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Jessie L. Weston
From Ritual to Romance
Preface
In the introductory Chapter the reader will find the aim and object
of these studies set forth at length. In view of the importance and
complexity of the problems involved it seemed better to incorporate
such a statement in the book itself, rather than relegate it to a
Preface which all might not trouble to read. Yet I feel that such a
general statement does not adequately express my full debt of
obligation.
Among the many whose labour has been laid under contribution in the
following pages there are certain scholars whose published work, or
personal advice, has been specially illuminating, and to whom specific
acknowledgement is therefore due. Like many others I owe to Sir J.G.
Frazer the initial inspiration which set me, as I may truly say, on
the road to the Grail castle. Without the guidance of The Golden
Bough I should probably, as the late M. Gaston Paris happily expressed
it, still be wandering in the forest of Broceliande!
During the Bayreuth Festival of 1911 I had frequent opportunities of
meeting, and discussion with, Professor von Schroeder. I owe to him
not only the introduction to his own work, which I found most helpful,
but references which have been of the greatest assistance; e.g., my
knowledge of Cumont's Les Religions Orientales, and Scheftelowitz's
valuable study on Fish Symbolism, both of which have furnished
important links in the chain of evidence, is due to Professor von
Schroeder.
The perusal of Miss J. E. Harrison's Themis opened my eyes to the
extended importance of these Vegetation rites. In view of the
evidence there adduced I asked myself whether beliefs which had found
expression not only as social institution, and popular custom, but, as
set forth in Sir G. Murray's study on Greek Dramatic Origins, attached
to the work, also in Drama and Literature, might not have
reasonably--even inevitably--be expected to have left their mark on
Romance? The one seemed to me a necessary corollary of the other, and
I felt that I had gained, as the result of Miss Harrison's work, a
wider, and more assured basis for my own researches. I was no longer
engaged merely in enquiring into the sources of a fascinating legend,
but on the identification of another field of activity for forces
whose potency as agents of evolution we were only now beginning
rightly to appreciate.
Finally, a casual reference, in Anrich's work on the Mysteries, to the
Naassene Document, caused me to apply to Mr G. R. S. Mead, of whose
knowledge of the mysterious border-land between Christianity and
Paganism, and willingness to place that knowledge at the disposal of
others, I had, for some years past, had pleasant experience. Mr Mead
referred me to his own translation and analysis of the text in
question, and there, to my satisfaction, I found, not only the final
link that completed the chain of evolution from Pagan Mystery to
Christian Ceremonial, but also proof of that wider significance I was
beginning to apprehend. The problem involved was not one of
Folk-lore, not even one of Literature, but of Comparative Religion in
its widest sense.
Thus, while I trust that my co-workers in the field of Arthurian
research will accept these studies as a permanent contribution to the
elucidation of the Grail problem, I would fain hope that those
scholars who labour in a wider field, and to whose works I owe so
much, may find in the results here set forth elements that may prove
of real value in the study of the evolution of religious belief.
J. L. W.
Paris,
October, 1919.
Contents
CHAPTER I
Introductory
Nature of the Grail problem. Unsatisfactory character of the results
achieved. Objections to Christian Legendary origin; to Folk-lore
origin. Elements in both theories sound. Solution to be sought in a
direction which will do justice to both. Sir J. G. Frazer's Golden
Bough indicates possible line of research. Sir W. Ridgeway's
criticism of Vegetation theory examined. Dramas and Dramatic Dances.
The Living and not the Dead King the factor of importance.
Impossibility of proving human origin for Vegetation Deities. Not
Death but Resurrection the essential centre of Ritual. Muharram too
late in date and lacks Resurrection feature. Relation between defunct
heroes and special localities. Sanctity possibly antecedent to
connection. Mana not necessarily a case of relics. Sir
J. G. Frazer's theory holds good. Remarks on method and design of
present Studies. pp. 1-11
CHAPTER II
The Task of the Hero
Essential to determine the nature of the task imposed on the hero.
Versions examined. The Gawain forms--Bleheris, Diu Crone. Perceval
versions--Gerbert, prose Perceval, Chretien de Troyes, Perlesvaus,
Manessier, Peredur, Parzival, Galahad-Queste. Result, primary task
healing of Fisher King and removal of curse of Waste Land. The two
inter-dependent. Illness of King entails misfortune on Land. Enquiry
into nature of King's disability. Sone de Nansai. For elucidation of
problem necessary to bear in mind close connection between Land and
Ruler. Importance of Waste Land motif for criticism. pp. 12-24
CHAPTER III
The Freeing of the Waters
Enquiry may commence with early Aryan tradition. The Rig-Veda.
Extreme importance assinged to Indra's feat of "Freeing of the
Waters." This also specific achievement of Grail heroes. Extracts
from Rig-Veda. Dramatic poems and monologues. Professor von
Schroeder's theory. Mysterium and Mimus. Rishyacringa drama.
Parallels with Perceval story. Result, the specific task of the Grail
hero not a literary invention but an inheritance of Aryan tradition.
pp. 25-33
CHAPTER IV
Tammuz and Adonis
General objects to be attained by these Nature Cults. Stimulation of
Fertility. Animal and Vegetable. Principle of Life untimately
conceived of in anthropomorphic form. This process already advanced
in Rig-Veda. Greek Mythology preserves intermediate stage. The
Eniautos Daimon. Tammuz--earliest known representative of Dying God.
Character of the worship. Origin of the name. Lament for Tammuz.
His death affects not only Vegetation but Animal life. Lack of
Artistic representation of Mysteries. Mr Langdon's suggestion.
Ritual possibility dramatic. Summary of evidence.
Adonis--Phoenician-Greek equivalent of Tammuz. Probably the most
popular and best known form of Nature Cult. Mythological tale of
Adonis. Enquiry into nature of injury. Importance of recognizing
true nature of these cults and of the ritual observed. Varying dates
of celebration. Adonis probably originally Eniautos Daimon.
Principle of Life in general, hence lack of fixity in date. Details
of the ritual. Parallels with the Grail legend examined. Dead Knight
or Disabled King. Consequent misfortunes of the Land. The Weeping
Women. The Hairless Maiden. Position of Castle. Summing up. Can
incidents of such remote antiquity be used as criticism for a Medieval
text? pp. 34-51
CHAPTER V
Medieval and Modern Forms of Nature Ritual
Is it possible to establish chain of descent connecting early Aryan
and Babylonian Ritual with Classic, Medieval and Modern forms of
Nature worship? Survival of Adonis cult established. Evidence of
Mannhardt and Frazer. Existing Continental customs recognized as
survivals of ancient beliefs. Instances. 'Directly related' to
Attis-Adonis cult. Von Schroeder establishes parallel between
existing Fertility procession and Rig-Veda poem. Identification of
Life Principle with King. Prosperity of land dependent on king as
representative of god. Celts. Greeks. Modern instances, the Shilluk
Kings. Parallel between Shilluk King, Grail King and Vegetation
Deity. Sone de Nansai and the Lament for Tammuz. Identity of
situation. Plea for unprejudiced criticism. Impossibility of such
parallels being fortuitous; the result of deliberate intention, not an
accident of literary invention. If identity of central character be
admitted to his relation to Waste Land becomes fundamental factor in
criticizing versions. Another African survival. pp. 52-64
CHAPTER VI
The Symbols
Summary of results of previous enquiry. The Mediaeval Stage. Grail
romances probably contain record of secret ritual of Fertility cult.
The Symbols of the cult--Cup, Lance, Sword, Stone, or Dish. Plea for
treating Symbols as a related group not as isolated units. Failure to
do so probably cause of unsatisfactory result of long research.
Essential to recognize Grail story as an original whole and to treat
it in its ensemble aspect. We must differentiate between origin and
accretion. Instances. The Legend of Longinus. Lance and Cup not
associated in Christian Art. Evidence. The Spear of Eastern
Liturgies only a Knife. The Bleeding Lance. Treasures of the Tuatha
de Danann. Correspond as a group with Grail Symbols. Difficulty of
equating Cauldron-Grail. Probably belong to a different line of
tradition. Instances given. Real significance of Lance and Cup.
Well known as Life Symbols. The Samurai. Four Symbols also preserved
as Suits of the Tarot. Origin of Tarot discussed. Probably reached
Europe from the East. Use of the Symbols in Magic. Probable
explanation of these various appearances to be found in fact that
associated group were at one time symbols of a Fertility cult.
Further evidence to be examined. pp. 65-80
CHAPTER VII
The Sword Dance
Relation of Sword Dance, Morris Dance, and Mumming Play. Their
Ceremonial origin now admitted by scholars. Connected with seasonal
Festivals and Fertility Ritual. Earliest Sword Dancers, the Maruts.
Von Schroeder, Mysterium and Mimus. Discussion of their nature and
functions. The Kouretes. Character of their dance. Miss
J. E. Harrison, Themis. The Korybantes. Dance probably sacrificial
in origin. The Salii. Dramatic element in their dance. Mars, as
Fertility god. Mamurius Veturius. Anna Perenna. Character of dance
seasonal. Modern British survivals. The Sword Dance. Mostly
preserved in the North. Variants. Mr E. K. Chambers, The Mediaeval
Stage. The Mumming Plays. Description. Characters. Recognized as
representing Death and Revival of Vegetation Deity. Dr Jevons, Masks
and the Origin of the Greek Drama. Morris Dances. No Dramatic
element. Costume of character significant. Possible survival of
theriomorphic origin. Elaborate character of figures in each group.
Symbols employed. The Pentangle. The Chalice. Present form shows
dislocation. Probability that three groups were once a combined whole
and Symbols united. Evidence strengthens view advanced in last
Chapter. Symbols originally a group connected with lost form of
Fertility Ritual. Possible origin of Grail Knights to be found in
Sword Dancers. pp. 81-100
CHAPTER VIII
The Medicine Man
The role of the Medicine Man, or Doctor in Fertility Ritual. Its
importance and antiquity. The Rig-Veda poem. Classical evidence, Mr
F. Cornford. Traces of Medicine Man in the Grail romances. Gawain as
Healer. Persistent tradition. Possible survival from pre-literary
form. Evidence of the Triads. Peredur as Healer. Evolution of
theme. Le Dist de l'Erberie. pp. 101-112
CHAPTER IX
The Fisher King
Summary of evidence presented. Need of a 'test' element. To be found
in central figure. Mystery of its title. Analysis of variants.
Gawain version. Perceval version. Borron alone attempts explanation
of title. Parzival. Perlesvaus. Queste. Grand Saint Graal.
Comparison with surviving ritual variants. Original form King dead,
and restored to life. Old Age and Wounding themes. Legitimate
variants. Doubling of character a literary device. Title. Why
Fisher King? Examination of Fish Symbolism. Fish a Life symbol.
Examples. Indian--Manu, Vishnu, Buddha. Fish in Buddhism. Evidence
from China. Orpheus. Babylonian evidence. Tammuz Lord of the Net.
Jewish Symbolism. The Messianic Fish-meal. Adopted by Christianity.
Evidence of the catacombs. Source of Borron's Fish-meals. Mystery
tradition not Celtic Folk-tale. Comparison of version with Finn
story. With Messianic tradition. Epitaph of Bishop Aberkios. Voyage
of Saint Brandan. Connection of Fish and goddess Astarte. Cumont.
Connection of Fish and Dove. Fish as Fertility Symbol. Its use in
Marriage ceremonies. Summing up of evidence. Fisher King
inexplicable from Christian point of view. Folk-lore solution
unsatisfactory. As a Ritual survival completely in place. Centre of
action, and proof of soundness of theory. pp. 113-136
CHAPTER X
The Secret of the Grail (1) The Mysteries
The Grail regarded as an object of awe. Danger of speaking of Grail
or revealing Its secrets. Passages in illustration. Why, if survival
of Nature cults, popular, and openly performed? A two-fold element in
these cults, Exoteric, Esoteric. The Mysteries. Their influence on
Christianity to be sought in the Hellenized rather than the Hellenic
cults. Cumont. Rohde. Radical difference between Greek and Oriental
conceptions. Lack of evidence as regards Mysteries on the whole.
Best attested form that connected with Nature cults. Attis-Adonis.
Popularity of the Phrygian cult in Rome. Evidence as to Attis
Mysteries. Utilized by Neo-Platonists as vehicle for teaching. Close
connection with Mithraism. The Taurobolium. Details of Attis
Mysteries. Parallels with the Grail romances. pp. 137-148
CHAPTER XI
The Secret of the Grail (2) The Naassene Document
Relations between early Christianity, and pre-Christian cults. Early
Heresies. Hippolytus, and the Refutation of All Heresies. Character
of the work. The Naassene Document. Mr. Mead's analysis of the
text. A synthesis of Mysteries. Identification of Life Principle
with the Logos. Connection between Drama and Mysteries of Attis.
Importance of the Phrygian Mysteries. Naassene claim to be sole
Christian. Significance of the evidence. Vegetation cults as vehicle
of high spiritual teaching. Exoteric and Esoteric parallels with the
Grail tradition. Process of evolution sketched. Bleheris.
Perlesvaus. Borron and the Mystery tradition. Christian Legendary,
and Folk-tale, secondary, not primary, features. pp. 149-163
CHAPTER XII
Mithra and Attis
Problem of close connection of the cults. Their apparent divergence.
Nature of deities examined. Attis. Mithra. The Messianic Feast.
Dieterich, Eine Mithrasliturgie. Difference between the two
initiations. Link between Phrygian, Mithraic, and Christian.
Mysteries to be found in their higher, esoteric, teaching. Women not
admitted to Mithraic initiation. Possible survival in Grail text.
Joint diffusion through the Roman empire. Cumont's evidence. Traces
of cult in British Isles. Possible explanation of unorthodox
character of Grail legend. Evidence of suvival cult in fifth
century. The Elucidation a possible record of historic facts. Reason
for connecting Grail with Arthurian tradition. pp. 164-174
CHAPTER XIII
The Perilous Chapel
The adventure of the Perilous Chapel in Grail romances. Gawain form.
Perceval versions. Queste. Perlesvaus. Lancelot. Chevalier d Deux
Espees. Perilous Cemetery. Earliest reference in Chastel
Orguellous. Atre Perilleus. Prose Lancelot. Adventur part of
'Secret of the Grail.' The Chapel of Saint Austin. Histoire de Fulk
Fitz-Warin. Genuine record of an initiation. Probably locality of
North Britain. Site of remains of Mithra-Attis cults. Traces of
Mystery tradition in Medieval romance. Owain Miles. Bousset,
Himmelfahrt der Seele. Parallels with romance. Appeal to Celtic
scholars. Otherworld journeys a possible survival of Mystery
tradition. The Templars, were they Naassenes? pp. 175-188
CHAPTER XIV
The Author
Provenance and authorship of Grail romantic tradition. Evidence
points to Wales, probably. Pembrokeshire. Earliest form contained in
group of Gawain poems assigned to Bleheris. Of Welshe origin. Master
Blihis, Blihos, Bliheris, Breri, Bledhericus. Probably all references
to same person. Conditions of identity. Mr E. Owen, and Bledri ap
Cadivor. Evidence not complete but fulfils conditions of problem
Professor Singer and possible character of Bleheris' text. Mr Alfred
Nutt. Irish and Welsh parallels. Recapitulation of evolutionary
process. Summary and conclusion. pp. 189-209
CHAPTER I
Introductory
In view of the extensive literature to which the Grail legend has
already been given birth it seems that the addition of another volume
to the already existing corpus calls for some words of apology and
explanation. When the student of the subject contemplates the
countless essays and brochures, the volumes of studies and criticism,
which have been devoted to this fascinating subject, the conflicting
character of their aims, their hopelessly contradictory results, he,
or she, may well hesitate before adding another element to such a
veritable witches' cauldron of apparently profitless study. And
indeed, were I not convinced that the theory advocated in the
following pages contains in itself the element that will resolve those
conflicting ingredients into one harmonious compound I should hardly
feel justified in offering a further contribution to the subject.
