This, however, can hardly be
contended of the Welsh Triads; there we find Gwalchmai, the Welsh
Gawain, cited as one of the three men "To whom the nature of every
object was known,"[14] an accomplishment exceedingly necessary for
a 'Medicine Man,' but not at first sight especially needful for the
equipment of a knight.[15] This persistent attribution of healing
skill is not, so far as my acquaintance with medieval Romance goes,
paralleled in the case of any other knight; even Tristan, who is
probably the most accomplished of heroes of romance, the most
thoroughly trained in all branches of knightly education, is not
credited with any such knowledge. No other knight, save Gawain,
has the reputation of a Healer, yet Gawain, the Maidens' Knight,
the 'fair Father of Nurture' is, at first sight, hardly the personage
one might expect to possess such skill. Why he should be so
persistently connected with healing was for long a problem to me;
recently, however, I have begun to suspect that we have in this
apparently motiveless attribution the survival of an early stage
of tradition in which not only did Gawain cure the Grail King,
but he did so, not by means of a question, or by the welding of
a broken sword, but by more obvious and natural means, the
administration of a healing herb.
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