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NOTES AND QUERIES. [11 s. x. AUG. 22, 191*.
Palestine in 1199, and died in 1212. In the
, Queste ' Sir Launcelot du Lake has a
vision of a prince crowned and surrounded
by stars, and accompanied by seven kings
and two knights. He learns that the prince
is Celidoines (i.e., Celyddon Wledig*), and
that one of the kings is Ban, his own father.
The two knights are himself and his off-
spring, Sir Galahad : " the product of direct
literary invention, the son of Christian
mysticism, "t
In Malory we find Sir Launcelot's father called " King Ban of Benoyc," and Ban has two brothers : King Bors of Gaul (cp. " Borsena " in " Borsenan beorg," Kemble, 'Codex Diplomatics,' No. MCXXIIL), and Guenbaus (i.e., Wenbald or Wynbald). King Ban and King Bors came over from Gaul to help King Arthur at the request of the latter, we are told.
In Malory's Fourth Book we read that Merlin and the lady he was " assotted " upon
" went over the sea unto the land of Benwick where as King Ban was king that had great war against King Claudas, and there Merlin spake with King Ban's wife .... Elaine, and there he saw young Launcelot. There the queen made great sorrow for the mortal war that King Claudas made upon her lord and on her lands. Take none heaviness, said Merlin, for this same child within this twenty year shall revenge you on King Claudas .... and this same child shall be THE
MAN OP MOST WORSHIP IN THE WORLD, and his
first name is Galahad, that know I well, said Merlin, and since ye have confirmed him, Launce- lot. That is true, said the queen, his first name was Galahad."
The ending of the name Galahad is pure Old English. Mr. Searle has accidentally omitted had from his list of deuterothemes of O.E. personal names on p. xvii of his ' Onomasticon,' but he gives, inter alia, Wille-had, Wulf-had, and Ni5-had. The O.E. had means " grade," " rank " ; cp. Wright, ' Word Formation,' ' O.E. Gram- mar,' p. 296. It is our " -hood." " Gala-," however, presents a dilemma. In the regular gallicizing of Germanic names initial w became g. But every G in such names does not equate W. In Galahad, then, G may represent Germanic W, and the following reasons will be found to warrant the assump- tion that it does.
1. Gala- as a prototheme is unsupported. Galmund and Galfrith would appear to
- Vide Aihenceum, June, 1909, pp. 677, 733.
t Vide ' The Legend of Sir Percival,' by Miss Jessie L. Weston (1909), ii. 309. Miss Weston's ' Sir Launcelot du Lake ' should also be read in this connexion.
contain Gold, and that is recognized as a
head-word in proper names, but not so
Gala-.
2. Galahad-Launcelot, the son of King Ban, had a brother, Sir Hector de Maris. Malory drops the .aspirate throughout. But it appears in the older compositions, such as the ' Queste ' and the ' Conte del Graal ' of Manessier (c. 1220, vide Alfred Nutt, u.s.). In his Twentieth Book Malory tells us (chap, xviii. ) how Sir Launcelot and his friends and kinsmen passed over-sea from Cardiff to " Benwick " :
" Some men call it Bayonne and some men call it Beaume, where the wine of Beaume is. But to say the sooth Sir Launcelot and his nephews were lords of all France and of all the lands that longed unto France ; he and his kindred rejoiced it all through Sir Launcelot's noble prowess .... and he crowned Sir Lionel [another son of King Ban] king of France and Sir Bors he crowned him king of all Sir Claudas' lands ; and Sir Ector de Maris, that was Sir Launcelot's youngest brother, he crowned him king of Benwick and also KINO OF
ALL GUIENNE THAT WAS SlR LAUNCELOT'S OWN
LAND. And he made Sir Ector prince of them all, and thus he [Ector] departed."
In the formation of personal names the trouveres frequently added -or ; cp. Brandeg- ore, Breun-or, Morgan-ore. In the case of " Hect- " the addition was, moreover, a natural one to make. But Hect- is neither Germanic nor real : it is scribal, and springs from Hecc. Moreover, h here is a mis- reading of 6.* Hence for Hect < Hecc I read Becc, and I identify Sir Hect-or, the youngest son of King Ban, whom Sir Launce- lot his brother made prince of all the kins- men and descendants of their father, with Becca who ruled the Baningas.
3. Becca i.e., Sir Hector having been made King of " Guienne," Sir Launcelot's own particular province, we are hereby reminded of the noble gift that the Emperor Honorius made to Wallia, King of the Wisi- Goths, in 418. This was Aquitania Secunda f " the Pearl of Gaul," or Guyenne : cp. ' N. & Q.,' 11 S. vi. 7. As this was Launce- lot's own land, as he was son of King Ban, and as his brother Becca was ruler of the Baningas, I propose to equate the Romance name of Galahad with an O.E. Walahad. The Gothic form postulated by this is
- Wailihaidus, and the pet-name for that
would be Waila.
" Waila " actually occurs in the ' Later- culus Regum ' prefixed to the ' Legum Corpus Visigothorum ' (' Chronica Minora, r
- Collision of h and b is frequent : cp. Heli t
Herili, Hernicia : : Beli, Benli, Bernicia.
