Note 2 — Chapter VII · The Relations of The Grateful Dead to The Spendthrift Knight, The Two Friends, and The Thankful Beasts.

Looking at the matter from another point of view, we find that Richars, Lion de Bourges, Dianese, Old Swedish, Rittertriuwe, and Sir Amadas form a group by themselves,2 and are uncompounded with any one of the themes with which The Grateful Dead is most frequently allied. Oliver and Lope de Vega are treated under the compound with The Ransomed Woman, where on account of the rescue of the hero by the ghost they probably belong;3 and Icelandic I. and II. are clearly of that type. Treu Heinrich4 shows the combination of the central theme with The Water of Life, and can in the nature of the case have no direct connection with the other romance stories under consideration, even though it belongs to a class in which The Ransomed Woman sometimes appears.5 In view of these discrepancies of position with reference to compounds which are clearly established, we are certainly not justified in assuming that The Spendthrift Knight has had anything more than a superficial relationship to The Grateful Dead. To make it a basis of classification or to attach any considerable weight to its appearance here and there would be contrary to the only safe method of procedure, which is to follow the evidence of events in sequence rather than isolated traits. The very fact that none of the compounds with The Poison Maiden contains any such motive as this of the knight and the tourney shows that it must be comparatively late and really an interloper in the family.