Folks-Motifs in the Medieval Spanish Epic

Alan Deyermond

Changes in scholarly fashion are often arbitrary; occasionally they seem perverse, as when a promising line of investigation is largely abandoned just at the moment when long-needed tools have been provided. In the 1920's, W. J. Entwistle, Georges Cirot, and above all A. H. Krappe published major studies on the content of Spanish heroic legends, in which the analysis of folklore material played a large part. In 1923, Krappe announced his intention, «if circumstances permit, to examine the whole of the traditional and folkloristic material which has come down to us in the Spanish epics, the ballads and the chronicles»¹. Ten years later, Entwistle demonstrated that «Spanish epic plots can be studied for themselves, before raising questions as to their historicity... They use motifs and situations common to traditional literature everywhere in Europe... Their plots must be studied in relation to their analogues and antecedents; the former belong chiefly to the domain of the folklorist...»²

At this stage, two basic research tools for the folklorist were available in German: Antti Aarne's Verzeichnis der Märchentypen (1910), and J. Bolte and G. Polívka's Anmerkungen zu den Kinder-und Hausmärchen der Brüder Grimm (1913-31). Nothing of this quality existed in Spanish, French or English; Aarne's book was far less useful than subsequent revisions were to make it, and Vladímir Propp's newly-published study of folktale morphology (1928) was accessible only to those who could read Russian. Moreover, there was no comprehensive work on folk-motifs³. As far as works written in Spanish are concerned, this dearth has persisted to the present day, but English-speaking (and English-reading) Hispanists have been provided successively with Types of the Folktale (1928), Stith Thompson's translation and revision of Aarne; Thompson's Motif-Index of Folk Literature (1932-6) and its greatly expanded second edition (1955-8); Morphology of the Folktale (1958), a translation of Propp, followed by a revised edition in 1968; and a further revision of the Aarne-Thompson Types (1961). It is not altogether surprising that this material had no effect on studies of the Spanish epic undertaken within Spain, especially when, as Entwistle had already noted, the example of Milá y Fontanals and the authority of Menéndez Pidal concentrated the attention of Spanish scholars on the frustrating task of reconstructing historically accurate ancestors for the patently fictitious extant texts (whether epic poems or chronicle prosifications). What is surprising, however, is that studies in English of the folkloric content of Spanish epics became less frequent (in the 1930's and 40's, both Krappe and Entwistle turned their attention to other matters), and that most of those which were undertaken failed to make use of the tools provided by Thompson and the other folklorists. Only in the case of two poems -Poema de Fernán González and Mocedades de Rodrigo- has there been any serious published attempt in recent years to investigate this aspect of the epic; in a third case, an unpublished thesis gives some attention to folkloric material in the Condesa traidora⁴. A similar shift of interest has occurred in Beowulf studies, and a recent article begins by seeking reasons for the shift⁵. In both cases, the movement away from folkloric studies of epic is a pity, since -as Carpenter's book on the Homeric poems showed a quarter of a century ago- this type of investigation can greatly enlarge the reader's understanding of the poems⁶. We do not, of course, claim a comparable importance for the present article, but we hope to demonstrate that the folkloric content of Spanish epic is much higher than has been generally suspected, and that this fact cannot safely be neglected in discussions of the origins, historicity or structure of Spanish epic poems⁷.

It is not always easy to define the frontiers of this subject. Folk-motifs overlap to some extent with the fundamental epic motifs (treachery, vengeance, the assembly, enumeration of warriors, and so on) which, as a reading of Bowra or Lord quickly reveals, are a remarkably constant feature of the genre over many centuries and in many languages. It will be seen that in this article we refer to several motifs which are indexed by Stith Thompson as features of folk-literature but which are also characteristic of the epic as a whole. If all or most of the motifs we discuss were of this type, the present study would have little point, but in fact the majority cannot be classified as specifically epic motifs. Again, the search for folk-motifs is bound to have some points of contact with recent attempts to find underlying patterns in Spanish epics⁸, but the aims and techniques of our investigation remain in general distinct. Our concern has been primarily to discover the extent to which the motifs indexed by Thompson are present in Spanish epic poems, or in what appear to be prosified versions of epics in the vernacular chronicles, and secondarily to assess the use made of some of these motifs by the poets.

