Note 170 — Chapter IX

Here I take the opportunity of saying that I entirely dissent from Dr. Sommer's assertion that Gareth is the equivalent of the French Guerresches rather than Gaheret. It is this latter (in the D. L. Gariëtte) which M. renders by Gareth. I have paid a good deal of attention to this question, and have come to the conclusion that, although in the descriptive summary of King Lot's sons, found in the Lancelot, Guerresches (Gurrehes) is said to be the youngest, save Mordred, and Gawain's favourite, yet the adventures ascribed to Gaheret (variants, Gaheriet, Gariëtte, Garhiës) throughout mark him as the original of Gareth; a point which etymology alone would, I think, decide in his favour! This much is certain, wherever M. and the French versions can be compared we find Gaheret and not Guerresches. When Dr. Sommer takes it upon himself, as he does in the quotations from the French contained in the Mort Artur section, to arbitrarily change the Gaheret of all the foreign versions into Guerresches, because the latter agrees with his preconceived ideas, he is setting what I must consider as a most undesirable precedent; we cannot take these liberties with the texts and hope to arrive at a satisfactory and scientific conclusion. As pointed out in my review of Dr. Wechssler's Grail Study, once allow such a substitution, and what is to prevent us from a series of editions emendated to suit the personal views of each editor? I think myself that Gaheret and Guerresches may originally have been one, but that confusion arose from Mordred being sometimes considered as Lot's, sometimes as Arthur's, son, and that a tradition of four sons of King Lot having been established early in the evolution of the romantic story, the personality of the third was doubled to make up the correct number. This is only a suggestion, but there is certainly a confusion as to identity in the French versions, though there is no confusion as to the original of M.