Beginning of Essay
Chaucer's Tale of the Wife of Bath, the lead tale of the so-called "marriage group", is a Gawain story standing amongst the latter versions of a group of analogues which in the main incorporate two chief motifs, viz., that of the Transformed Hag (Loathly Lady) an ....

Middle of Essay
.... (KO) Libeaus Desconus (LD) {one episode} Wolfram's Parzival (P) {the German version of Chretien's Contes Del Graal} (one episode) They are chosen because of certain common features which may help to illuminate Chaucer's use of motifs and incidents, and certainly not with an eye to source study. If we count the magical nature of the meeting with the hag as a separate feature from her transformation, then there eight features which these tales, or most of them, share in common with Chaucer's: 1) A magical meeting with the Hag occurs in DS, DR, KH and MG. This last is uncertain, as several leaves are missing. 2) The Hag is magically transf ....