It is as well to face three methodological objections at this stage. The first concerns our use of the Thompson Motif-Index: we have accepted as a folk-motif anything included by Thompson, even though its occurrences as listed by him may be remote from Spain (in one case, the only occurrence listed is in Buddhist myth). We recognize the arbitrary nature of our criterion, but we feel that its objectivity is sufficient compensation. If, instead of basing our study on Thompson's thorough and (in the present context) neutral listing, we were to rely on our own feelings about the popular nature of motifs, our procedure would be rightly suspect. A second objection applies to all studies of folk-motifs in medieval literature: the scientific recording of oral folktales is a modern development, and such material is preserved from the Middle Ages only in a literary form. However, the force of this objection is much reduced by the great frequency with which motifs from medieval sources are found also in modern oral folktales from widely separated regions.

The third objection is the most serious. Some occurrence of folk-motifs is to be expected in any historical or contemporary situation. F. L. Utley has taken Lord Raglan's list of twenty-two archetypal features of the mythic hero, and has shown that by Raglan's criteria Abraham Lincoln is «a purely mythical figure who could not have had a historical counterpart», and that the unreality of the Civil War is proved «by its strange, unearthly-sounding battles: Antietam, Shiloh... and, in blatant recall of Frazerian myths about fertility god and wasteland, Bull Run and the Wilderness»⁹. Few could hope to rival the brilliance of Utley's demonstration, but all of us can recognize well-known folk-motifs in the careers of equally well-known political figures of the past hundred years. Grover Cleveland and Charles de Gaulle exemplify the motif of the exile who returns and succeeds (Thompson L111.1). Perhaps the most striking case of the hero of mysterious origins is that of Rasputin; the bastard hero (L111.5) is represented by Ramsey MacDonald and T. E. Lawrence. And the motifs and their real-life examples could be pursued at much greater length. It is necessary at this point to remember that many folk-motifs grew up because of, and not in spite of, their occurrences in life. Some of the most memorable incidents in folktales are memorable precisely because they are artistic recreations of events that could, but normally do not, happen in the lives of the audience. How, then, is it possible to decide whether an epic poem contains folk-motifs or whether it reflects historical events of a type that in the past gave rise to folk-motifs? A similar problem arises with formulaic style: some repetition is inevitable in any literary work, and we need a basis for deciding that repetitions in one work are formulaic, and that those in another work are not. In both cases, the safest test is quantitative: when there is a high concentration of apparent folk-motifs or apparent formulas, we are forced to conclude that the author is, whether consciously or not, using folklore material, or that he is using a traditional formulaic style. This does in fact happen with medieval Spanish epic: the percentage of formulas is too high to be due to chance (though not high enough to show oral-formulaic composition)¹⁰, and the proportion of folk-motifs in some epics is too high to be explained by resemblances to real life. The frequency with which types of motif occur in the Spanish epic varies a great deal, and some types are heavily concentrated within one or two works. A full frequency-analysis is impossible within the limits of this article, but it is worth noting that Thompson's categories A (mythological motifs) and C (tabu) are virtually unrepresented, and that there is only a very sparse representation of B (animals), E (the dead), U (the nature of life), W (traits of character), and X (humor). The explanations are in general not hard to find. The heroic epic is, as Bowra points out, distinct from shamanistic poetry; in the former, courage, strength and skill are the decisive qualities, while in the latter magical powers are predominant¹¹. Most of the groups of motifs which are scarce or non-existent in the medieval Spanish epic are those in which magic plays a major part. The scarcity of motifs from groups W and X is equally understandable: heroic epic can seldom spare time for character-analysis, and though it admits humor, this is comparatively rare, and in any case is more likely to be ironic than broad.

