some such incident has apparently been woven into an heroic romance, the main outlines of which were already fixed, so that the actual conclusion, marriage of the hero with the laughing damsel, has been disturbed. Note, however, the homage paid by Parzival to Kunnewaaré, and her evident affection for him (