from Chretien and speaks of the tree as a 'green pine':
Le bacin, le perron de marbre
Et le vert pin et la chaiere
Trovai en itele maniere
Comme l'a descrit Crestïens.[1]
Hartmann von Aue, who commonly agrees with Chretien even in details, here unexpectedly mentions 'a lime-tree, the most beautiful ever seen':
des schirmet im ein linde,
daz nie man schœner gesach:
diu ist sîn schat und sîn dach.
si ist breit hôch und alsô dic
daz regen noch der sunnen blic
niemer dar durch kumt.
irn schadet der winter noch envrumt
an ir schœne niht ein hâr,
sine stê geloubet durch daz jâr.[2]
In the Middle High German saga of Ortnit and Wolfdietrich we more than once hear of a lime-tree in a
context that recalls the story of Yvain.[3] The Middle English metrical romance Ywain and Gawain, despite
- ↑ Huon de Mery 100 ff. The author of The Fairy Mythology London 1828 ii. 217, after stating that Huon de Mery visited the Fountain of Barenton and the Perron ('horse-block') Merveilleux, continues: 'He sprinkled the Perron from the golden basin that hung from the oak that shaded it, and beheld all the marvels.' But Huon distinctly says 'pine,' not 'oak,' though in describing the thunder-storm that followed he mentions oaks and beeches:
129 ff. La foudre du ciel descendoit,
Qui tronçonnoit et pourfendoit
Parmi le bois chenes et fous. - ↑ Hartmann von Aue Iwein 572 ff.
- ↑ Ortnit und die Wolfdietriche ed. A. Amelung and O. Jänicke (Deutsches Heldenbuch iii.) Berlin 1871 Ortnit stanza 84 (the lime-tree near Lake Garda under which Ortnit finds Alberich, king of the dwarfs), Wolfdietrich B stanza 350 ff. (the lime-tree near Lake Garda under which Wolfdietrich fights and overcomes Ortnit: later, he marries Ortnit's widow and becomes king in his stead), ib. stanza 807 ff. (the lime-tree under which was a marble bench and a brass man, who by means of two bellows and a hundred golden pipes made a hundred birds to sing on the tree). See further A. C. L. Brown Iwain p. 140 n., The Knight of the Lion p. 679 n. 3.