The most strongly represented categories are K (deceptions) and Q (rewards and punishments), a fact which, if stated in that form, makes the epic seem alarmingly close to the exemplum-collections of the thirteenth to fifteenth centuries. A more detailed statement of the position removes this misleading impression. In category K, the deceptions most of ten found in exempla are comparatively rare. Deceptive bargains are represented by the Poema de Fernán González, stanzas 569-74 and 730-34, in which Fernán González sells a hawk and a horse to the King of León on terms which seem advantageous but which mean that when the King is belatedly reminded of his debt it has become so large that he is unable to pay it (K134)¹². The Cantar de Mio Cid has one example of thefts and cheats: the well-known incident of lines 85-207 in which the Cid leaves with the Jewish moneylenders chests filled with sand, obtaining in exchange money to finance the opening stage of his campaign (K455.9 and 476.2.2)¹³. In the class of deceptions connected with adultery, the Condesa traidora (Primera crónica general, ch. 732) has the cuckolded husband hiding under the adulterers' bed (K1514.4.2.1), though the outcome here is not comic but tragic. Such cases are exceptional. Escape by deception (K521) is more frequent, occurring in PFG, CT and the Romanz del Infant García, but a clear majority of the deception-motifs to be found in the medieval Spanish epic come from the categories of fatal deception and of villains and traitors. The strong representation of K-motifs is thus a reflection of the frequency with which treachery appears in the epic of most peoples. As to motifs in the Q category, scarcely any are concerned with reward (Q72.1, Reward for loyalty to King, is to be found in CMC, especially lines 1866 ff.). Punishment is, however, a very frequent motif, mainly thanks to the sub-category of kinds of punishment. The frequency of its occurrence is much inflated by the preoccupation of the Romanz del Infant García with the punishment of the Count's treacherous murderers: eleven motifs from this sub-category are to be found in chapter 789 of the Primera crónica general version of the story.

It may be helpful at this point to take a few groups of motifs and to examine the way in which they are used. Both the victorious youngest child and the unpromising hero belong to category L (reversal of fortune). In the early stages of the Mocedades de Rodrigo, Ximena is shown as the victorious youngest daughter (L50), and there are also reflections of L10, the victorious youngest son¹⁴. L10 occurs also in the Poema de Fernán González (st. 167-69), and it plays an important part in the Siete Infantes de Lara: Gonzalo González, the youngest of Gonzalo Gustioz's seven sons, triumphs in the contest at the wedding of Ruy Velázquez and Doña Lambra (PCG, p. 432a), and the resentment felt by Lambra's cousin Álvar Sánchez at this unexpected defeat leads to the quarrel which begins the family feud. At a later stage, when the Infantes have been betrayed by Ruy Velázquez and they are fighting to the death against an overwhelming force of Moors, «Gonçalo Gonçález el menor fazie muy mayores fechos que ninguno de los otros» (PCG 441a). The final and most striking example of this motif in SIL is missing from the PCG text, which compresses and curtails the end of the story, but it occurs in the version given by the Crónica de 1344. When Mudarra, son of Gonzalo Gustioz and a Mooress, reaches the age of five years he closely resembles the dead Gonzalo González (Cr. 1344, III, 153), and the likeness is at once noticed by doña Sancha when her husband's illegitimate son, now grown to manhood, comes to Castile to avenge his half-brothers (p. 159). The resemblance soon becomes virtual identity, when Gonzalo Gustioz «abraçou seu filho dom Mudarra o começou a chorar com elle e dizerlhe assy: -Filho Gonçallo Gonçállvez, a sua semelhança he a vossa meesma!» (160), and the process is completed by Count Garci Fernández's words: «Este he Gonçallo Gonçálvez e este he o seu corpo e a sua cara meesma!» (161). Thus the youngest son is reincarnated, and the new youngest son goes on to kill the traitor Ruy Velázquez, restore the family's position, and achieve a posthumous triumph for Gonzalo González. Three motifs are combined here, for in addition to L10, Mudarra's triumph exemplifies E234 (Return from the dead to avenge murder)¹⁵, and also the bastard hero (L111.5, which also has a prominent place in Bernardo del Carpio, PCG 351a).

L111.5 falls within the general category of the unpromising hero or heroine, which is represented by other motifs in the epics under discussion. L113, the hero of unpromising occupation, occurs in the Poema de Fernán González (st. 176), when Fernán González is stolen in infancy by a charcoal-burner and brought up as his son. It occurs also in CMC and the Mocedades de Rodrigo, in a more sophisticated way: in CMC 3377-81, Asur González tries to discredit the Cid at the Toledo cort by exaggerating the lowliness of his origins (which are alluded to elsewhere by the epithet «Mio Cid el de Bivar») and attributing to him comically ignoble ways of gaining a living¹⁶. Asur González's insult predictably rebounds, since the defeat inflicted on him and his brothers, the Infantes de Carrión, by the Cid's champions becomes more humiliating the more that one believes in the hero's lowly origins. It rebounds in another way when the heirs to the thrones of Aragón and Navarre declare that the Cid's daughters are a suitable match for them (L162, Lowly heroine marries prince). This section of CMC seems to have inspired MR 911-18 and 938-41, where Rodrigo's ironic insistence on his humble origins conceals a trap for the Count of Savoy. MR, indeed, adds to the complexity of the motif by combining it with mystery (which is cleared up in 938-41) about the hero's origins¹⁷.

