Note 65 — Chapter V

Professor Foerster's references to this character (Charrette, lxxiii.) are perplexing. He prints Chrétien's description of the 'Ile' side by side with a parallel passage from Giraldus Cambrensis, Topographia Hiberniæ, informing us that both are 'ganz einfach eine naturgetreue Beschreibung von Irland.' He cannot mean us to understand that the one description is borrowed from the other; the work of Giraldus is at least thirty years later than the Erec (circa 1186), and that chronicler would hardly go to a romancer like Chrétien for the description of a country he knew personally. But is it a 'Naturgetreue' description of Ireland at all? Professor Foerster is compelled himself to admit naïvely, 'Gewitter und Stürme fehlen nicht ganz!' Is this not rather a description of the fabled Irish Paradise which Chrétien and Giraldus alike have borrowed from a source common to both?