mer speaks with an arrogance it is charitable to treat humorously, to M. Gaston Paris.[1]
Nowhere does Prof. Zimmer explicitly state that Brittany, open to every wind of influence, was closed to even a breath from the older Celtdom of the British Isles. But this is implied in numberless turns of argument, which, without this implication, lose all point. Yet he himself has furnished the strongest argument against this view. In his progress through the Arthurian Walhalla he encounters Tristan. The traditional view of this hero is known to all—nephew of the fifth-sixth century Cornish kinglet, Mark, rescuer of his land from the tribute laid upon it by the Irish, wooer of the Irish princess Iseult for his uncle, and, as her lover, the most famous exemplar of over-mastering passion in all literature.
But Prof Zimmer points out that the name of Tristan himself and of his father (Talhwch in the Welsh tradition) are Pictish, and that whilst we know of no Picts in fifth-sixth century Cornwall, we do know of several historical Drests and Drestans and Talorcs in eighth-ninth century Pictland, i.e., roughly speaking, North-East Scotland; moreover, the names of Iseult and of her kinsmen are Teutonic, and whilst there can have been no Teutonic dwellers in fifth-century Ireland, Ireland in the ninth and tenth centuries was largely occupied by Norse and Danish Vikings. History again, silent respecting any fifth-century wars between Ireland and Cornwall, has preserved a full record of several raids into Pictland made by the Danish Vikings and of the tribute they levied. Prof. Zimmer reasons that the historical basis of the Tristan story is furnished by the exploits of a ninth-century Pictish hero who signalised himself in the wars against the Dublin Vikings. He conjectures that the story first became known in South Britain after the Conqueror's expedition against Malcolm in 1072, was disseminated through South Wales in the expeditions of 1072 and 1081, passed into
- ↑ Romania, vol. x.