Mysterious origins are not indexed as a motif by Thompson, but they make up the greater part of L111.2, Foundling hero (hero or heroine found in a wolf's den, in a hollow tree, in a boat, in a harp, and so on). Fernán González, kidnapped in infancy and brought up in ignorance of his true parentage, clearly belongs to this class of heroes, and the same is probably true of Mudarra and of Bernardo del Carpio¹⁸. Both heroes are not only illegitimate but of racially mixed parentage and conceived in an atmosphere of violence; both learn of their true parentage only when taunted with their illegitimacy (T646); and in both cases, as well as in that of Fernán González, the appearance of the mysterious hero in his father's country at a moment of crisis for the family or the whole country (SIL, PCG 447b; BC, PCG 371a; PFG 178-84) adds to the drama of the situation and to the sense of rescue against heavy odds. In BC, the motifs of mysterious origins and of the bastard hero are linked to L111.1 (exile returns and succeeds), since in one of Bernardo's quarrels with King Alfonso over the imprisonment of the hero's father, the King pronounces sentence of banishment (372a). In this case, however, the ending is tragic: the King agrees to release Bernardo's father, but too late, for the prisoner has died; when Bernardo discovers this, his fury against Alfonso leads to a final banishment (374b-375b). This is in marked contrast to the ending of CMC, where the success of the returned exile is absolute:

Oy los reyes d'España          sos parientes son, a todos alcança ondra          por el que en buen ora nació

(3724-45)19

The returned exile succeeds also in the Cantar de Sancho II: after Sancho's murder at the siege of Zamora, his brother returns from exile in Toledo, and ascends the throne as Alfonso VI, but his is a muted triumph, since he is suspected of complicity in the murder, and is allowed to take possession of his kingdom only after he has thrice sworn to his innocence (this episode, the Jura de Santa Gadea, was probably added later to link Sancho with CMC)²⁰.

Hunting is the subject of motifs which occur frequently in the medieval romances, and which also play some, though a smaller, part in the epic. N771 (King lost on hunt has adventures) is important in PFG, since the hero, separated from his companions, pursues a wild boar to what proves to be a hermitage (225-32), and this adventure causes him to found the monastery of San Pedro de Arlanza. This motif is thus at the root not only of a major episode of the poem, but also of the poet's purpose, since -whatever the authorship of PFG's conjectural lost predecessor in traditional epic meter may have been- the extant poem in cuaderna vía was composed by an Arlanza monk in order to publicize his monastery's connection with the first Count of Castile, and thereby to increase the monastery's revenue. A probably unconscious reminiscence of this episode occurs in MR, just before the foundation-legend of Palencia Cathedral is introduced²¹. PFG contains another, though minor, instance of hunting leading to an adventure. A lecherous Archpriest is out hunting when he finds human quarry (639-40): Fernán González and Princess Sancha of Navarre, who has helped the hero to escape from her brother's prison. The Archpriest's attempt to rape Sancha leads to his death (the PCG version, 414a, states what is half implied in the poem, that he is stabbed with his own knife)²².

There is no hunt motif in what is usually taken to be the plot of the Cantar de Sancho II, but N771 may be reflected in one section of the story as told by PCG²³. King Alfonso of León, dethroned and exiled by Sancho of Castile, has taken refuge in Toledo. While hunting, he comes across a pleasant spot which he persuades the Moorish king to give to him (504a -he was wandering rather than actually lost). This episode is immediately followed by one in which Alfonso, who is thought by the Moors to be asleep, overhears their discussion of the only way in which Toledo could be captured by the Christians, and that in turn is followed by portents of Alfonso's capture of the city (504b). It may be that in the ultimate source of this PCG chapter there was an explicit causal link between the hunt adventure (which in the PCG narrative has little point), Alfonso's deceitful learning of the secret of Toledo's vulnerability, and the portents. A more complex hunt motif occurs in the Cr. 1344 version of SIL. During Mudarra's pursuit of Ruy Velázquez, the traitor sends his hawk after a heron, but the hawk fails to capture its prey and is lost to sight (165). While the irate Ruy Velázquez and his three hundred knights are searching for the hawk, they see the approach of Mudarra. This hunting episode is clearly intended to be linked to Mudarra's hunting of the traitor, and to doña Sancha's dream (156-57) in which Mudarra appears as a hawk, but the nature of the connection has become partially obscured in the chronicle text.