But it is precisely because upwards of thirty years' steady and
persevering study of the Grail texts has brought me gradually and
inevitably to certain very definite conclusions, has placed me in
possession of evidence hitherto ignored, or unsuspected, that I
venture to offer the result in these studies, trusting that they may
be accepted as, what I believe them to be, a genuine Elucidation of
the Grail problem.
My fellow-workers in this field know all too well the essential
elements of that problem; I do not need here to go over already
well-trodden ground; it will be sufficient to point out certain
salient features of the position.
The main difficulty of our research lies in the fact that the Grail
legend consists of a congeries of widely differing elements--elements
which at first sight appear hopelessly incongruous, if not completely
contradictory, yet at the same time are present to an extent, and in a
form, which no honest critic can afford to ignore.
Thus it has been perfectly possible for one group of scholars, relying
upon the undeniably Christian-Legendary elements, preponderant in
certain versions, to maintain the thesis that the Grail legend is ab
initio a Christian, and ecclesiastical, legend, and to analyse the
literature on that basis alone.
Another group, with equal reason, have pointed to the strongly marked
Folk-lore features preserved in the tale, to its kinship with other
themes, mainly of Celtic provenance, and have argued that, while the
later versions of the cycle have been worked over by ecclesiastical
writers in the interests of edification, the story itself is
non-Christian, and Folk-lore in origin.
Both groups have a basis of truth for their arguments: the features
upon which they rely are, in each case, undeniably present, yet at the
same time each line of argument is faced with certain insuperable
difficulties, fatal to the claims advanced.
Thus, the theory of Christian origin breaks down when faced with the
awkward fact that there is no Christian legend concerning Joseph of
Arimathea and the Grail. Neither in Legendary, nor in Art, is there
any trace of the story; it has no existence ouside the Grail
literature, it is the creation of romance, and no genuine tradition.
On this very ground it was severely criticized by the Dutch writer
Jacob van Maerlant, in 1260. In his Merlin he denounces the whole
Grail history as lies, asserting that the Church knows nothing of
it--which is true.
In the same way the advocate of a Folk-lore origin is met with the
objection that the section of the cycle for which such a source can be
definitely proved, i.e., the Perceval story, has originally nothing
whatever to do with the Grail; and that, while parallels can be found
for this or that feature of the legend, such parallels are isolated in
character and involve the breaking up of the tale into a composite of
mutually independent themes. A prototype, containing the main
features of the Grail story--the Waste Land, the Fisher King, the
Hidden Castle with its solemn Feast, and mysterious Feeding Vessel,
the Bleeding Lance and Cup--does not, so far as we know, exist. None
of the great collections of Folk-tales, due to the industry of a
Cosquin, a Hartland, or a Campbell, has preserved specimens of such a
type; it is not such a story as, e.g., The Three Days Tournament,
examples of which are found all over the world. Yet neither the
advocate of a Christian origin, nor the Folk-lorist, can afford to
ignore the arguments, and evidence of the opposing school, and while
the result of half a century of patient investigation has been to show
that the origin of the Grail story must be sought elsewhere than in
ecclesiastical legend, or popular tale, I hold that the result has
equally been to demonstrate that neither of these solutions should be
ignored, but that the ultimate source must be sought for in a
direction which shall do justice to what is sound in the claims of
both.
Some years ago, when making fresh from the study of Sir J. G. Frazer's
epoch-making work, The Golden Bough, I was struck by the resemblance
existing between certain features of the Grail story, and
characteristic details of the Nature Cults described. The more
closely I analysed the tale, the more striking became the resemblance,
and I finally asked myself whether it was not possible that in this
mysterious legend--mysterious alike in its character, its sudden
appearance, the importance apparently assigned to it, followed by as
sudden and complete a disappearance--we might not have the confused
record of a ritual, once popular, later surviving under conditions of
strict secrecy? This would fully account for the atmosphere of awe
and reverence which even under distinctly non-Christian conditions
never fails to surround the Grail It may act simply as a feeding
vessel, It is none the less toute sainte cose; and also for the
presence in the taile of distinctly popular, and Folk-lore, elements.
Such an interpretation would also explain features irreconcilable with
orthodox Christianity, which had caused some scholars to postulate a
heterodox origin for the legend, and thus explain its curiously
complete disappearance as a literary theme. In the first volume of my
Perceval studies, published in 1906, I hinted at this possible
solution of the problem, a solution worked out more fully in a paper
read before the Folk-lore Society in December of the same year, and
published in Volume XVIII. of the Journal of the Society. By the time
my second volume of studies was ready for publication in 1909, further
evidence had come into my hands; I was then certain that I was upon
the right path, and I felt justified in laying before the public the
outlines of a theory of evolution, alike of the legend, and of the
literature, to the main principles of which I adhere to-day.
But certain links were missing in the chain of evidence, and the work
was not complete. No inconsiderable part of the information at my
disposal depended upon personal testimony, the testimony of those who
knew of the continued existence of such a ritual, and had actually
been initiated into its mysteries--and for such evidence the student
of the letter has little respect. He worships the written word; for
the oral, living, tradition from which the word derives force and
vitality he has little use. Therefore the written word had to be
found. It has taken me some nine or ten years longer to complete the
evidence, but the chain is at last linked up, and we can now prove by
printed texts the parallels existing between each and every feature of
the Grail story and the recorded symbolism of the Mystery cults.
Further, we can show that between these Mystery cults and Christianity
there existed at one time a close and intimate union, such a union as
of itself involved the practical assimilation of the central rite, in
each case a 'Eucharistic' Feast, in which the worshippers partook of
the Food of Life from the sacred vessels.
In face of the proofs which will be found in these pages I do not
think any fair-minded critic will be inclined to dispute any longer
the origin of the 'Holy' Grail; after all it is as august and ancient
an origin as the most tenacious upholder of Its Christian character
could desire.
But I should wish it clearly to be understood that the aim of these
studies is, as indicated in the title, to determine the origin of the
Grail, not to discuss the provenance and interrelation of the
different versions. I do not believe this latter task can be
satisfactorily achieved unless and until we are of one accord as to
the character of the subject matter. When we have made up our minds
as to what the Grail really was, and what it stood for, we shall be
able to analyse the romances; to decide which of them contains more,
which less, of the original matter, and to group them accordingly. On
this point I believe that the table of descent, printed in Volumne
II. of my Perceval studies is in the main correct, but there is still
much analytical work to be done, in particular the establishment of
the original form of the Perlesvaus is highly desirable. But apart
from the primary object of these studies, and the results therein
obtained, I would draw attention to the manner in which the evidence
set forth in the chapters on the Mystery cults, and especially that on
the Naassene Document, a text of extraordinary value from more than
one point of view, supports and complements the researches of Sir
J. G. Frazer. I am, of course, familiar with the attacks directed
against the 'Vegetation' theory, the sarcasms of which it has been the
object, and the criticisms of what is held in some quarters to be the
exaggerated importance attached to these nature cults. But in view of
the use made of these cults as the medium of imparting high spiritual
teaching, a use which, in face of the documents above referred to, can
no longer be ignored or evaded, are we not rather justified in asking
if the true importance of the rites has yet been recognized? Can we
possibly exaggerate their value as a factor in the evolution of
religious consciousness?
I have carefully read Sir W. Ridgeway's attack on the school in his
Dramas and Dramatic Dances, and while the above remarks explain my
position with regard to the question as a whole, I would here take the
opportunity of stating specifically my grounds for dissenting from
certain of the conclusions at which the learned author arrives. I do
not wish it to be said: "This is all very well, but Miss Weston
ignores the arguments on the other side." I do not ignore, but I do
not admit their validity. It is perfectly obvious that Sir
W. Ridgeway's theory, reduced to abstract terms, would result in the
conclusion that all religion is based upon the cult of the Dead, and
that men originally knew no gods but their grandfathers, a theory from
which as a student of religion I absolutely and entirely dissent. I
can understand that such Dead Ancestors can be looked upon as
Protectors, or as Benefactors, but I see no ground for supposing that
they have ever been regarded as Creators, yet it is precisely as a
vehicle for the most lofty teaching as to the Cosmic relations
existing between God and Man, that these Vegetation cults were
employed. The more closely one studies pre-Christian Theology, the
more strongly one is impressed with the deeply, and daringly,
spiritual character of its speculations, and the more doubtful it
appears that such teaching can depend upon the unaided processes of
human thought, or can have been evolved from such germs as we find
among the supposedly 'primitive' peoples, such as e.g., the Australian
tribes. Are they really primitive? Or are we dealing, not with the
primary elements of religion, but with the disjecta membra of a
vanished civilization? Certain it is that so far as historical
evidence goes our earliest records point to the recognition of
a spiritual, not of a material, origin of the human race; the Sumerian
and Babylonian Psalms were not composed by men who believed themselves
the descendents of 'witchetty grubs.' The Folk practices and
ceremonies studied in these pages, the Dances, the rough Dramas, the
local and seasonal celebrations, do not represent the material out of
which the Attis-Adonis cult has formed, but surviving fragments of a
worship from which the higher significance has vanished.
Sir W. Ridgeway is confident that Osiris, Attis, Adonis, were all at
one time popular human beings, whose tragic fate gripped hold of
popular imagination, and led to their ultimate deification. The first
named cult stands on a somewhat different basis from the others, the
beneficent activities of Osiris being more widely diffused, more
universal in their operation. I should be inclined to regard the
Egyptian deity primarily as a Culture Hero, rather than a Vegetation
God.
With regard to Attis and Adonis, whatever their original character
(and it seems to me highly improbable that there should have been two
youths each beloved by a goddess, each victim of a similar untimely
fate), long before we have any trace of them both have become so
intimately identified with the processes of Nature that they have
ceased to be men and become gods, and as such alone can we deal with
them. It is also permissible to point out that in the case of Tammuz,
Esmun, and Adonis, the title is not a proper name, but a vage
appellative, denoting an abstract rather than a concrete origin.
Proof of this will be found later. Sir W. Ridgeway overlooks the fact
that it is not the tragic death of Attis-Adonis which is of subsequent
restoration to life, a feature which cannot be postulated of any
ordinary mortal.
And how are we to regard Tammuz, the prototype of all these deities?
Is there any possible ground for maintaining that he was ever a man?
Prove it we cannot, as the records of his cult go back thousands of
years before our era. Here, again, we have the same dominant feature;
it is not merely the untimely death which is lamented, but the
resoration to life which is celebrated.
Throughout the whole study the author fails to discriminate between
the activities of the living, and the dead, king. The Dead king may;
as I have said above, be regarded as the Benefactor, as the
Protector, of his people, but it is the Living king upon whom their
actual and continued prosperity depends. The detail that the ruling
sovereign is sometimes regarded as the re-incarnation of the original
founder of the race strengthens this point--the king never dies--Le
Roi est mort, Vive le Roi is very emphatically the motto of this
Faith. It is the insistence on Life, Life continuous, and ever
renewing, which is the abiding characteristic of these cults, a
characteristic which differentiates them utterly and entirely from the
ancestral worship with which Sir W. Ridgeway would fain connect them.
Nor are the arguments based upon the memorial rites of definitely
historical heroes, of comparatively late date, such as Hussein and
Hossein, of any value here. It is precisely the death, and not the
resurrection, of the martyr which is of the essence of the Muharram.
No one contends that Hussein rose from the dead, but it is precisely
this point which is of primary importance in the Nature cults; and Sir
W. Ridgeway must surely be aware that Folk-lorists find in this very
Muharram distinct traces of borrowing from earlier Vegetation rites.
The author triumphantly asserts that the fact that certain Burmese
heroes and heroines are after death reverenced as tree spirits 'sets
at rest for ever' the belief in abstract deities. But how can he be
sure that the process was not the reverse of that which he postulates,
i.e., that certain natural objects, trees, rivers, etc., were not
regarded as sacred before the Nats became connected with them? That
the deified human beings were not after death assigned to places
already held in reverence? Such a possibility is obvious to any
Folk-lore student, and local traditions should in each case be
carefully examined before the contrary is definitely asserted.
So far as the origins of Drama are concerned the Ode quoted later from
the Naassene Document is absolute and definite proof of the close
connection existing between the Attis mystery ritual, and dramatic
performances, i.e., Attis regarded in his deified, Creative, 'Logos,'
aspect, not Attis, the dead youth.
Nor do I think that the idea of 'Mana' can be lightly dismissed as 'an
ordinary case of relics.' The influence may well be something
entirely apart from the continued existence of the ancestor, an
independent force, assisting him in life, and transferring itself
after death to his successor. A 'Magic' Sword or Staff is not
necessarily a relic; Medieval romance supplies numerous instances of
self-acting weapons whose virtue in no wise depends upon their
previous owner, as e.g., the Sword in Le Chevalier a l'Epee, or the
Flaming Lance of the Chevalier de la Charrette. Doubtless the cult of
Ancestors plays a large role in the beliefs of certain peoples, but it
is not a sufficiently solid foundation to bear the weight of the
super-structure. Sir W. Ridgeway would fain rear upon it, while it
differs too radically from the cults he attacks to be used as an
argument against them; the one is based upon Death, the other on Life.
Wherefore, in spite of all the learning and ingenuity brought to bear
against it, I avow myself an impenitent believer in Sir J. G. Frazer's
main theory, and as I have said above, I hold that theory to be of
greater and more far-reaching importance than thas been hitherto
suspected.
I would add a few words as to the form of these studies--they may be
found disconnected. They have been written at intervals of time
extending over several years, and my aim has been to prove the
essentially archaic character of all the elements composing the Grail
story as a connected whole. With this aim in view I have devoted
chapters to features which have now either dropped out of the existing
versions, or only survive in a subordinate form, e.g., the chapters on
The Medicine Man, and the Freeing of the Waters. The studies will, I
hope, and believe, be accepted as offering a definite contribution
towards establishing the fundamental character of our material; as
stated above, when we are all at one as to what the Holy Grail really
was, and is, we can then proceed with some hope of success to
criticize the manner in which different writers have handled the
inspiring theme, but such success seems to be hopeless so long as we
all start from different, and often utterly irreconcilable,
standpoints, and proceed along widely diverging roads. One or another
may, indeed, arrive at the goal, but such unaminity of opinion as will
lend to our criticisms authoritative weight is, on such lines,
impossible of achievement.
CHAPTER II
The Task of the Hero
As a first step towards the successful prosecution of an investigation
into the true nature and character of the mysterious object we know as
the Grail it will be well to ask ourselves whether any light may be
thrown upon the subject by examining more closely the details of the
Quest in its varying forms; i.e., what was the precise character of
the task undertaken by, or imposed upon, the Grail hero, whether that
hero were Gawain, Perceval, or Galahad, and what the results were to
be expected from a successful achievement of the task. We shall find
at once a uniformity which assures us of the essential identity of the
tradition underlying the varying forms, and a diversity indicating
that the tradition has undergone a gradual, but radical, modification
in the process of literary evolution. Taken in their relative order
the versions give the following results.
