The Flemish author of the Ferguut gradually turns his romance into an ironic and humorous variant on the
amour-
chevalerie theme found in
Fergus and in Chrétien’s first romances.
1 See: Zemel, ‘Het vergeten vergrijp van Galiene’, pp. 278–79 and ‘“Ene behagele coninginne”’, pp. 194–97. He may have even intended the last part of his romance as a parody of a courtly love romance, since, for a long time, it remains uncertain whether Ferguut and Galiene will have each other. Moreover, Ferguut is not a hero driven by love, like Fergus, Erec or Yvain; he adopts a comfortable wait-and-see-attitude at his castle in the woods and needs other characters to push him into action: the damsels, Lunette, and the funny dwarf who acts as a herald by announcing the tournament. Galiene is also an atypical heroine. She is impatient and does not want to wait any more for Ferguut; at one point she even seems to forget about him, travelling to Arthur to ask for a husband. Finally, the author ridicules Arthur too since he is so impressed by Galiene’s beauty that he sponsors a tournament for her in which all of his famous knights are defeated by an unknown knight, the son of a villein. In the end, Galiene finds a husband, but hangs her head in shame when she recognizes Ferguut. She must marry the man she had banished from her thoughts and for whom she no longer wished to wait. The irony is that Ferguut and Galiene will have each other indeed, not because of the force of love, but because the lady-in-waiting Lunette and a dwarf happen to pass by.