Many other groups of motifs could be discussed, but one must suffice. The girl who falls in love with her father's (or sometimes her brother's) prisoner is a familiar character in French epic, and appears also in Spanish. In the typical form of the story, the girl is a Saracen, helps the Christian knight to escape, is baptized, and marries him, but occasionally (as in SIL) there is no escape, and the love-affair has a different outcome. In every case, it is a major turning-point of the plot. The motif of the Saracen princess in love with a captured knight (T91.6.4.1) is found also in romances, but in view of its extraordinary popularity in the epic, and the epic's chronological priority, it would be reasonable to assume that this, like a number of other motifs in the romances, is of epic origin²⁴. However, although this theory is satisfactory for occurrences that involve a Saracen-Christian relationship, the more general situation of the girl in love with a relative's prisoner cannot easily be explained by reference to epic antecedents. It is found several times in Arthurian romance, and it occurs also in the Gesta Romanorum and the Thousand and One Nights. This suggests that it is a folk-motif of considerable antiquity, no doubt because the emotional appeal of a foreign captive leads to its fairly frequent occurrence in real life²⁵.

The instances of this motif in Spanish epic are far less numerous than their French counterparts, but all are of interest. The love-affair in SIL, mentioned above, is said by the PCG version to be between Gonzalo Gustioz and «una mora fijadalgo» (435b), but Cr. 1344 specifies that the Mooress is the sister of Almanzor, Gonzalo Gustioz's captor. Her union with Gonzalo is an indispensable link in the chain that leads from Ruy Velázquez's treachery to his punishment, for she becomes the mother of the avenger Mudarra (and in the Cr. 1344 version, 149, Mudarra's conception follows directly from the Mooress's reminder to Gonzalo that he is still capable of begetting sons who will avenge their dead brothers)²⁶. No Mooress is involved in PFG, but there is a girl of a different nationality from the prisoner. Fernán González, treacherously captured, has been imprisoned by King García of Navarre, whose sister Sancha falls in love with him, releases him in return for a promise of marriage and, since he is still in chains, carries him across country on her back (628-37). It should be added that Sancha frees Fernán González from prison a second time, though here, since the end of the poem is lost, we have to rely on chronicle accounts. The Castilian hero is imprisoned by the King of León, and two well-established folk-motifs make up the story of his rescue (PCG 420b-421a). Sancha goes to the prison dressed as a pilgrim (K1817.2; cf. K2357.2, Disguise as pilgrim to enter enemy's camp)²⁷, obtains entrance to the prison and permission to spend the night with her husband (she has him freed from his chains so that they can make love)²⁸, and then exchanges clothes with him. The disguised Fernán González is thus able to walk out of the prison (K521, Escape by disguise), and he soon completes his triumph, winning Castile's independence by a deceptive bargain with the Leonese King. The double release from prison by the same woman is unusual, and while J. P. Keller may be correct in claiming that the episodes were originally in the reverse order, it is also possible that PFG splits into two what was at one stage a single incident²⁹.

The third case in Spanish epic does not involve a prisoner, but its kinship to the others is unmistakable. In the Condesa traidora another Sancha, daughter of the adulterous French count, helps Garci Fernández gain his revenge in return for a promise of marriage. This episode makes clearer than the others an important folklore connection. It is, of course, an example of T95.0.1 (Princess falls in love with father's enemy), but it is also an analogue of G530.2 (Help from ogre's daughter). In folktales of the type which are generally described as fairy-tales, the hero's antagonist (sometimes his captor) is frequently an ogre, fearsome, repulsive and uncanny. This alien creature has around him, however, more sympathetic figures, especially his womenfolk, both relatives and servants, and these often join with the hero in order to defeat the ogre³⁰. What the ogre is to the fairy-tale, the foreign (and especially the dark-skinned) ruler is to the romance and the epic. Moorish and Saracen kings, or (as seen by a Castilian) French counts and Leonese or Navarrese kings, fulfill the ogre's function in the story, and motifs concerned with ogres are unhesitatingly (though no doubt unconsciously) transferred to the foreign rulers. This happens even when the foreigner is sympathetically presented, as with Almanzor in SIL or Almemón in Sancho; the motif is too attractive to be lightly discarded. Transposed ogre-motifs in the epic are generally of the G530 type (the daughter may be replaced by another female relative, especially a sister), but they are not confined to this type. In Sancho, the exiled Alfonso's success in learning the vulnerable point in Toledo's defences can be classified not only under the general and unenlightening heading of N455 (Overheard conversation) or the more closely applicable N476 (Secret of unique vulnerability disclosed), but also under G661 (Ogre's secret overheard).

