In telling this story the poet’s concern is not the presentation of a hero who succeeds in his mission in an exemplary manner. What he demands of his audience is that they listen to the story with full attention for the fairytale-like character of the quest Walewein undertakes. In that story, Penninc has three characters play the role of narrator. To conclude this contribution, let us briefly examine how these characters proceed in this role.
The first word is Walewein’s, when he reports to King Wonder and his son about the reactions of Arthur and his knights to the appearance of the flying chess-set. Waleweinʼs account is remarkable because it matches, almost word for word, that given by the narrator of the romance earlier. In turn, the hero is allowed to give his own version of the great marvel with which the romance begins. In doing so, Walewein takes the opportunity to draw attention to himself, because of his promise to search for the chess-set.
The second narrator is King Amoraen, who tells Walewein about Ysabele, the princess he loves from afar. This narrator presents a description in which most of the attention is focused on Ysabele’s garden. There is a discrepancy between Amoraenʼs description of this garden and the princessʼs appreciation of what it is like to live there. Amoraen ornamentally elaborates on the pleasure garden with the organ tree and the miracle fountain to create an oriental setting for the princess upon whom his heart is set. But at the end of the part of the story written by Penninc, Ysabele characterizes the garden as the favorite place of her father. She would rather cede this garden than abandon Walewein, the hero with whom she has since fallen in love. In other words, seen from the heroineʼs perspective, Amoraenʼs description of the pleasure garden is little more than a rhetorical demonstration.
Penninc also sets aside a significant role for Roges the fox, the hero’s helper, as the third and final narrator. The fairytale-like character of the romance culminates in the role of the talking fox. The enchanted Roges tells Walewein what his stepmother has done to him in the past, in a beautifully elaborated story with a marvelous finale: the stepmother transforms Prince Roges into a fox, and she also determines how this enchantment can be broken. When Walewein hears Roges’ narration, he wants to work to ensure that the fox regains his human form. And that is ultimately what Penninc’s story of Walewein’s quest is all about.
By paying closer attention to the three embedded narrators in the poem we gain a greater appreciation of the level of agency attributed to these three individual speakers by their very role as narrator. Walewein inserts himself into his account of the opening scene of the romance, reshaping it ever so slightly to his own advantage. Amoraen’s narration reveals a notable discrepancy between Ysabeleʼs view of her own situation and that of her father, a discrepancy that adds at the very least a tinge of subversive criticism to an otherwise straightforward description of a romance garden of earthly delights. Finally, and perhaps most significantly, the role of narrator devised by Penninc for the fox Roges has even further-reaching consequences for the whole work, for embedded in that account are the conditions for the true success of Walewein’s quest.