XX REYNARD THE FOX

Whether we are to call Lorraine French or
German depends on which side of the Rhine
we were born. From this side of the Channel
one feels inclined to ‘hedge’ and call the
names Franco-Teutonic.

Another set of names in the Cycle are of
interest, because they are appellative and not
personal. Noble the Lion, Chanticleer the
Cock, Kyward the Hare derive their names
from their qualities, and imply an allegorising
tendency in those who acted as their godfathers.
These names increase in the latter development
of the fable, and thus afford the crucial test
of the relative antiquity of the various branches.
Thus, the earliest of them, as represented by
the German Rezxhart, contains only one such
appellative name, Chanticleer, and that in such
a form that it was clearly not appellative to the
German writer. It is owing to the significance
and critical importance of these names that I
have devoted such attention to them in the
annotations to this volume.

The increasing tendency to give significant
names to the various beasts introduced marks
a change that came over the Reynard after the
earlier stages of its development. When the
beasts had only personal names given to them