GAWAIN (Bleheris). Here the hero sets out on his journey with no
clear idea of the task before him. He is taking the place of a knight
mysteriously slain in his company, but whither he rides, and why, he
does not know, only that the business is important and pressing. From
the records of his partial success we gather that he ought to have
enquired concerning the nature of the Grail, and that this enquiry
would have resulted in the restoration to fruitfulness of a Waste
Land, the desolation of which is, in some manner, not clearly
explained, connected with the death of a knight whose name and
identity are never disclosed. "Great is the loss that ye lie thus,
'tis even the destruction of kingdoms. God grant that ye be avenged,
so that the folk be once more joyful and the land repeopled which by
ye and this sword are wasted and made void."[1] The fact that Gawain
does ask concerning the Lance assures the partial restoration of the
land; I would draw attention to the special terms in which this is
described: "for so soon as Sir Gawain asked of the Lance... the waters
flowed again thro' their channel, and all the woods were turned to
verdure."[2]
Diu Crone. Here the question is more general in character; it affects
the marvels beheld, not the Grail alone; but now the Quester is
prepared, and knows what is expected of him. The result is to break
the spell which retains the Grail King in a semblance of life, and we
learn, by implication, that the land is restored to fruitfulness: "yet
had the land been waste, but by his coming had folk and land alike
been delivered."[3] Thus in the earliest preserved, the GAWAIN form,
the effect upon the land appears to be the primary result of the
quest.
PERCEVAL. The Perceval versions, which form the bulk of the existing
Grail texts, differ considerably the one from the other, alike in the
task to be achieved, and the effects resulting from the hero's
success, or failure. The distinctive feature of the Perceval version
is the insistence upon the sickness, and disability of the ruler of
the land, the Fisher King. Regarded first as the direct cause of the
wasting of the land, it gradually assumes overwhelming importance, the
task of the Quester becomes that of healing the King, the restoration
of the land not only falls into the background but the operating cause
of its desolation is changed, and finally it disappears from the story
altogether. One version, alone, the source of which is, at present,
undetermined, links the PERCEVAL with the GAWAIN form; this is the
version preserved in the Gerbert continuation of the Perceval of
Chretien de Troyes. Here the hero having, like Gawain, partially
achieved the task, but again like Gawain, having failed satisfactorily
to resolder the broken sword, wakes, like the earlier hero, to find
that the Grail castle has disappeared, and he is alone in a flowery
meadow. He pursues his way through a land fertile, and well-peopled
and marvels much, for the day before it had been a waste desert.
Coming to a castle he is received by solemn procession, with great
rejoicing; though the folk have regained the land and goods which they
had lost. The mistress of the castle is more explicit. Perceval
asked concerning the Grail:
"All this was done by what he said,
This land whose streams no waters fed,
It's fountains dry, its fields unplowed,
His word once more with health endowed."
Like Gawain he has 'freed the waters' and thus restored the land.[4]
In the prose Perceval the motif of the Waste Land has disappeared, the
task of the hero consists in asking concerning the Grail, and by so
doing, to restore the Fisher King, who is suffering from extreme old
age, to health, and youth.[5]
"If you had asked what was happening, your question would have cured
the king's infirmity and he would have been restored to youth."
When the question has been asked: "The Fisher King was cured and his
condition wholly changed." "The Fisher King's condition was changed,
and he was cured of his malady, and was as healthy as fish."[6] Here
we have the introduction of a new element, the restoration to youth of
the sick King.
In the Perceval of Chretien de Troyes we find ourselves in the
presence of certain definite changes, neither slight nor unimportant,
upon which it seems to me insufficient stress has hitherto been laid.
The question is changed; the hero no longer asks what the Grail is,
but (as in the prose Perceval) whom it serves? a departure from an
essential and primitive simplicity--the motive for which is apparent
in Chretien, but not in the prose form, where there is no enigmatic
personality to be served apart. A far more important change is that,
while the malady of the Fisher King is antecedent to the hero's visit,
and capable of cure if the question be asked, the failure to fulfil
the prescribed conditions of itself entails disaster upon the land.
Thus the sickness of the King, and the desolation of the land, are not
necessarily connected as cause and effect, but, a point which seems
hitherto unaccountably to have been overlooked, the latter is directly
attributable to the Questor himself.[7]
"If you had found the word to say,
The rich king who in distress does lay
Would of his wound be fully healed.
But now his fate is truly sealed,
Never to rule his land in peace,"
but by Perceval's failure to ask the question he has entailed dire
misfortune upon the land:
"Ladies sad will lose their mates,
The land in desolation lie,
Damsels unconsoled will sigh,
Widows and orphans, mournful all,
And many a knight in death will fall."[8]
This idea, that the misfortunes of the land are not antecedent to, but
dependent upon, the hero's abortive visit to the Grail castle, is
carried still further by the compiler of the Perlesvaus, where the
failure of the predestined hero to ask concerning the office of the
Grail is alone responsible for the illness of the King and the
misfortunes of the country. "A great sorrow has recently been brought
on the land by a young knight who was welcomed as a guest by the rich
Fisher King. To him appeared the Holy Grail and the lance with angry
blood welling from its point. He did not ask whom it served or whence
it came, and because he did not ask this, all the lands are stirred up
to war and no knight meets another in the forest without striking him
down and killing him if he can."[9]
"The Fisher King is very sorrowful, for he has fallen into a doleful
sickness. This sickness has come upon him through one whom he
welcomed as a guest, to whom the Holy Grail appeared, and because he
did not ask whom it served, all the lands were stirred up to war."[10]
"I have fallen into languishment from the hour when the knight of whom
you have heard tell was harboured as a guest here. Because of one
word that he delayed to speak, this languishment came upon me."[11]
From this cause the Fisher King dies before the hero has achieved the
task, and can take his place. "The good Fisher King is dead."[12]
There is here no cure of the king or restoration of the land, the
specific task of the Grail hero is never accomplished, he comes into
his kingdom as the result of knightly adventures, neither more nor
less significant than those found in non-Grail romances.
The Perlesvaus, in its present form, appears to be a later, and more
fully developed treatment of the motif noted in in Chretien, i.e.,
that the misfortunes of King and country are directly due to the
Quester himself, and had no antecedent existence; this, I would
submit, alters the whole character of the story, and we are at a loss
to know what, had the hero put the question on the occasion of his
first visit, could possibly have been the result achieved. It would
not have been the cure of the King: he was, apparently in perfect
health; it would not have been the restoration to verdure of the Land:
the Land was not Waste; where, as in the case of Gawain, there is a
Dead Knight, whose death is to be avenged, something might have been
achieved, in the case of the overwhelming majority of the Perceval
versions, which do not contain this feature, the dependence of the
Curse upon the Quester reduces the story to incoherence. In one
Perceval version alone do we find a motif analogous to the earlier
Gawain Bleheris form. In Manessier the hero's task is not restricted
to the simple asking of a question, but he must also slay the enemy
whose treachery has caused the death of the Fisher King's brother;
thereby healing the wound of the King himself, and removing the woes
of the land. What these may be we are not told, but, apparently, the
country is not 'Waste.'[13]
In Peredur we have a version closely agreeing with that of Chretien;
the hero fails to enquire the meaning of what he sees in the Castle of
Wonders, and is told in consequence: "Hadst thou done so the King
would have been restored to health, and his dominions to peace,
whereas from henceforth he will have to endure battles and conflicts,
and his knights will perish, and wives will be widowed, and maidens
will be left portionless, and all this because of thee."[14] This
certainly seems to imply that, while the illness of the Fisher King
may be antecedent to, and independent of, the visit and failure of the
hero, the misfortunes which fall on the land have been directly cause
thereby.
The conclusion which states that the Bleeding Head seen by the hero
"was thy cousin's, and he was killed by the Sorceresses of Gloucester,
who also lamed thine uncle--and there is a prediction that thou art to
avenge these things--" would seem to indicate the presence in the
original of a 'Vengeance' theme, such as that referred to above.[15]
In Parzival the stress is laid entirely on the sufferings of the King;
the question has been modified in the interests of this theme, and
here assumes the form "What aileth thee, mine uncle?" The blame
bestowed upon the hero is solely on account of the prolonged sorrow
his silence has inflicted on King and people; of a Land laid Waste,
either through drought, or war, there is no mention.
"You should have pitied the host and king
To whom God did this woundrous thing.
You asked not of his grief and dread,
So though you live, your bliss is dead."[16]
"When unconsoled the Fisher sat,
So sorrowful and full of grief,
Why should you not give him relief?"
The punishment falls on the hero who has failed to put the question,
rather than on the land, which, indeed, appears to be in no way
affected, either by the wound of the King, or the silence of the
hero. The divergence from Chretien's version is here very marked,
and, so far, seems to have been neglected by critics. The point is
also of importance in view of the curious parallels which are
otherwise to be found between this version and Perlesvaus; here the
two are in marked contradiction with one another.
The question finally asked, the result is, as indicated in the prose
version, the restoration of the King not merely to health, but also to
youth--
"Over his skin there spread a blush,
'Flori' the Frenchmen call this flush.
His face at once became so fair,
It made Parzival's beauty vain as air,
And that of Absalom, David's son,
And the Vegulaht of Ascalum.
All who from birth in beauty grew,
Like Gahmuret, as men well knew,
When into Kanvoleis he went,
His glory seeming heaven-sent,
All these in no way could compare
With King Anforta's beauty rare
When cured and freed of all his ills,
He proved that God has woundrous skills."[18]
GALAHAD. In the final form assumed by the story, that preserved in
the Queste, the achievement of the task is not preceded by any failure
on the part of the hero, and the advantages derived therefrom are
personal and spiritual, though we are incidentally told that he heals
the Fisher King's father, and also the old King, Mordrains, whose life
has been preternaturally prolonged. In the case of this latter it is
to be noted that the mere fact of Galahad's being the predestined
winner suffices, and the healing takes place before the Quest is
definitely achieved.
There is no Waste Land, and the wounding of the two Kings is entirely
unconnected with Galahad. We find hints, in the story of Lambar, of a
knowledge of the earlier form, but for all practical purposes it has
disappeared from the story.[19]
Analysing the above statements we find that the results may be grouped
under certain definite headings:
(a) There is a general consensus of evidence to the effect that the
main object of the Quest is the restoration to health and vigour of a
King suffering from infirmity caused by wounds, sickness, or old age;
(b) and whose infirmity, for some mysterious and unexplained reason,
reacts disastrously upon his kingdom, either depriving it of
vegetation, or exposing it to the ravages of war.
(c) In two cases it is definitely stated that the King will be
restored to youthful vigor and beauty.
(d) In both cases where we find Gawain as the hero of the story, and
in one connected with Perceval, the misfortune which has fallen upon
the country is that of a prolonged drought, which has destroyed
vegetation, and left the land Waste; the effect of the hero's question
is to restore the waters to their channel, and render the land more
fertile.
(e) In three cases the misfortunes and wasting of the land are the
result of war, and directly caused by the hero's failure to ask the
question; we are not dealing with an antecedent condition. This, in
my opinion, constitutes a marked difference between the two groups,
which has not hitherto received the attention it deserves. One aim of
our present investigation will be to determine which of these two
forms should be considered the elder.
But this much seems certain, the aim of the Grail Quest is two-fold;
it is to benefit (a) the King, (b) the land. The first of these two
is the more important, as it is the infirmity of the King which
entails misfortune on his land, the condition of the one reacts, for
good or ill, upon the other; how, or why, we are left to discover for
ourselves.
Before proceeding further in our investigation it may be well to
determine the precise nature of the King's illness, and see whether
any light upon the problem can be thus obtained.
In both the Gawain forms the person upon whom the fertility of the
land depends is dead, though, in the verion of the Diu Crone he is, to
all appearance, still in life. It should be noted that in the
Bleheris form the king of the castle, who is not referred to as the
Fisher King, is himself hale and sound; the wasting of the land was
brought about by the blow which slew the knight whose body Gawain sees
on the bier.
In both the Perlesvaus, and the prose Perceval the King has 'simply
fallen into languishment,' in the first instance, as noted above, on
account of the failure of the Quester, in the second it was the result
of extreme old age.
In Chretien, Manessier, Peredur, and the Parzival, the King is
suffering from a wound the nature of which, euphemistically disguised
in the French texts, is quite clearly explained in the German.[20]
But the whole position is made absolutely clear by a passage preserved
in Sone de Nansai and obviously taken over from an earlier poem. This
romance contains a lengthy section dealing with the history of Joseph
'd'Abarimathie,' who is represented as the patron Saint of the kingdom
of Norway; his bones, with the sacred relics of which he had in
charge, the Grail and the Lance, are preserved in a monastery on an
island in the interior of that country. In this version Joseph
himself is the Fisher King; ensnared by the beauty of the daughter of
the Pagan King of Norway, whom he has slain, he baptizes her, though
she is still an unbeliever at heart, and makes her his wife, thus
drawing the wrath of Heaven upon himself. God punishes him for his
sin:
"His loins are stricken by this bane
From which he suffers lasting pain."[21]
Then, in a remarkable passage, we are told of the direful result
entailed by this punishment upon the land:
"Lorgres his land was from this day
Called by all, and truth to say,
Well should Lorgres be named with tears,
With bitter weeping, grief and fears.
For here no fertile seed is sown,
Neither peas nor grain are grown,
Never a child of man is born,
Mateless maidens sadly mourn,
On the trees no leaf is seen
Nor are the meadows growing green,
Birds build no nests, no song is sung,
And hapless beasts shall bear no young,
So it is while the sinful king
Shall evil on his people bring.
For Jesus Christ does punish well
The land whereing the wicked dwell."[22]
Now there can be no possible doubt here, the condition of the King is
sympathetically reflected on the land, the loss of virility in the one
brings about a suspension of the reproductive processes of Nature on
the other. The same effect would naturally be the result of the death
of the sovereign upon whose vitality these processes depended.
To sum up the result of the analysis, I hold that we have solid
grounds for the belief that the story postulates a close connection
between the vitality of a certain King, and the prosperity of his
kingdom; the forces of the ruler being weakened or destroyed, by
wound, sickness, old age, death, the land becomes Waste, and the task
of the hero is that of restoration.[23]
It seems to me then, that, if we desire to elucidate the perplexing
mystery of the Grail romances, and to place the criticism of this
important and singularly fascinating body of literature upon an
assured basis, we shall do so most effectively by pursuing a line of
investigation which will concentrate upon the persistent elements of
the story, the character and significance of the achievement proposed,
rather than upon the varying details, such as Grail and Lance, however
important may be their role. If we can ascertain, accurately, and
unmistakably, the meaning of the whole, we shall, I think, find less
difficulty in determining the character and office of the parts, in
fact, the question solvitur ambulando, the 'complex' of the problem
being solved, the constituent elements will reveal their significance.
As a first step I propose to ask whether this 'Quest of the Grail'
represents an isolated, and unique achievement, or whether the task
allotted to the hero, Gawain, Perceval, or Galahad, is one that has
been undertaken, and carried out by heroes of other ages, and other
lands. In the process of our investigation we must retrace our steps
and turn back to the early traditions of our Aryan forefathers, and
see whether we cannot, even in that remote antiquity, lay our hand
upon a clue, which, like the fabled thread of Ariadne, shall serve as
guide through the mazes of a varying, yet curiously persistent,
tradition.
