Jessie L. Weston is now best known for her seminal study From Ritual to Romance, in which she argues that the entire mythos of the Holy Grail is in fact a coded memory of Celtic pagan rituals. Her theory, although largely discredited by academic Arthurian scholars, remains influential to this day. The Byrdcliffe Library contains two of her earlier works,Legends of the Wagner Dramas and The Story of Tristan and Iseult, both undertaken at the suggestion of Alfred Nutt, with the view of making the stories of the Wagner dramas more widely known in England, she took up the study of the Arthurian Legend.
Alfred Nutt’s tale is a romantic and tragic one. A respected folklorist in his own right, he founded both The Irish Texts Society and The Folk-Lore Journal, and was elected President of The Folklore Society. There are two copies of his influential Studies on the Legends of the Holy Grail in the Byrdcliffe Library, in addition to his publications of Weston’s work. Nutt’s career was tragically cut short at 54 when the horse bearing his invalid son bolted into the Seine, and Alfred dove into the Seine in a futile attempt to save him.
As Weston points out in her introduction, translating Gottfried von Strassbourg’s version of Tristan is an ambitious task: “The very perfection and polish of Gottfried’s style forbid literal transcription. He is a master of his material and loves to play upon words in a manner no translation can reproduce.” Weston’s translation succeeds, despite her modesty, and the book’s illustrations and decorations by Caroline Watts do ample justice to Gottfried’s ornate style as well.
Caroline Watt’s work also provides a fascinating coda to Alfred Nutt’s tragic death. For after the loss of both her son and husband, Alfred’s widow,M. L. Nutt, an involved women’s rights activist, took over the publishing house. That involvement was influential in Watts creating what is largely considered her signature piece, the 1908 promotional poster for National Union of Women’s Suffrage Societies — in a far bolder, but no less heroic, style than her Tristan illustrations.
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