The motifs discussed above could easily be multiplied, but perhaps enough has been said to demonstrate the importance of folk-motifs in Spanish epic poems and in the epic sections of chronicles, and it may be better to use our remaining space for a listing of the motifs found within a single text, the PCG version of the Condesa traidora. This has a greater number of folk-motifs than any other Spanish epic story, yet it is not wholly unrepresentative, and a similar analysis of any other text would reveal, at the least, a significant number of motifs.

CT, the wholly fictitious tale of Count Garci Fernández's disastrous marriages, is prefaced in PCG by the story of a miracle (426a-427a). One of the Count's knights misses a battle against the Moors because of his unwillingness to leave church until eight Masses have been celebrated. When he emerges, expecting accusations of cowardice, he finds that an angel had assumed his form and that his absence had not been noticed (K1811.4.2, Angel takes form of person; V232.1, Angel helper in battle). It is almost certain, however, that this episode has been juxtaposed with CT by the chroniclers, and that it did not form part of the epic, while begins with the marriage of Grarci Fernández to Argentina, daughter of a French count. Garci Fernández is (427a) noted for the beauty of his hands (F552.3, Remarkably pretty white hands)³¹. While the hero is ill, Argentina elopes with another French count (427ab), and goes to live with him in France (T230, Faithlessness in marriage). Garci Fernández dresses as a pilgrim, enters France, and tracks down the guilty couple (H1228, Quest undertaken by hero for vengeance; K1817.2, Disguise as pilgrim; K2357.2, Disguise as pilgrim to enter enemy's camp). Argentina causes trouble between her lover and his legitimate daughter Sancha, and the girl is ill-treated (S31, Cruel stepmother). Sancha sends her maid out to look for someone who will help her, and Garci Fernández's nobility is obvious despite the poverty of his dress, since the beauty of his hands cannot be overlooked (H312.4, Successful suitor must have whitest hands).

When the hero is brought to Sancha (428a), she agrees to help him if he will marry her (T95.0.1, Princess falls in love with father's enemy; G530.2, Help from ogre's daughter). They sleep together, and on the third night (428b) Sancha guides Garci Fernández to the room occupied by Argentina and her lover (Z71.1, Formulistic numbers: three; K2214.1, Treacherous daughter). The hero hides beneath the bed of the guilty couple, and when Sancha, who has remained in the room by feigning affection for them, tells him they are asleep he beheads them (K1514.4.2.1, Cuckold husband hides under bed; K834.1, Dupe tricked into sleeping. Killed; K959.2, Murder in one's sleep; Q241, Adultery punished; Q421.0.2, Beheading as punishment for adultery). Garci Fernández then escapes to Castile with Sancha and the heads of the victims (S139.2.1.1, Head of murdered man taken along as trophy). For a time, all goes well, and Sancha gives birth to a son, Sancho, but before long she turns against her husband (428b-429a), motif T230 recurs, and she begins to plot his death (an anticipation of K2213.3, Faithless wife plots with paramour against husband's life -the paramour is not mentioned until a later stage).

CT has so far occupied three chapters (730-32) of PCG, and is now interrupted by the Siete Infantes de Lara. CT resumes in chapter 763, and is concluded in the following chapter. Sancha feeds husks to Garci Fernández's horse (453b), so that it seems strong but collapses under him when he fights the Moors, whose king (as we are told on 454a) Sancha wants to marry. Garci Fernández is wounded and captured, and dies soon afterwards (K2213.3 again, and the first half of K2213.3.1, Faithless wife has husband and children killed so that she can be with paramour; cf. K778, Capture through wiles of a woman). It is at this point that Sancha resolves to murder her son (454a), since he too is an obstacle to her desire to marry the Morrish king (second half of K2213.3.1). She prepares poisoned wine, but one of her serving-women warns a squire, who in turn warns Sancho (N857, Enemy's servant as helper; G530.6, Ogre's maid as helper). The new Count compels his mother to drink the poison, threatening to behead her if she does not (K1613.0.1, Would-be poisoner forced to drink poisoned cup; cf. Q582.8, Person drinks poison he prepared for another; Q421.0.4, Beheading as punishment for murder).