CHAPTER III
The Freeing of the Waters
"To begin at the beginning," was the old story-telling formula, and it
was a very sound one, if 'the beginning' could only be definitely
ascertained! As our nearest possible approach to it I would draw
attention to certain curious parallels in the earliest literary
monuments of our race. It would at the same time beg those scholars
who may think it 'a far cry' from the romances of the twelfth century
of our era to some 1000 years B.C. to suspend their judgment till they
have fairly examined the evidence for a tradition common to the Aryan
race in general, and correspondence of characteristic detail, through
all migrations and modifications of that race, down to the present
day.
Turning back to the earliest existing literary evidence, the Rig-Veda,
we become aware that, in this vast collection of over 1000 poems (it
is commonly known as The Thousand and One Hymns but the poems
contained in it are more than that in number) are certain parallels
with our Grail stories which, if taken by themselves, are perhaps
interesting and suggestive rather than in any way conclusive, yet
which, when they are considered in relation to the entire body of
evidence, assume a curious significance and importance. We must first
note that a very considerable number of the Rig-Veda hymns depend for
their initial inspiration on the actual bodily needs and requirements
of a mainly agricultural population, i.e., of a people that depend
upon the fruits of the earth for their subsistence, and to whom the
regular and ordered sequence of the processes of Nature was a vital
necessity.
Their hymns and prayers, and, as we have strong reason to suppose,
their dramatic ritual, were devised for the main purpose of obtaining
from the gods of their worship that which was essential to ensure
their well-being and fertility of their land--warmth, sunshine, above
all, sufficient water. That this last should, in an Eastern land,
under a tropical sun, become a point of supreme importance, is easily
to be understood. There is consequently small cause for surprise when
we find, throughout the collection, the god who bestows upon them this
much desired boon to be the one to whom by far the greater proportion
of the hymns are addressed. It is not necessary here to enter into a
discussion as to the original conception of Indra, and the place
occupied by him in the early Aryan Pantheon, whether he was originally
regarded as a god of war, or a god of weather; what is important for
our purpose is the fact that it is Indra to whom a disproportionate
number of the hymns of the Rig-Veda are addressed, that it is from him
the much desired boon of rain and abundant water is besought, and that
the feat which above all other redounded to his praise, and is
ceaselessly glorified both by the god himself, and his grateful
worshippers, is precisely the feat by which the Grail heroes, Gawain
and Perceval, rejoiced the hearts of the suffering folk, i.e., the
restoration of the rivers to their channels, the 'Freeing of the
Waters.' Tradition relates that the seven great rivers of India had
been imprisoned by the evil giant, Vritra, or Ahi, whom Indra slew,
thereby releasing the streams from their captivity.
The Rig-Veda hymns abound in references to this feat; it will only be
necessary to cite a few from among the numerous passages I have noted.
'Thou hast set loose the seven rivers to flow.'
'Thou causest water to flow on every side.'
'Indra set free the waters.'
'Thou, Indra, hast slain Vritra by thy vigour, thou has set free the
rivers.'
'Thou hast slain the slumbering Ahi for the release of the waters, and
hast marked out the channels of the all-delighting rivers.'
'Indra has filled the rivers, he has inundated the dry land.'
'Indra has released the imprisoned waters to flow upon the earth.'[1]
It would be easy to fill pages with similar quotations, but these are
sufficient for our purpose.
Among the Rig-Veda hymns are certain poems in Dialogue form, which
from their curious and elliptic character have been the subject of
much discussion among scholars. Professor Oldenberg, in drawing
attention to their peculiarities, had expressed his opinion that these
poems were the remains of a distinct type of early Indian literature,
where verses forming the central, and illuminating, point of a formal
ceremonial recital had been 'farced' with illustrative and explanatory
prose passages; the form of the verses being fixed, that of the prose
being varied at the will of the reciter.[2]
This theory, which is technically known as the 'Akhyana' theory (as it
derived its starting point from the discussion of the Suparnakhyana
text), won considerable support, but was contested by M. Sylvain Levi,
who asserted that, in these hymns, we had the remains of the earliest,
and oldest, Indian dramatic creations, the beginning of the Indian
Drama, and that the fragments could only be satisfactorily interpreted
from the point of view that they were intended to be spoken, not by a
solitary reciter, but by two or more dramatis personae.[3]
J. Hertel (Der Ursprung des Indischen Dramas and Epos) went still
further, and while accepting, and demonstrating, the justice of this
interpretation of the 'Dialogue' poems, suggested a similar origin for
certain 'Monologues' found in the same collection.[4]
Professor Leopold von Schroeder, in his extremely interesting volume,
Mysterium und Mimus im Rig-Veda,[5] has given a popular and practical
form to the results of these researches, by translating and
publishing, with an explanatory study, a selection of these early
'Culture' Dramas, explaining the speeches, and placing them in the
mouth of the respective actors to whom they were, presumably,
assigned. Professor von Schroeder holds the entire group to be linked
together by one common intention, viz., the purpose of stimulating the
processes of Nature, and of obtaining, as a result of what may be
called a Ritual Culture Drama, an abundant return of the fruits of the
earth. The whole book is rich in parallels drawn from ancient and
modern sources, and is of extraordinary interest to the Folk-lore
student.
In the light thrown by Professor von Schroeder's researches, following
as they do upon the illuminating studies of Mannhardt, and Frazer, we
become strikingly aware of the curious vitality and persistence of
certain popular customs and beliefs; and while the two last-named
writers have rendered inestimable service to the study of Comparative
Religion by linking the practices of Classical and Medieval times with
the Folk-customs of to-day, we recognize, through von Schroeder's
work, that the root of such belief and custom is imbedded in a deeper
stratum of Folk-tradition than we had hitherto realized, that it is,
in fact, a heritage from the far-off past of the Aryan peoples.
For the purposes of our especial line of research Mysterium and Mimus
offers much of value and interest. As noted above, the main object of
these primitive Dramas was that of encouraging, we may say, ensuring,
the fertility of the Earth; thus it is not surprising that more than
one deals with the theme of which we are treating, and the Freeing of
the Waters, only that whereas, in the quotations given above, the
worshippers praise Indra for his beneficent action, here Indra
himself, in propria persona appears, and vaunts his feat.
"I struck down Vritra by the power of Indra!
I had become so strong in fury!
For all mankind I set the rivers free."[6]
And then impersonated rivers speak for themselves.
"Indra armed with the thunderbolt broke the way for us,
He smote down Vrita, the encloser of rivers."[7]
There is no need to insist further on the point that the task of the
Grail hero is in this special respect no mere literary invention, but
a heritage from the achievements of the prehistoric heroes of the
Aryan race.
But the poems selected by Professor von Schroeder for discussion offer
us a further, and more curious, parallel with the Grail romances.
In Section VIII. of the work referred to the author discusses the
story of Rishyacringa, as the Mahabhdrata names the hero; here we find
a young Brahmin brought up by his father, Vibhandaka, in a lonely
forest hermitage[8] absolutely ignorant of the outside world, and even
of the very existence of beings other than his father and himself. He
has never seen a woman, and does not know that such a creature
exists.
A drought falls upon a neighboring kingdom, and the inhabitants are
reduced to great straits for lack of food. The King, seeking to know
by what means the sufferings of his people may be relieved, learns
that so long as Rishyacringa continues chaste so long will the drought
endure. An old woman, who has a fair daughter of irregular life,
undertakes the seduction of the hero. The King has a ship, or raft
(both versions are given), fitted out with all possible luxury, and an
apparent Hermit's cell erected upon it. The old woman, her daughter
and companions, embark; and the river carries them to a point not far
from the young Brahmin's hermitage.
Taking advantage of the absence of his father, the girl visits
Rishyacringa in his forest cell, giving him to understand that she is
a Hermit, like himself, which the boy, in his innocence, believes. He
is so fascinated by her appearance and caresses that, on her leaving
him, he, deep in thought of the lovely visitor, forgets, for the first
time, his religious duties.
On his father's return he innocently relates what has happened, and
the father warns him that fiends in this fair disguise strive to tempt
hermits to their undoing. The next time the father is absent the
temptress, watching her opportunity, returns, and persuades the boy to
accompany her to her 'Hermitage' which she assures him, is far more
beautiful than his own. So soon as Rishyacringa is safely on board
the ship sails, the lad is carried to the capital of the rainless
land, the King gives him his daughter as wife, and so soon as the
marraige is consummated the spell is broken, and rain falls in
abundance.
Professor von Schroeder points out that there is little doubt that, in
certain earlier versions of the tale, the King's daughter herself
played the role of temptress.
There is no doubt that a ceremonial 'marraige' very frequently formed
a part of the 'Fertility' ritual, and was supposed to be specially
efficacious in bringing about the effect desired.[9] The practice
subsists in Indian ritual to this hour, and the surviving traces in
European Folk-custom have been noted in full by Mannhardt in his
exhaustive work on Wald und Feld-Kulte; its existence in Classic times
is well known, and it is certainly one of the living Folk-customs for
which a well attested chain of descent can be cited. Professor von
Schroeder remarks that the efficacy of the rite appears to be enhanced
by the previous strict observance of the rule of chastity by
officiant.[10]
What, however, is of more immediate interest for our purpose is the
fact that the Rishyacringa story does, in effect, possess certain
curious points of contact with the Grail traditions.
Thus, the lonely upbringing of the youth in a forest, far from the
haunts of men, his absolute ignorance of the existence of human beings
other than his parent and himself, present a close parallel to the
accounts of Perceval's youth and woodland life, as related in the
Grail romances.[11]
In Gerbert's continuation we are told that the marraige of the hero is
an indispensible condition of achieving the Quest, a detail which must
have been taken over from an earlier version, as Gerbert proceeds to
stultify himself by describing the solemnities of the marraige, and
the ceremonial blessing of the nuptial couch, after which the hero and
heroine simultaneously agree to live a life of strict chastity, and
are rewarded by the promise that the Swan Knight shall be their
descendent--a tissue of contradictions which can only be explained by
the mal-a-droit blending of two versions, one of which knew the hero
as wedded, the other, as celibate. There can be no doubt that the
original Perceval story included the marraige of the hero.[12]
The circumstances under which Rishyacringa is lured from his Hermitage
are curiously paralled by the account, found in the Queste and
Maessier, of Perceval's temptation by a fiend, in the form of a fair
maiden, who comes to him by water in a vessel hung with black silk,
and with great riches on board.[13]
In pointing out these parallels I wish to make my position perfectly
clear; I do not claim that either in the Rig-Veda, or in any other
early Aryan literary monument, we can hope to discover the direct
sources of the Grail legend, but what I would urge upon scholars is
the fact that, in adopting the hypothesis of a Nature Cult as a
possible origin, and examining the history of these Cults, their
evolution, and their variant forms, we do, in effect, find at every
period and stage of development undoubted points of contact, which,
though taken separately, might be regarded as accidental, in their
ensemble can hardly be thus considered. When every parallel to our
Grail story is founded within the circle of a well-defined, and
carefully studied, sequence of belief and practice, when each and all
form part of a well-recognized body of tradition the descent of which
has been abundantly demonstrated, then I submit such parallels stand
on a sound basis, and it is not unreasonable to conclude that the body
of tradition containing them belongs to the same family and is to be
interpreted on the same principles as the closely analogous rites and
ceremonies.
I suspend the notice and discussion of other poems contained in
Prof. von Schroeder's collection till we have reached a later stage of
the tradition, when their correspondence will be recognized as even
more striking and suggestive.
CHAPTER IV
Tammuz and Adonis
PART I. TAMMUZ
In the previous chapter we considered certain aspects of the attitude
assumed by our Aryan forefathers towards the great processes of Nature
in their ordered sequence of Birth, Growth, and Decay. We saw that
while on one hand they, by prayer and supplication, threw themselves
upon the mercy of the Divinity, who, in their belief, was responsible
for the granting, or withholding, of the water, whether of rain, or
river, the constant supply of which was an essential condition of such
ordered sequence, they, on the other hand, believed that, by their own
actions, they could stimulate and assist the Divine activity. Hence
the dramatic representations to which I have referred, the
performance, for instance, of such drama as the Rishyacringa, the
ceremonial 'marraiges,' and other exercises of what we now call
sympathetic magic. To quote a well-known passage by Sir J. G. Frazer:
"They commonly believed that the tie between the animal and vegetable
world was even closer than it really is--to them the principle of life
and fertility, whether animal or vegetable, was one and indivisible.
Hence actions that induced fertility in the animal world were held to
be equally efficacious in stimulating the reproductive energies of the
vegetable."[1] How deeply this idea was rooted in the minds of our
ancestors we, their descendants, may learn from its survival to our
own day.
The ultimate, and what we may in a general sense term the classical,
form in which this sense of the community of the Life principle found
expression was that which endowed the vivifying force of Nature with a
distinct personality, divine, or semidivine, whose experiences, in
virtue of his close kinship with humanity, might be expressed in terms
of ordinary life.
At this stage the progress of the seasons, the birth of vegetation in
spring, or its revival after the autumn rains, its glorious fruition
in early summer, its decline and death under the maleficent influence
either of the scorching sun, or the bitter winter cold, symbolically
represented the corresponding stages in the life of the
anthropomorphically conceived Being, whose annual progress from birth
to life, was celebrated with a solemn ritual of corresponding
alternations of rejoicing and lamentation.
Recent research has provided us with abundant material for the study
of the varying forms of this Nature Cult, the extraordinary importance
of which as an evolutionary factor in what we may term the concrete
expression of human thought and feeling is only gradually becoming
realized.[2]
Before turning our attention to this, the most important, section of
our investigation, it may be well to consider one characteristic
difference between the Nature ritual of the Rig-Veda, and that
preserved to us in the later monuments of Greek antiquity.
In the Rig-Veda, early as it is, we find the process of religious
evolution already far advanced; the god has separated himself from his
worshippers, and assumed an anthropomorphic form, Indra, while still
retaining traces of his 'weather' origin, is no longer, to borrow Miss
Harrison's descriptive phrase, 'an automatic explosive thunder-storm,'
he wields the thunderbolt certainly, but he appears in heroic form to
receive the offerings made to him, and to celebrate his victory in a
solemn ritual dance. In Greek art and literature, on the other hand,
where we might expect to find an even more advanced conception, we are
faced with one seemingly more primitive and inchoate, i.e., the idea
of a constantly recurring cycle of Birth, Death, and Resurrection, or
Re-Birth, of all things in Nature, this cycle depending upon the
activities of an entity at first vaguely conceived of as the 'Luck of
the Year,' the Eniautos Daimon. This Being, at one stage of evolution
theriomorphic--he might assume the form of a bull, a goat, or a snake
(the latter, probably from the close connection of the reptile with
the earth, being the more general form)--only gradually, and by
distinctly traceable stages, assumed an anthropomorphic shape.[3]
This gives to the study of Greek antiquity a special and peculiar
value, since in regard to the body of religious belief and observance
with which we are here immediately concerned, neither in what we may
or may not improperly term its ultimate (early Aryan), nor in what has
been generally considered its proximate (Syro-Phoenician), source,
have these intermediate stages been preserved; in each case the ritual
remains are illustrative of a highly developed cult, distinctly
anthropomorphic in conception. I offer no opinion as to the critical
significance of this fact, but I would draw the attention of scholars
to its existence.
That the process of evolution was complete at a very early date has
been proved by recent researches into the Sumerian-Babylonian
civilization. We know now that the cult of the god Tammuz, who, if
not the direct original of the Phoenician-Greek Adonis, is at least
representative of a common parent deity, may be traced back to 3000
B.C., while it persisted among the Sabeans at Harran into the Middle
Ages.[4]
While much relating to the god and his precise position in the
Sumerian-Babylonian Pantheon still remains obscure, fragmentary
cuneiform texts connected with the religious services of the period
have been discovered, and to a considerable extent deciphered, and we
are thus in a position to judge, from the prayers and invocations
addressed to the deity, what were the powers attributed to, and the
benefits besought from, him. These texts are of a uniform character;
they are all 'Lamentations,' or 'Wailings,' having for their exciting
cause the disappearance of Tammuz from this upper earth, and the
disastrous effects produced upon the animal and vegetable life by his
absence. The woes of the land and the folk are set forth in poignant
detail, and Tammuz is passionately invoked to have pity upon his
worshippers, and to end their sufferings by a speedy return. This
return, we find from other texts, was effected by the action of a
goddess, the mother, sister, or paramour, of Tammuz, who descending
into the nether world, induced the youthful deity to return with her
to earth. It is perfectly clear from the texts which have been
deciphered that Tammuz is not to be regarded merely as representing
the spirit of Vegetation; his influence is operative, not only in the
vernal processes of Nature, as a Spring god, but in all its
reproductive energies, without distinction or limitation, he may be
considered as an embodiment of the Life principle, and his cult as a
Life Cult.
Mr Stephen Langdon inclines to the belief that the original Tammuz
typified the vivifying waters; he writes: "Since, in Babylonia as in
Egypt, the fertility of the soil depended upon irrigation, it is but
natural to expect that the youthful god who represents the birth and
death of nature, whould represent the beneficient waters which flooded
the valleys of the Tigris and Euphrates in the late winter, and which
ebbed away, and nearly disappeared, in the canals and rivers in the
period of Summer drought. We find therefore that the theologians
regarded this youthful divinity as belonging to the cult of Eridu,
centre of the worship of Ea, lord of the nether sea."[5] In a note to
this passage Mr Langdon adds: "He appears in the great theological
list as Dami-zi, ab-zu, 'Tammuz of the sea,' i.e., 'the faithful son
of the fresh waters which come from the earth.'"[8]
This presents us with an interesting analogy to the citations given in
the previous chapter from the Rig-Veda; the Tammuz cult is specially
valuable as providing us with evidence of the gradual evolution of the
Life Cult from the early conception of the vivifying power of the
waters, to the wider recognition of a common life principle underlying
all manifestations of Life.
This is very clearly brought out in the beautiful Lament for Tammuz,
published by Mr Langdon in Tammuz and Ishtar, and also in Sumerian and
Babylonian Psalms.[7]
"In Eanna, high and low, there is weeping,
Wailing for the house of the lord they raise.
The wailing is for the plants; the first lament is 'they grow not.'
The wailing is for the barley; the ears grow not.
For the habitations and flocks it is; they produce not.
For the perishing wedded ones, for perishing children it is; the
dark-headed people create not.
The wailing is for the great river; it brings the flood no more.
The wailing is for the fields of men; the gunu grows no more.
The wailing is for the fish-ponds; the dasuhur fish spawn not.
The wailing is for the cane-brake; the fallen stalks grow not.
The wailing is for the forests; the tamarisks grow not.
The wailing is for the highlands; the masgam trees grow not.
The wailing is for the garden store-house; honey and wine are produced
not.
The wailing is for the meadows; the bounty of the garden, the sihtu
plants grow not.
The wailing is for the palace; life unto distant days is not."
Can anything be more expressive of the community of life animating the
whole of Nature than this poignantly worded lament?
A point which differentiates the worship of Tammuz from the kindred,
and better known, cult of Adonis, is the fact that we have no
liturgical record of the celebration of the resurrection of the deity;
it certainly took place, for the effects are referred to:
"Where grass was not, there grass is eaten,
Where water was not, water is drunk,
Where the cattle sheds were not, cattle sheds are built."[8]
While this distinctly implies the revival of vegetable and animal
life, those features (i.e., resurrection and sacred marraige), which
made the Adonis ritual one of rejoicing as much as of lamentation, are
absent from liturgical remains of the Tammuz cult.[9]
A detail which has attracted the attention of scholars is the lack of
any artistic representation of this ritual, a lack which is the more
striking in view of the important position which these 'Wailings for
Tammuz' occupy in the extant remains of Babylonian liturgies. On this
point Mr Langdon makes an interesting suggestion: "It is probable that
the service of wailing for the dying god, the descent of the mother,
and the resurrection, were attended by mysterious rituals. The actual
mysteries may have been performed in a secret chamber, and
consequently the scenes were forbidden in Art. This would account for
the surprising dearth of archaeological evidence concerning a cult
upon which the very life of mankind was supposed to depend."[10]
In view of the fact that my suggestion as to the possible later
development of these Life Cults as Mysteries has aroused considerable
opposition, it is well to bear in mind that such development is held
by those best acquainted with the earliest forms of the ritual to have
been not merely possible, but to have actually taken place, and that
at a very remote date. Mr Langdon quotes a passage referring to
"Kings who in their day played the role of Tammuz in the mystery of
this cult"; he considers that here we have to do with kings who, by a
symbolic act, escaped the final penalty of sacrifice as representative
of the Dying God.[11]
The full importance of the evidence above set forth will become more
clearly apparent as we proceed with our investigation; here I would
simply draw attention to the fact that we now possess definite proof
that, at a period of some 3000 years B.C., the idea of a Being upon
whose life and reproductive activities the very existence of Nature
and its corresponding energies was held to depend, yet who was himself
subject to the vicissitudes of declining powers and death, like an
ordinary mortal, had already assumed a fixed, and practically final,
form; further, that this form was specially crystallized in ritual
observances. In our study of the later manifestations of this cult we
shall find that this central idea is always, and unalterably, the
same, and is, moreover, frequently accompanied by a remarkable
correspondence of detail. The chain of evidence is already strong,
and we may justly claim that the links added by further research
strengthen, while they lengthen, that chain.
PART II. ADONIS
While it is only of comparatively recent date that information as to
the exact character of the worship directed to Tammuz has been
available and the material we at present possess is but fragmentary in
character, the corresponding cult of the Phoenician-Greek divinity we
know as Adonis has for some years been the subject of scholarly
research. Not only have the details of the ritual been examined and
discussed, and the surviving artistic evidence described and
illustrated, but from the anthropological side attention has been
forcibly directed to its importance as a factor in the elucidation of
certain widespread Folk-beliefs and practices.[12]
We know that the worship of Adonis, which enjoyed among the Greeks a
popularity extending to our own day, was originally of Phoenician
origin, its principal centres being the cities of Byblos, and Aphaka.
From Phoenicia it spread to the Greek islands, the earliest evidence
of the worship being found in Cyprus, and from thence to the mainland,
where it established itself firmly. The records of the cult go back
to 700 B.C., but it may quite possibly be of much earlier date. Mr
Langdon suggests that the worship of the divinity we know as Adonis,
may, under another name, reach back to an antiquity equal with that we
can now ascribe to the cult of Tammuz. In its fully evolved classical
form the cult of Adonis offers, as it were, a halfway house, between
the fragmentary relics of Aryan and Babylonian antiquity, and the
wealth of Medieval and Modern survivals to which the ingenuity and
patience of contemporary scholars have directed our attention.
We all know the mythological tale popularly attached to the name of
Adonis; that he was a fair youth, beloved of Aphrodite, who, wounded
in the thigh by a wild boar, died of his wound. The goddess, in
despair at his death, by her prayers won from Zeus the boon that
Adonis be allowed to return to earth for a portion of each year, and
henceforward the youthful god divides his time between the goddess of
Hades, Persephone, and Aphrodite. But the importance assumed by the
story, the elaborate ceremonial with which the death of Adonis was
mourned, and his restoration to life feted, the date and character of
the celebrations, all leave no doubt that the personage with whom we
are dealing was no mere favourite of a goddess, but one with whose
life and well-being the ordinary processes of Nature, whether animal
or vegetable, were closely and intimately concerned. In fact the
central figure of these rites, by whatever name he may be called, is
the somewhat elusive and impersonal entity, who represents in
anthropomorphic form the principle of animate Nature, upon whose
preservation, and unimpaired energies, the life of man, directly, and
indirectly, depends.[13]
Before proceeding to examine these rites there is one point, to which
I have alluded to earlier, in another connection, upon which our minds
must be quite clear, i.e., the nature of the injury suffered. Writers
upon the subject are of one accord in considering the usual account to
be but a euphemistic veiling of the truth, while the close relation
between the stories of Adonis and Attis, and the practices associated
with the cult, place beyond any shadow of a doubt the fact that the
true reason for this universal mourning was the cessation, or
suspension, by injury or death, of the reproductive energy of the god
upon whose virile activity vegetable life directly, and human life
indirectly, depended.[14] What we have need to seize and to insist
upon is the overpowering influence which the sense of Life, the need
for Life, the essential Sanctity of the Life-giving faculty, exercised
upon primitive religions. Vellay puts this well when he says: "In
fact, the whole religious cycle of the Oriental peoples of antiquity
rests on the conception of physical life, considered in its origin and
its action, and in the dual principle which animates it."[15]
Professor von Schroeder says even more precisely and emphatically: "In
the ancient Aryan religion everything is aimed at the affirmation of
life. The phallus can be considered its dominant symbol."[16] And in
spite of the strong opposition to this cult manifested in Indian
literature, beginning with the Rig-Veda, and ripening to fruition in
the Upanishads, in spite of the rise of Buddhism, with its opposing
dictum of renunciation, the 'Life-Cult' asserted its essential
vitality against all opposition, and under modified forms represents
the 'popular' religion of India to this day.
Each and all of the ritual dramas, reconstructed in the pages of
Mysterium and Mimus bear, more or less distinctly, the stamp of their
'Fertility' origin,[17] while outside India the pages of Frazer and
Mannhardt, and numerous other writers on Floklore and Ethnology,
record the widespread, and persistent, survival of these rites, and
their successful defiance of the spread of civilization.
It is to this special group of belief and practice that the Adonis
(and more especially its Phrygian counterpart the Attis) worship
belong, and even when transplanted to the more restrained and cultured
environment of the Greek mainland, they still retained their primitive
character. Farnell, in his Cults of the Greek States, refers to the
worship of Adonis as "a ritual that the more austere State religion of
Greece probably failed to purify, the saner minds, bred in a religious
atmosphere that was, on the whole, genial, and temperate, revolted
from the din of cymbals and drums, the meaningless ecstasies of sorrow
and joy, that marked the new religion."[18]
It is, I submit, indispensible for the purposes of our investigation
that the essential character and significance of the cults with which
we are dealing should not be evaded or ignored, bu faced, frankly
admitted and held in mind during the progress of our enquiry.
Having now determined the general character of the ritual, what were
the specific details?
The date of the feast seems to have varied in different countries;
thus in Greece it was celebrated in the Spring, the moment of the
birth of Vegetation; according to Saint Jerome, in Palestine the
celebration fell in June, when plant life was in its first full
luxuriance. In Cyprus, at the autumnal equinox, i.e., the beginning
of the year in the Syro-Macedonian calendar, the death of Adonis
falling on the 23rd of September, his resurrection on the 1st of
October, the beginning of the New Year. This would seem to indicate
that here Adonis was considered, as Vellay suggests, less as the god
of Vegetation than as the superior and nameless Lord of Life
(Adonis=Syriac Adon, Lord), under whose protection the year was
placed. He is the Eniautos Daemon.
In the same way as the dates varied, so, also, did the order of the
ritual; generally speaking the elaborate ceremonies of mourning for
the dead god, and committing his effigy to the waves, preceded the
joyous celebration of his resurrection, but in Alexandria the sequence
was otherwise; the feast began with the solemn and joyous celebration
of the nuptials of Adonis and Aphrodite, at the conclusion of which, a
Head, of papyrus, representing the god, was, with every show of
mourning, committed to the waves, and borne within seven days by a
current (always to be counted upon at that season of the year) to
Byblos, where it was received and welcomed with popular rejoicing.[20]
The duration of the feast varied from two days, as at Alexandria, to
seven or eight.
Connected with the longer period of the feast were the so-called
'Gardens of Adonis,' baskets, or pans, planted with quick growing
seeds, which speedily come to fruition, and as speedily wither. In
the modern survivals of the cult three days form the general term for
the flowering of these gardens.[21]
The most noticeable feature of the ritual was the prominence assigned
to women; "It is the women who weep for him and accompany him to his
tomb. They sob wildly all night long; this is their god more than any
other, and they alone wish to lament his death and sing of his
resurrection."[22]
Thus in the tenth century the festival received the Arabic name of
El-Bugat, or 'The Festival of Weeping Women.'[23]
One very curious practice during these celebrations was that of
cutting off the hair in honour of the god; women who hesitated to make
this sacrifice must offer themselves to strangers, either in the
temple, or on the market-place, the gold received as the price of
their favours being offered to the goddess. This obligation only
lasted for one day.[24] It was also customary for the priests of
Adonis to mutilate themselves in imitation of the god, a distinct
proof, if one were needed, of the traditional cause of his death.[25]
Turning from a consideration of the Adonis ritual, its details, and
significance, to an examination of the Grail romances, we find that
their mise-en-scene provides a striking series of parallels with the
Classical celebrations, parallels, which instead of vanishing, as
parallels have occasionally an awkward habit of doing, before close
investigation, rather gain in force the more closely they are studied.
Thus the central figure is either a dead knight on a bier (as in the
German versions), or a wounded king on a litter; when wounded the
injury corresponds with that suffered by Adonis and Attis.[26]
Closely connected with the wounding of the king is the destruction
which has fallen on the land, which will be removed when the king is
healed. The version of Sone de Nansai is here of extreme interest;
the position is stated with so much clearness and precision that the
conclusion cannot be evaded--we are face to face with the dreaded
calamity which it was the aim of the Adonis ritual to avert, the
temporary suspension of all the reproductive energies of Nature.[27]
While the condition of the king is the cause of general and vociferous
lamentation, a special feature, never satisfactorily accounted for, is
the presence of a weeping woman, or several weeping women. Thus in
the interpolated visit of Gawain to the Grail castle, found in the C
group of Perceval MSS., the Grail-bearer weeps piteously, as she does
also in Diu Crone.[28]
In the version of the prose Lancelot Gawain, during the night, sees
twelve maidens come to the door of the chamber where the Grail is
kept, kneel down, and weep bitterly, in fact behave precisely as did
the classical mourners for Adonis--"They sob wildly all night
long."[29]--behavior for which the text, as it now stands, provides no
shadow of explanation or excuse. The Grail is here the most revered
of Christian relics, the dwellers in the castle of Corbenic have all
that heart can desire, with the additional prestige of being the
guardians of the Grail; if the feature be not a belated survival,
which has lost its meaning, it defies any explanation whatsoever.
In Diu Crone alone, where the Grail-bearer and her maidens are the
sole living beings in an abode of the Dead, is any explanation of the
'Weping Women' attempted, but an interpolated passage in the Heralds'
College MS. of the Perceval states that when the Quest is achieved,
the hero shall learn the cause of the maiden's grief, and also the
explanation of the Dead Knight upon the bier:
"Of the Grail and the maiden's woe,
He who comes afterwards shall know,
Why the damsel from the knight's bier
Bears the Grail with many a tear,
He shall learn then the truth that none
Could ever earlier have won."
fo. 180vo-181.
Of course in the Perceval there is neither a Weeping Maiden, nor a
Bier, and the passage must therefore be either an unintelligent
addition by a scribe familiar with the Gawain versions, or an
interpolation from a source which did not contain the features in
question. So far as the texts at our disposal are concerned, both
features belong exclusively to the Gawain, and not to the Perceval
Quest. The interpolation is significant as it indicates a surviving
sense of the importance of this feature.