All but two of these motifs are present in the Cr. 1344 version of CT, and only one is added there. Cr. 1344 omits F552.3 at the beginning of the story, although the cognate H312.4 is included in its proper place, and it omits S139.2.1.1. The added motif is K521.4.1.1 (Girl escapes in male disguise): Argentina, dressed as a man, elopes with the French count (p. 119), whereas PCG gives no details of the escape. The similarity between the two chronicles in their treatment of epics is not always so close, however: Cr. 1344 gives a full treatment of the second half of SIL, with numerous folk-motifs, in place of the more summary account in PCG, which has few motifs for the second half.

In the very similar versions of CT presented by these two chronicles, the plot is largely made up of folk-motifs. This is, as we have already noted, an extreme case, but analysis of any other medieval Spanish heroic epic reveals an impressively long and detailed list of folk-motifs. Not all epic motifs are of the types frequent in the international popular tale, and it is to be hoped that some scholar or team of scholars will before too long compile a full motif-index which will be for heroic poetry what Stith Thompson's volumes are for folklore. Nevertheless, the proportion of folk-motifs in the Spanish epic is high, and this is true not only of prosified epics such as CT and SIL, but also of the surviving verse texts: MR, PFG, Roncesvalles and -perhaps surprisingly, but quite unmistakably- CMC. There is, in other words, no reason to suppose that the proportion of folk-motifs was inflated by the prosifiers and chroniclers. CMC, so untypical of Spanish and of universal epic in many ways, conforms to the Spanish pattern in this respect at least: it contains nearly forty identifiable folk-motifs, distributed among fifteen of Stith Thompson's main categories. Its use of the motifs is often, as one might expect, sophisticated and highly individual, requiring a separate study, but there can be no doubt that the poet of CMC made use of the same basic material as his less sophisticated fellow-poets.

It is now time to consider the implications of the findings set out above. In the first place, the frequent use of folk-motifs neither proves nor disproves the existence of an epic where a verse text is lacking, since these motifs are also found frequently in extant verse texts and in such non-epic works as romances and exempla. Menéndez Pidal once confessed that he had been inclined to deny CT the status of epic because «hallaba en ella, más que una leyenda heroica, una simple novela fabulosa; la novela es de valor singular, por cierto, mas, sin embargo, resultaba asunto estéril para el estudio de la epopeya como poesía de tema histórico y de vida tradicional»³². It is true that CT was restored to epic respectability when Menéndez Pidal found that the mid-twelfth-century Crónica Najerense contained a briefer version which made it possible for him to suppose that a primitive text of CT might have been historically accurate, but it is significant that this epic should at first have been rejected because it contained so many features typical of universal popular narrative. It is now clear that if one rejects CT on such grounds, CMC must also go.

Secondly, the use of folk-motifs is as consistent with a learned as with a popular origin of any poem. Given their frequency in romances, in exemplum-collections such as the Disciplina clericalis, and in Berceo's Milagros de Nuestra Señora³³, there is no cause for surprise when they are found in an epic which, like CT, has obvious associations with monastic tomb-cults³⁴, or which, like MR, was composed by a cleric as ecclesiastical propaganda.

Thirdly, since so much of the content of Spanish epics is folk-motif, and so much of the rest is ecclesiastical (some, of course, falls into both categories)³⁵, it becomes even harder to accept the neotradicionalista view that the typical Spanish epic was composed by a juglar at the time of the events or very soon afterwards, that it is historically accurate, and that its interests are entirely secular.

Fourthly, considerable caution is needed in interpreting coincidences of motif between a Spanish and a French or Germanic poem. Direct influence may be the correct explanation, but it is generally wise to heed the warnings of the folklorists on the dangers of assuming borrowing by one extant version from another. Thus the parallels discovered by the research of Erich von Richthofen and other scholars should probably be taken as illuminating analogues rather than as proofs of a literary indebtedness to a particular work³⁶.

Finally, although it would be impossible within the limits of a single article to give a full account of the folk-motifs in medieval Spanish epic, we hope that we have been able to demonstrate the great quantitative importance of these motifs. It would be rash to neglect the possibility that they are also important qualitatively, both in the structure and in the origins of Spanish epic poems.