In the Perlesvaus we have a curious detail of a maiden who has lost
her hair as a result of the hero's failure to ask the question, and
the consequent sickness of the Fisher King. The occurrence of this
detail may be purely fortuitous, but at the same time it is admissible
to point out that the Adonis cults do provide us with a parallel in
the enforced loss of hair by the women taking part in these rites,
while no explanation of this curious feature has so far as I am aware
been suggested by critics of the text.[30]
We may also note the fact that the Grail castle is always situated in
the close vicinity of water, either on or near the sea, or on the
banks of an important river. In two cases the final home of the Grail
is in a monastery situated upon an island. The presence of water,
either sea, or river, is an important feature in the Adonis cult, the
effigy of the dead god being, not buried in the earth, but thrown into
the water.[31]
It will thus be seen that, in suggesting a form of Nature worship,
analogous to this well-known cult, as the possible ultimate source
from which the incidents and mise-en-scene of the Grail stories were
derived, we are relying not upon an isolated parallel, but upon a
group of parallels, which alike in incident and intention offer, not
merely a resemblance to, but also an explanation of, the perplexing
problems of the Grail literature. We must now consider the question
whether incidents so remote in time may fairly and justly be utilized
in this manner.
CHAPTER V
Medieval and Modern Forms of Nature Ritual
Readers of the foregoing pages may, not improbably, object that, while
we have instanced certain curious and isolated parallels from early
Aryan literature and tradition, and, what, from the point of view of
declared intention, appears to be a kindred group of religious belief
and practice in pre-Historic and Classical times, the two, so far,
show no direct signs of affiliation, while both may be held to be far
removed, in point of date, alike from one another, and from the
romantic literature of the twelfth century.
This objection is sound in itself, but if we can show by modern
parallels that the ideas which took form and shape in early Aryan
Drama, and Babylonian and Classic Ritual, not only survive to our day,
but are found in combination with features corrsponding minutely with
details recorded in early Aryan literature, we may hold the gulf to be
bridged, and the common origin, and close relationship, of the
different stages to be ascertained fact. At the outset, and before
examining the evidence collected by scholars, I would remind my
readers that the modern Greeks have retained, in many instances under
changed names, no inconsiderable portion of their ancient mythological
beliefs, among them the 'Adonis' celebrations; the 'Gardens of Adonis'
blossom and fade to-day, as they did many centuries ago, and I have
myself spoken with a scholar who has seen 'women, at the door of their
houses, weeping for Adonis.'[1]
For evidence of the widespread character of Medieval and Modern
survivals we have only to consult the epoch-making works of Mannhardt,
Wald und Feld-Kulte, and Frazer, The Golden Bough;[2] in the pages of
these volumes we shall find more than sufficient for our purposes.
From the wealth of illustration with which these works abound I have
selected merely such instances as seem to apply more directly to the
subject of our investigation. [3]
Thus, in many places, it is still the custom to carry a figure
representing the Vegetation Spirit on a bier, attended by mourning
women, and either bury the figure, throw it into water (as in the rain
charm), or, after a mock death, carry the revivified Deity, with
rejoicing, back to the town. Thus in the Lechrain a man in black
women's clothes is borne on a bier, followed by men dressed as
professional women mourners making lamentation, thrown on the village
dung-heap, drenched with water, and buried in straw.[4]
In Russia the Vegetation or Year Spirit is known as Yarilo,[5] and is
represented by a doll with phallic attributes, which is enclosed in a
coffin, and carried through the streets to the accompaniment of
lamentation by women whose emotions have been excited by drink.
Mannhardt gives the lament as follows: "Of what was he guilty? He was
so good! He will never rise again! O! How shall we separate ourselves
from you? What does life mean if you are no longer here? Arise, if
only for a brief hour! But he does not arise, he does not arise!"[6]
In other forms of the ritual, we find distinct traces of the
resuscitation of the Vegetation Deity, occasionally accompanied by
evidence of rejuvenation. Thus, in Lausitz, or Laetare Sunday, (the
4th Sunday in Lent), women with mourning veils carry a straw figure,
dressed in a man's shirt, to the bounds of the next village, where
they tear the effigy to pieces, hang the shirt on a young and
flourishing tree, "a beautiful forest tree," which they proceed to cut
down, and carry home with every sign of rejoicing. Here evidently the
young tree is regarded as a rejuvenation of the person represented in
the first instance by the straw figure.[7]
In many parts of Europe to-day the corresponding ceremonies, very
generally held at Whitsuntide, include the mock execution of the
individual representing the Vegetation Spirit, frequently known as the
King of the May. In Bohemia the person playing the role of the King
is, with his attendants, dressed in bark, and decked out with garlands
of flowers; at the conclusion of the ceremonies the King is allowed a
short start, and is then pursued by the armed attendants. If he is
not overtaken he holds office for a year, but if overtaken he suffers
a mock decapitation, head-dress, or crown, being struck off, and the
pretended corpse is then borne on a bier to the next village.[8]
Mannhardt, discussing this pointremarks that in the mock execution we
must recognize "a widespread and certainly an age-old practice." He
enunmerates the various modes of death, shooting, stabbing (in the
latter case a bladder filled with blood, and concealed under the
clothes, is pierced); in Bohemia, decapitation, occasionally drowning
(which primarily represents a rain charm), is the form adopted.[9] He
then goes on to remark that this ceremonial death must have been
generally followed by resuscitation, as in Thuringia, where the 'Wild
Man,' as the central figure is there named, is brought to life again
by the Doctor, while the survival, in the more elaborate Spring
processions of this latter character, even where he plays no special
role, points to the fact that his part in the proceedings was
originally a more important one.
That Mannhardt was not mistaken is proved by the evidence of the
kindred Dances, a subject we shall consider later; there we shall find
the Doctor playing his old-time role, and restoring to life the slain
representative of the Vegetation Spirit.[10] The character of the
Doctor, or Medicine Man, formed, as I believe, at one time, no
unimportant link in the chain which connects these practices with the
Grail tradition.
The signification of the resuscitation ceremony is obscured in cases
where the same figure undergoes death and revival without any
corresponding change of form. This point did not escape Mannhardt's
acute critical eye; he remarks that, in cases where, e.g., in Swabia,
the 'King' is described as "a poor old man," who has lived seven years
in the woods (the seven winter months), a scene of rejuvenation should
follow--"this seems for the most part to have been lost, but perhaps
it only seems so." He goes on to draw attention to the practice in
Reidberg, bei Halle, where after burying a straw figure, called the
Old Man, the villagers dance around the May-Pole, and he suggests that
the 'Old Man' represents the defunct Vegetation Spirit, the May Tree,
that Spirit resuscitated, and refers in this connection to "the
completely related Asiatic practices of the Attis and Adonis
cults."[11]
The foregoing evidence offers, I think, sufficient proof of the, now
generally admitted, relationship between Classical, Medieval, and
Modern forms of the Nature ritual.
But what of the relation to early Aryan practice? Can that, also, be
proved?
In this connection I would draw attention to Chapter 17 of Mysterium
und Mimus, entitled, A Popular Procession at the Festival of Soma.
Here Professor von Schroeder discusses the real meaning and
significance of a very curious little poem. (Rig-Veda, 9. 112); the
title by which it is generally known, Everyone Runs After Money, does
not, at first sight, fit the content of the verse, and the suggestion
of scholars who have seen in it a humorous enumeration of different
trades and handicrafts does not explain the fact that the Frog and the
Horse appear in it.
To Professor von Schroeder belongs the credit of having discovered
that the personnel of the poem corresponds with extraordinary
exactitude to the Figures of the Spring and Summer
'Fertility-exciting' processions, described with such fullness of
detail by Mannhardt. Especially is this the case with the Whitsuntide
procession at Vardegotzen, in Hanover, where we find the group of
phallic and fertility demons, who, on Prof. von Schroder's hypothesis,
figure in the song, in concrete and actual form.[12] The vegetation
Spirit appears in the song as an Old Man, while his female
counterpart, an Old Woman, is described a 'filling the hand-mill.'
Prof. von Schroeder points out that in some parts of Russian the
'Baba-jaga' as the Corn Mother is called, is an Old Woman, who flies
through the air in a hand-mill. The Doctor, to whom we have referred
above, is mentioned twice in the four verses composing the song; he
was evidently regarded as an important figure; while the whole is put
into the mouth of a 'Singer' evidently the Spokesman of the party, who
proclaims their object, [literally] "knowing different ones, we are
seeking good things," i.e., gifts in money and kind, as such folk
processions do to-day.
The whole study is of extraordinary interest for Folk-lore students,
and so far as our especial investigation is concerned it seems to me
to supply the necessary proof of the identity, and persistence, of
Aryan folk-custom and tradition.
A very important modification of the root idea, and one which appears
to have direct bearing on the sources of the Grail tradition, was that
by which, among certain peoples, the role of the god, his
responsibility for providing the requisite rain upon which the
fertility of the land, and the life of the folk, depended, was
combined with that of the King.
This was the case among the Celts; McCulloch, in The Religion of the
Celts, discussing the question of the early Irish geasa or taboo,
explains the geasa of the Irish kings as designed to promote the
welfare of the tribe, the making of rain and sunshine on which their
prosperity depended. "Their observance made the earth fruitful,
produced abundance and prosperity, and kept both the king and his land
from misfortune. The Kings were divinities on whome depended
fruitfulness and plenty, and who must therefore submit to obey their
'geasa.'[13]
The same idea seems to have prevailed in early Greece; Mr A. B. Cook,
in his studies on The European Sky-God, remarks that the king in early
Greece was regarded as the representative of Zeus: his duties could be
satisfactorily discharged only by a man who was perfect, and without
blemish, i.e., by a man in the prime of life, suffering from no defect
of body, or mind; he quotes in illustration the speech of Odysseus
(Od. 19. 109 ff.). "'Even as a king without blemish, who ruleth
god-fearing over many mighty men, and maintaineth justice, while the
black earth beareth wheat and barley, and the trees are laden with
fruit, and the flocks bring forth without fail, and the sea yieldeth
fish by reason of his good rule, and the folk prosper beneath him.'
The king who is without blemish has a flourishing kingdom, the king
who is maimed has a kingdom diseased like himself, thus the Spartans
were warned by an oracle to beware of a 'lame reign.'"[14]
A most remarkable modern survival of this idea is recorded by Dr
Frazer in the latest edition of The Golden Bough,[15] and is so
complete and suggestive that I make no apology for transcribing it at
some length. The Shilluk, an African tribe, inhabit the banks of the
White Nile, their territory extending on the west bank from Kaka in
the north, to Lake No in the sourth, on the east bank from Fashoda to
Taufikia, and some 35 miles up the Sohat river. Numbering some 40,000
people in all, they are a pastoral people, their wealth consisting in
flocks and herds, grain and millet. The King resides at Fashoda, and
is regarded with extreme reverence, as being a re-incarnation of
Nyakang, the semi-divine hero who settled the tribe on whom their life
and prosperity depend; there are several shrines in which sacred
Spears, now kept for sacrifical purposes, are preserved, the
originals, which were the property of Nyakang, having disappeared.
The King, though regarded with reverence, must not be allowed to
become old or feeble, lest, with the diminishing vigour of the ruler,
the cattle should sicken, and fail to bear increase, the crops should
rot in the field and men die in ever growing numbers. One of the
signs of failing energy is the King's inability to fulfil the desires
of his wives, of whom he has a large number. When this occurs the
wives report the fact to the chiefs, who condemn the King to death
forthwith, communicating the sentence to him by spreading a white
cloth over his face and knees during his mid-day slumber. Formerly
the King was starved to death in a hut, in company with a young maiden
but (in consequence, it is said, of the great vitality and protracted
suffering of one King) this no longer done; the precise manner of
death is difficult to ascertain; Dr Seligmann, who was Sir
J. G. Frazer's authority, thinks that he is now strangled in a hut,
especially erected for that purpose.
At one time he might be attacked and slain by a rival, either of his
own family, or of that of one of the previous Ings, of whom there are
many, but this has long been superseded by the ceremonial slaying of
the monarch who after his death is revered as Nyakang.[16]
This survival is of extraordinary interest; it presents us with a
curiously close parallel to the situation which, on evidence of the
texts, we have postulated as forming the basic idea of the Grail
tradition--the position of a people whose prosperity, and the
fertility of their land, are closely bound up with the life and
virility of their King, who is not a mere man, but a Divine
re-incarnation. If he 'falls into languishment,' as does the Fisher
King in Perlesvaus, the land and its inhabitants will suffer
correspondingly; not only will the country suffer from drought, 'Nor
are meadows growing green," but the men will die in numbers:
"Ladies sad will lose their mates"
we may say; the cattle will cease to bear increase:
"And the hapless beasts shall bear no young,"
and the people take drastic steps to bring about a rejuvenation; the
old King dies, to be replaced by a young and vigourous successor, even
as Brons was replaced by Perceval.
Let us now turn back to the preceding chapter, and compare the
position of the people of the Shilluk tribe, and the subjects of the
Grail King, with that of the ancient Babylonians, as set forth in
their Lamentations for Tammuz.
There we find that the absence of the Life-giving deity was followed
by precisely the same disastrous consequences;
Vegetation fails--
"The wailing is for the plants; the first lament is they grow not.
The wailing is for the barley; the ears grow not."
The reproductive energies of the animal kingdom are suspended--
"For the habitation of flocks it is; they produce not.
For the perishing wedded ones, for perishing children it is; the
dark-headed people create not."
Nor can we evade the full force of the parallel by objecting that we
are here dealing with a god, not with a man; we possess the recorded
names of 'kings who played the role of Tammuz,' thus even for that
early period the commingling of the two conceptions, god and king, is
definitely established.
Now in the face of this group of parallels, whose close
correspondence, if we consider their separation in point of time (3000
B.C.; 1200 A.D.; and the present day), is nothing short of
astonishing, it is not absolutely and utterly unreasonable to admit
(as scholars no longer hesitate to do) the relationship between the
first and last, and exclude, as a mere literary invention, the
intermediate parallel?
The ground for such a denial may be mere prejudice, a reluctance to
renounce a long cherished critical possession, but in the face of this
new evidence does it not come perilously close to scientific
dishonesty, to a disregard for that respect for truth in research the
imperative duty of which has been so finely expressed by the late
M. Gaston Paris.--"I profess this doctrine absolutely and without
reservation, that knowledge has no other object than truth, and truth
for its own sake, without regard for the consequences, good or bad,
regrettable or fortunate, which this truth can have in practice."[17]
When we further consider that behind these three main parallels,
linking them together, there lies a continuous chain of evidence,
expressed alike in classical literature, and surviving Folk practice,
I would submit that there is no longer any shadow of a doubt that in
the Grail King we have a romantic literary version of that strange
mysterious figure whose presence hovers in the shadowy background of
the history of our Aryan race; the figure of a divine or semi-divine
ruler, at once god and king, upon whose life, and inimpaired vitality;
the existence of his land and people directly depends.
And if we once grant this initial fact, and resolve that we will no
longe, in the interests of an outworn critical tradition, deny the
weight of scientific evidence in determining the real significance of
the story, does it not inevitably follow, as a logical sequence, that
such versions as fail to connect the misfortunes of the land directly
with the disability of the king, but make them dependent upon the
failure of the Quester, are, by that very fact, stamped as secondary
versions. That by this one detail, of capital importance, they
approve themselves as literary treatments of a traditional theme, the
true meaning of which was unknown to the author?
Let us for a moment consider what the opposite view would entail; that
a story which was originally the outcome of pure literary invention
should in the course of re-modelling have been accidentally brought
into close and detailed correspondence with a deeply rooted sequence
of popular faith and practice is simply inconceivable, the
re-modelling, if re-modelling there were, must have been intentional,
the men whose handiwork it was were in possession of the requisite
knowledge.
But how did they possess that knowledge, and why should they undertake
such a task? Surely not from the point of view of antiquarian
interest, as might be done to-day; they were no twelfth century
Frazers and Mannhardts; the subject must have had for them a more
living, a more intimate, interest. And if, in face of the evidence we
now possess, we feel bound to admit the existence of such knowledge,
is it not more reasonable to suppose that the men who first told the
story were the men who knew, and that the confusion was due to those
who, with more literary skill, but less first-hand information,
remodelled the original theme?
In view of the present facts I would submit that the problem posed in
our first chapter may be held to be solved; that we accept as a fait
acquis the conclusion that the woes of the land are directly dependent
upon the sickness, or maiming, of the King, and in no wise caused by
the failure of the Quester. The 'Wasting of the land' must be held to
have been antecedent to that failure, and the Gawain versions in which
we find this condition fulfilled are, therefore, prior in origin to
the Perceval, in which the 'Wasting' is brought about by the action of
the hero; in some versions, indeed, has altogether disappeared from
the story.
Thus the position assigned in the versions to this feature of the
Waste Land becomes one of capital importance as a critical factor.
This is a point which has hitherto escaped the attention of scholars;
the misfortunes of the land have been treated rather as an accident,
than as an essential, of the Grail story, entirely subordinate in
interest to the dramatis personae of the tale, or the objects, Lance
and Grail, round which the action revolves. As a matter of fact I
believe that the 'Waste Land' is really the very heart of our problem;
a rightful appreciation of its position and significance will place us
in possession of the clue which will lead us safely through the most
bewildering mazes of the fully developed tale.
Since the abouve pages were written Dr Frazer has notified the
discovery of a second African parallel, equally complete, and
striking. In Folk-Lore (Vol. XXVI.) he prints, under the title A
Priest-King in Nigeria, a communication received from Mr P. A. Talbot,
District Commissioner in S. Nigeria. The writer states that the
dominant Ju-Ju of Elele, a town in the N.W. of Degema district, is a
Priest-King, elected for a term of seven years. "The whole prosperity
of the town, especially the fruitfulness of farm, byre, and
marriage-bed, was linked with his life. Should he fall sick it
entailed famine and grave disaster upon the inhabitants." So soon as
a successor is appointed the former holder of the dignity is reported
to 'die for himself.' Previous to the introduction of ordered
government it is admitted that at any time during his seven years'
term of office the Priest might be put to death by any man
sufficiently strong and resourceful, consequently it is only on the
rarest occasions (in fact only one such is recorded) that the Ju-Ju
ventures to leave his compound. At the same time the riches derived
from the offerings of the people are so considerable that there is
never a lack of candidates for the office.
From this and the evidence cited above it would appear that the
institution was widely spread in Africa, and at the same time it
affords a striking proof in support of the essential soundness of Dr
Frazer's interpretation of the Priest of Nemi, an interpretation which
has been violently attacked in certain quarters, very largely on the
ground that no one would be found willing to accept an office
involving such direct danger to life. The above evidence shows
clearly that not only does such an office exist, but that it is by no
means an unpopular post.
CHAPTER VI
The Symbols
In the previous chapter we have discussed the Grail Legend from a
general, rather than a specific, point of view' i.e., we have
endeavored to to ascertain what was the real character of the task
imposed upon the hero, and what the nature and value of his
achievement.
We have been led to the conclusion that that achievement was, in the
first instance, of and altruistic character--it was no question of
advantages, temporal or spiritual, which should accrue to the Questor
himself, but rather of definite benefits to be won for others, the
freeing of a ruler and his land from the dire results of a punisment
which, falling upon King, was fraught with the most disastrous
consequences for his kingdom.
We have found, further, that this close relation between the ruler and
his land, which resulted in the ill of one becoming the calamity of
all, is no mere literary invention, proceeding from the fertile
imagination of a twelfth century court poet, but a deeply rooted
popular belief, of practically immemorial antiquity and inexhaustible
vitality; we can trace it back thousands of years before the Christian
era, we find it fraught with decisions of life and death to-day.
Further, we find in that belief a tendency to express itself in
certain ceremonial practices, which retain in a greater or less degree
the character of the ritual observances of which they are the
survival. Mr E. K. Chambers, in The Mediaeval Stage, remarks: "If the
comparative study of Religion proves anything it is, that the
traditional beliefs and customs of the medieval or modern peasant are
in nine cases out of ten but the detritus of heathen mythology and
heathen worship, enduring but with little external change in the
shadow of a hostile faith. This is noticeably true of the village
festivals and their ludi. Their full significance only appears when
they are regarded as fragments of forgotten cults, the naive cults
addressed by a primitive folk to the beneficent deities of the field
and wood and river, or the shadowy populace of its own dreams."[1] We
may, I think, take it that we have established at least the
possibility that in the Grail romances we possess, in literary form,
an example of the detritus above referred to, the fragmentary record
of the secret ritual of a Fertility cult.
Having reached this hypothetical conclusion, our next step must be to
examine the Symbols of this cult, the group of mysterious objects
which forms the central point of the action, a true understanding of
the nature of these objects as being essential for our success as
interpreters of the story as it was for the success of the Quester in
the days of old. We must ask whether these objects, the Grail itself,
whether Cup or Dish; the Lance; the Sword; the Stone--one and all
invested with a certain atmosphere of awe, credited with strange
virtues, with sanctity itself, will harmonize with the proposed
solution, will range themselves fitly and fairly within the framework
of this hypothetical ritual.
That they should do so is a matter of capital importance; were it
otherwise the theory advanced might well, as some of my critics have
maintained, 'never get beyond the region of ingenious speculation,'
but it is precisely upon the fact that this theory of origin, and so
far as criticism has gone, this theory alone, does not permit of a
natural and unforced interpretation of these related symbols that I
rely on as one of the most convincing proofs of the correctness of my
hypothesis.
Before commencing the investigation there is one point which I would
desire to emphasize; viz., the imperative necessity for treating the
Symbols or Talismans, call them what we will, on the same principle as
we have treated the incidents of the story, i.e., as a connected
whole. That they be not separated the one from the other, and made
the subject of independent treatment, but that they be regarded in
their relation the one to the other, and that no theory of origin be
held admissible which does not allow for that relation as a primitive
and indispensible factor. It may be the modern tendency to specialize
which is apt to blind scholars to the essential importance of
regarding their object of study as a whole, that fosters in them a
habit of focussing their attention upon that one point or incident of
the story which lends itself to treatment in their special line of
study, and which induces them to minimize, or ignore, those elements
which lie outside their particular range. But, whatever the cause, it
is indubitable that this method of 'criticism by isolation' has been,
and is, one of the main factors which have operated in retarding the
solution of the Grail problem.
So long as critics of the story will insist on pulling it into little
pieces, selecting one detail here, another there, for study and
elucidation, so long will the ensemble result be chaotic and
unsatisfactory. We shall continue to have a number of monographs,
more or less scholarly in treatment--one dealing with the Grail as a
food providing talisman, and that alone; another with the Grail as a
vehicle of spiritual sustenance. One that treats of the Lance as a
Pagan weapon, and nothing more; another that regards it as a Christian
relic, and nothing less. At one moment the object of the study will
be the Fisher King, without any relation to the symbols he guards, or
the land he rules; at the next it will be the relation of the Quester
to the Fisher King, without any explanation of the tasks assigned to
him by the story. The result obtained is always quite satisfactory to
the writer, often plausible, sometimes in a measure sound, but it
would defy the skill of the most synthetic genius to co-ordinate the
results thus obtained, and combine them in one harmonious whole. They
are like pieces of a puzzle, each of which has been symmetrically cut
and trimmed, till they lie side by side, un-fitting and un-related.
And we have been pursuing this method for over fifty years, and are
still, apparently, content to go on, each devoting attention to the
symmetrical perfection of his own little section of the puzzle, quite
indifferent to the fact that our neighbor is in possession of an
equally neatly trimmed fragment, which entirely refuses to fit in with
our own!
Is it not time that we should frankly admit the unsatisfactory results
of these years of labor, and honestly face the fact that while we now
have at our disposal an immense mass of interesting and suggestive
material often of high value, we have failed, so far, to formulate a
conclusion which, by embracing and satisfying the manifold conditions
of the problem, will command general acceptance? And if this failure
be admitted, may not its cause be sought in the faulty method which
has failed to recognize in the Grail story an original whole, in which
the parts--the action, the actors, the Symbols, the result to be
obtained, incident, and intention--stood from the very first in
intimate relation the one to the other? That while in process of
utilization as a literary theme these various parts have suffered
modification and accretion from this, or that, side, the problem of
the ultimate source remains thereby unaffected?
Such a reversal of method as I suggest will, I submit, not only
provide us with a critical solution capable of general acceptance, but
it will also enable us to utilize, and appreciate at their due value,
the result of researches which at the present moment appear to be
mutually destructive the one of the other. Thus, while the purely
Folk-lore interpretation of the Grail and Lance excludes the Christian
origin, and the theory of the exclusively Christian origin negatives
the Folk-lore, the pre-existence of these symbols in a popular ritual
setting would admit, indeed would invite, later accretion alike from
folk belief and ecclesiastical legend.
We are the gainers by any light that can possibly be thrown upon the
process of development of the story, but studies of the separate
symbols while they may, and do, afford valuable data for determining
the character and period of certain accretions, should not be regarded
as supplying proof of the origin of the related group.
Reference to some recent studies in the Legend will make my meaning
clear. A reviewer of my small Quest of the Holy Grail volume remarked
that I appeared to be ignorant of Mss Peeble's study The Legend of
Longinus "which materially strengthens the evidence for the Christian
origin."[2] Now this is precisely what, in my view, the study in
question, which I knew and possessed, does not do. As evidence for
the fact that the Grail legend has taken over certain features derived
from the popular 'Longinus' story (which, incidentally, no one
disputed), the essay is, I hold, sound, and valuable; as affording
material for determining the source of the Grail story, it is, on the
other hand, entirely without value.
On the principle laid down above no theory which purports to be
explanatory of the source of one symbol can be held satisfactory in a
case where that symbol does not stand alone. We cannot accept for the
Grail story a theory of origin which concerns itself with the Lance,
as independent of the Grail. In the study referred to the author has
been at immense pains to examine the different versions of the
'Longinus' legend, and to trace its development in literature; in no
single instance do we find Longinus and his Lance associated with a
Cup or Vase, receptacle of the Sacred Blood.
The plain fact is that in Christian art and tradition Lance and Cup
are not associated symbols. The Lance or Spear, as an instrument of
the Passion, is found in conjunction with the Cross, Nails, Sponge,
and Crown of Thorns, (anyone familiar with the wayside crosses of
Catholic Europe will recognize this), not with the Chalice of the
Mass.[3] This latter is associated with the Host, or Agnus Dei.
Still less is the Spear to be found in connection with the Grail in
its Food-providing form of a Dish.
No doubt to this, critics who share the views of Golther and Burdach
will object, "but what of the Byzantine Mass? Do we not there find a
Spear connected with the Chalice?"[4]
I very much doubt whether we do--the so-called 'Holy Spear' of the
Byzantine, and present Greek, liturgy is simply a small silver
spear-shaped knife, nor can I discover that it was ever anything
else. I have made careful enquiries of liturgical scholars, and
consulted editions of Oriental liturgies, but I can find no evidence
that the knife (the use of which is to divide the Loaf which, in the
Oriental rite, corresponds to the Wafer of the Occidental, in a manner
symbolically corresponding to the Wounds actually inflicted on the
Divine Victim) was ever other than it is to-day. It seems obvious,
from the method of employment, that an actual Spear could hardly have
been used, it would have been an impossibly unwieldy instrument for
the purpose.
Nor is the 'procession' in which the elements are carried from the
Chapel of the Prothesis to the Sanctuary of a public character
comparable with that of the Grail castle; the actual ceremony of the
Greek Mass takes place, of course, behind a veil. A point of
considerable interest, however, is, what caused this difference in the
Byzantine liturgy? What were the influences which led to the
introduction of a feature unknown in the Western rite? If, as the
result of the evidence set forth in these pages, the ultimate origin
of the Grail story be finally accepted as deriving from a prehistoric
ritual possessing elements of extraordinary persistence and vitality,
then the mise-en-scene of that story is older than the Byzantine
ritual. Students of the subject are well aware that the tradition of
ancient pre-Christian rites and ceremonies lingered on in the East
long after they had been banished by the more practical genius of the
West. It may well prove that so far from the Grail story being a
reminiscence of the Byzantine rite, that rite itself has been affected
by a ritual of which the Grail legend preserves a fragmentary record.
In my view a Christian origin for the Lance and Cup, as associated
symbols, has not been made out; still less it can be postulated for
Lance and Cup as members of an extended group, including Dish, Sword,
and Stone.
On this point Professor Brown's attempt to find in Irish tradition the
origin of the Grail symbols is distinctly more than satisfactory.[5]
I cannot accept as decisive the solution proposed, which seems to me
to be open to much the same criticism as that which would find in the
Lance the Lance of Longinus--both are occupied with details, rather
than with ensemble; both would find their justification as offering
evidence of accretion, rather than of origin; neither can provide us
with the required mise-en-scene.
But Professor Brown's theory is the more sound in that he is really
dealing with a group of associated symbols; in his view Lance and
Grail alike belong to the treasures of the Tuatha de Danann (that
legendary race of Irish ancestors, who were at once gods and kings),
and therefore ab initio belong together. But while I should, on the
whole, accept the affiliation of the two groups, and believe that the
treasures of the Tuatha de Danann really correspond to the symbols
displayed in the hall of the Grail castle, I cannot consider that the
one is the origin of the other. There is one very fundamental
difference, the importance of which I cannot ignore, but which, I
believe, has hitherto escaped Professor Brown's attention.
The object corresponding to the Grail itself is the cauldron of the
Dagda, "No company ever went from it unthankful" (or
'unsatisfied').[6]
Now this can in no sense be considered as a Cup, or Vase, nor is it a
true parallel to a Dish. The connection with the Grail is to be found
solely and exclusively in the food-providing properties ascribed to
both. But even here the position is radically different; the
impression we derive from the Irish text and its analogous parallels
is that of size (it is also called a 'tub'), and inexhaustible
content, it is a cauldron of plenty.[7] Now, either of these
qualities can be postulated of the Grail; whatever its form, Cup or
Dish, it can easily be borne (in uplifted hands, entre ses mains
hautement porte) by a maiden, which certainly could not be postulated
of a cauldron! Nor is there any proof that the Vessel itself
contained the food with which the folk of the Grail castle were
regaled; the texts rather point to the conclusion that the appearance
of the Grail synchronized with a mysterious supply of food of a choice
and varied character. There is never any hint that the folk feed from
the Grail; only the suggestion of such feeding is in the 'Oiste,' by
which the father of the Fisher King (or the King himself) is
nourished.
In certain texts the separation of the two is clearly brought out; in
Joseph of Arimathea, for instance, the fish caught by Brons is to be
placed at one end of the table, the Grail at the other. In Gawain's
adventure at the Grail castle, in the prose Lancelot, as the Grail is
carried through the hall "forthwith were the tables replenished with
the choicest meats in the world," but the table before Gawain remains
void and bare.[8] I submit that while the Grail is in certain phases
a food-supplying talisman it is not one of the same character as the
cauldrons of plenty; also while the food supply of these latter has
the marked characteristic of quantity, that of the Grail is remarkable
rather for quality, its choice character is always insisted upon.
The perusal of Professor Brown's subsequent study, Notes on Celtic
Cauldrons of Plenty and The Land-Beneath-the-Waves, has confirmed me
in my view that these special objects belong to another line of
tradition altogether; that which deals with an inexhaustible submarine
source of life, examples of which can be found in the 'Sampo' of the
Finnish Kalevala, and the ever-grinding mills of popular folk-tale.[9]
The fundamental idea here seems to be that of the origin of all Life
from Water, a very ancient idea, but one which, though akin to the
Grail tradition, is yet quite distinct therefrom. The study of this
special theme would, I believe, produce valuable results.[10]
On the whole, I am of the opinion that the treasures of the Tuatha de
Danann and the symbols of the Grail castle go back to a common
original, but that they have developed on different lines; in the
process of this development one 'Life' symbol has been exchanged for
another. But Lance and Cup (or Vase) were in truth connected together
in a symbolic relation long ages before the institution of
Christianity, or the birth of Celtic tradition. They are sex symbols
of immemorial antiquity and world-wide diffusion, the Lance, or Spear,
representing the Male, the Cup, or Vase, the Female, reproductive
energy.[12]
Found in juxtaposition, the Spear upright in the Vase, as in the
Bleheris and Balin (both, be it noted, Gawain) forms, their
signification is admitted by all familiar with 'Life' symbolism, and
they are absolutely in place as forming part of a ritual dealing with
the processes of life and reproductive vitality.[13]
A most remarkable and significant use of these symbols is found in the
ceremonies of the Samurai, the noble warrior caste of Japan. The
aspirant was (I am told still is) admitted into the caste at the age
of fourteen, when he was given over to the care of a guardian at least
fifteen years his senior, to whom he took an oath of obedience, which
was sworn upon the Spear. He remained celibate during the period
covered by the oath. When the Samurai was held to have attained the
degree of responsibility which would fit him for the full duties of a
citizen, a second solemn ceremony was held, at which he was released
from his previous vows, and presented with the Cup; he was henceforth
free to marry, but intercourse with women previous to this ceremony
was at one time punishable with death.[14]
That Lance and Cup are, outside the Grail story, 'Life' symbols, and
have been such from time immemorial, is a fact; why, then should they
not retain that character inside the framework of that story? An
acceptance of this interpretation will not only be in harmony with the
general mise-en-scene, but it will also explain finally and
satisfactorily, (a) the dominant position frequently assigned to the
Lance; (b) the fact that, while the Lance is borne in procession by a
youth, the Grail is carried by a maiden--the sex of the bearer
corresponds to the symbol borne.[15]
But the Lance and Cup, though the most prominent of the Symbols, do
not always appear alone, but are associated with other sobjects, the
significance of which is not always apparent. Thus the Dish, which is
sometimes the form assumed by the Grail itself, at other times appears
as a tailleor, or carving platter of silver, carried in the same
procession as the Grail; or there may be two small tailleors; finally,
a Sword appears in varying roles in the story.
I have already referred to the fact, first pointed out by the late Mr
Alfred Nutt,[16] that the four treasures of the Tuatha de Danann
correspond generally with a group of symbols found in the Grail
romances; this correspondence becomes the more interesting in view of
the fact that these mysterious Beings are now recognized as alike
Demons of Fertility and Lords of Life. As Mr Nutt subsequently
pointed out, the 'Treasures' may well be, Sword and Cauldron certainly
are, 'Life' symbols.
Of direct connection between these Celtic objects and the Grail story
there is no trace; as remarked above, we have no Irish Folk or Hero
tale at all corresponding to the Legend; the relation must, therefore,
go back beyond the date of formation of these tales, i.e., it must be
considered as one of origin rather than of dependence.
But we have further evidence that these four objects do, in fact, form
a special group entirely independent of any appearance in Folk-lore or
Romance. They exist to-day as the four suits of the Tarot.
Sutdents of Grail texts, whose attention is mainly occupied with
Medieval Literature, may not be familiar with the word Tarot, or aware
of its meaning. It is the name given to a pack of cards,
seventy-eight in number, of which twenty-two are designated as the
'Keys.'
These cards are divided into four suits, which correspond with those
of the ordinary cards; they are:
Cup (Chalice or Goblet)--Hearts.
Lance (Wand, or Sceptre)--Diamonds.
Sword--Spades.
Dish (Circles or Pentangles, the form varies)--Clubs.
To-day the Tarot has fallen somewhat into disrepute, being principally
used for purposes of divination, but its origin, and precise relation
to our present playing-cards, are questions of considerable
antiquarian interest. Were these cards the direct parents of our
modern pack, or are they entirely distinct therefrom?[17]
Some writers are disposed to assign a very high antiquity to the
Tarot. Traditionally, it is said to have been brought from Egypt;
there is no doubt that parallel designs and combinations are to be
found in the surviving decorations of Egyptian temples, notably in the
astronomic designs on the ceiling of one of the halls of the palace of
Medinet Abou, which is supported on twenty-two columns (a number
corresponding to the 'keys' of the Tarot), and also repeated in the
calendar sculptured on the southern facade if the same building, under
a sovereign of the XXIII dynasty. This calendar is supposed to have
been connected with the periodic rise and fall of the waters of the
Nile.[18]
The Tarot has also been connected with an ancient Chinese monument,
traditionally erected in commemoration of the drying up of the waters
of the Deluge by Yao. The face of this monument is divided up into
small sections corresponding in size and number with the cards of the
Tarot, and bearing characters which have, so far, not been
deciphered.
What is certain is that these cards are used to-day by the Gipsies for
purposes of divination, and the opinion of those who have studied the
subject is that there is some real ground for the popular tradition
that they were introduced into Europe by this mysterious people.
In a very interesting article on the subject in The Journal of the
Gipsy-Lore Society,[19] Mr De la Hoste Ranking examines closely into
the figures depicted on the various cards, and the names attached to
the suits by the Gipsies. He comes to the conclusion that many of
the words are Sanskrit, or Hindustani, in origin, and sums up the
result of the internal evidence as follows: "The Tarot was introduced
by a race speaking an Indian dialect. The figure known as 'The Pope'
shows the influence of the Orthodox Eastern Faith; he is bearded, and
carries the Triple Cross. The card called 'The King' represents a
figure with the head-dress of the Polish Eagle. Thus the people who
used the Tarot must have been familiar with a country where the
Orthodox Faith prevailed, and which was ruled by princes of the status
of Grand-Dukes. The general result seems to point to a genuine basis
for the belief that the Tarot was introduced into Europe from the
East."
As regards the group of symbols in general, Mr W. B. Yeats, whose
practical acquaintance with Medieval and Modern Magic is well known,
writes: "(1) Cup, Lance, Dish, Sword, in slightly varying forms, have
never lost their mystic significance, and are to-day a part of magical
operations. (2) The memory kept by the four suits of the Tarot, Cup,
Lance, Sword, Pentangle (Dish), is an esoterical notation for
fortune-telling purposes."[20]
But if the connection with the Egyptian and Chinese monuments,
referred to above, is genuine, the original use of the 'Tarot' would
seem to have been, not to foretell the Future in general, but to
predict the rise and fall of the waters which brought fertility to the
land.
Such use would bring the 'Suits' into line with the analogous symbols
of the Grail castle and the treasures of the Tuatha de Danann, both of
which we have seen to be connected with the embodiment of the
reproductive forces of Nature.
If it is difficult to establish a direct connection between these two
latter, it is practically impossible to argue any connection between
either group and the 'Tarot'; no one has yet ventured to suggest the
popularity of the works of Chretien de Troyes among the Gipsies! Yet
the correspondence can hardly be fortuitous. I would suggest that,
while Lance and Cup, in their associated form, are primarily symbols
of Human Life energy, in conjunction with others they formed a group
of 'Fertility' symbols, connected with a very ancient ritual, of which
fragmentary survivals alone have been preserved to us.
This view will, I believe, receive support from the evidence of the
ceremonial Dances which formed so important a part of 'Fertility'
ritual, and which survive in so many places to this day. If we find
these symbols reappearing as part of these dances, their real
significance can hardly be disputed.
CHAPTER VII
The Sword Dance
The subject we are now about to consider is one which of late years
has attracted considerable attention, and much acute criticism has
been expended on the question of its origin and significance.
Valuable material has been collected, but the studies, so far, have
been individual, and independent, the much needed travail d'ensemble
has not yet appeared.
One definite result has, however, been obtained; it is now generally
admitted that the so-called Sword Dances, with the closely related
Morris Dances, and Mumming Plays, are not mere survivals of martial
excercises, an inherited tradition from our warrior ancestors, but
were solemn, ceremonial (in some cases there is reason to believe,
Initiatory) dances, performed at stated seasons of the year, and
directly and intimately connected with the ritual of which we have
treated in previous chapters, a ritual designed to preserve and
promote the regular and ordered sequence of the processes of Nature.
And, here, again, our enquiry must begin with the very earliest
records of our race, with the traditions of our Aryan forefathers.
The earliest recorded Sword Dancers are undoubtedly the Maruts, those
swift-footed youths in gleaming armour who are the faithful attendants
on the great god, Indra. Professor von Schroeder, in Mysterium und
Mimus, describes them thus:[1] they are a group of youths of equal age
and identical parentage, they are always depicted as attired in the
same manner. "They are richly and splendidly adorned, with ornaments
of gold on their breasts and bracelets on their arms; they wear
deerskins on their shoulders. Above all, they are equipped for war;
they carry shining spears in their hands, or golden axes. They are
covered in golden armour or cloaks, and helmets of gold gleam on their
heads. They never appear without being fully armed. It seems as
though their weapons are wholly and entirely part of their being."
The writer goes on to remark that when such a band of armed youths,
all of the same age, always closely associated with each other, are
represented as Dancers, and always as Dancers--"then, undeniably, we
have before our eyes the picture of a war-dance"--and Professor von
Schroeder is undoubtedly right.
Constantly through the Rig-Veda the Maruts are referred to as Dancers,
"gold-bedecked Dancers," "with songs of praise they danced around the
spring," "When ye Maruts spear-armed dance, they (i.e., the Heavens)
stream together like waves of water."[2]
And a special moment for the dance of these glorious youths "ever
young brothers of whom none is elder, none younger"[3] is that of the
ceremonial sacrifice, "they dance on their heavenly paths; they leap
and dance also at the sacrificial feasts of men."[4]
The Maruts, as said above, were concieved of as the companions of
Indra, and helpers in his fight against his monstrous adversaries;
thus they were included in the sacrifices offered in honour of that
Deity.
One of the most striking of the ritual Dramas reconstructed by
Professor von Schroeder is that which represents Indra as indignantly
rejecting the claim of the Maruts to share in such a sacrifice; they
had failed to support him in his conflict with the dragon, Vritra,
when by his might he loosed the waters, 'neither to-day, nor
to-morrow' will he accept a sacrifice of which they share the honour;
it requires all the tact of the Offerer, Agastya, and of the leader of
the Maruts to soothe the offended Deity.[5]
Here I would draw attention to the significant fact that the feat
celebrated is that to which I have previously referred to as the most
famous of all the deeds attributed to Indra, the 'Freeing of the
Waters,' and here the Maruts are associated with the god.
But they were also the objects of independent worship. They were
specially honoured at the Caturmasya, the feasts which heralded the
commencement of the three seasons of four months each into which the
Indian year was divided, a division corresponding respectively to the
hot, the cool, and the wet, season. The advantages to be derived from
the worship of the Maruts may be deduced from the following extracts
from the Rig-Veda, which devotes more than thirty hymns to their
praise. "The adorable Maruts, armed with bright lances, and cuirassed
with golden breastplates, enjoy vigourous existence; may the cars of
the quick-moving Maruts arrive for our good." "Bringers of rain and
fertility, shedding water, augmenting food." "Givers of abundant
food." "Your milchkine are never dry." "We invoke the food-laden
chariots of the Maruts."[6] Nothing can be clearer than this; the
Maruts are 'daimons' of fertility, the worship of whom will secure the
necessary supply of the fruits of the earth.
The close association of the Maruts with Indra, the great Nature god,
has led some scholars to regard them as personifications of a special
manifestation of Nature, as Wind-gods. Professor von Schroeder points
out that their father was the god Rudra, later known as Civa, the god
of departed souls, and of faithlessness, i.e., a Chthonian deity, and
suggests that the Maruts represent "a band of spirits hunting in the
wind and storm."[7] He points out that the belief of a troop of
departed souls is an integral part of Aryan tradition, and classifies
such belief under four main headings.
1. Under the form of a spectral Hunt, the Wild Huntsman well known in
European Folk-lore. He equates this with Dionysys Zagreus, and the
Hunt of Artemis-Hekate.
2. That of a spectral Army, the souls of warriors slain in that
fight. The Northern Einherier belong to this class, and the many
traditions of spectral combats, and ghostly battles, heard, but not
seen.
3. The conception of a host of women in a condition of ecstatic
exaltation bordering on madness, who appear girdled with snakes, or
hissing like snakes, tear living animals to pieces, and devour the
flesh. The classic examples here are the Greek Maenads, and the
Indian Senas, who accompany Rudra.
4. The conception of a train of theriomorphic, phallic, demons of
fertility, with their companion group of fair women. Such are the
Satyrs and Nymphs of Greek, the Gandharvas and Apsaras of Indian,
Mythology.
To these four main groups may be added the belief among Germanic
peoples, also among the Letts, in a troop of Child Souls.
These four groups, in more or less modified forms, appear closely
connected with the dominant Spirit of Vegetation, by whatever name
that spirit may be known.
According to von Schroeder there was, among the Aryan peoples
generally, a tendency to regard the dead as assuming the character of
daimons of fertility. This view of the learned Professor considers
to be at the root of the annual celebrations in honour of the
Departed, the 'Feast of Souls,' which characterized the commencement
of the winter season, and is retained in the Catholic conception of
November as the month of the Dead.[8]
In any case we may safely conclude that the Maruts, represented as
armed youths, were worshipped as deities of fruitfulness; that their
dances were of a ceremonial character; and that they were, by nature
and origin, closely connected with spirits of fertility of a lower
order, such as the Gandharvas. It also appears probable that, if the
Dramas of which traces have been preserved in the Rig-Veda, were, as
scholars are now of opinion, once actually represented, the
mythological conception of the Maruts must have found its embodiment
in youths, most probably the priestly caste, who played their role,
and actually danced the ceremonial Sword Dance. As von Schroeder
says, "There is no doubt that this was performed by human,
specifically by priestly persons."[9]
When we turn from the early Aryan to the classic Greek period we find
in the Kouretes, and in a minor degree in the Korybantes, a parallel
so extraordinarily complete, alike in action and significance, that an
essential identity of origin appears to be beyond doubt.
The Kouretes were, as their name indicates, a band of armed youths, of
semi-divine origin, "The Kouretes are by origin semi-divine, demonaic
beings, not just human priests or their mythological
representatives."[10] Again, they are considered to be as "elemental
and primitive beings," and as such of "divine origin."[11] Preller
regards them as "mountain-demons,"[12] while a passage from Hesiod,
quoted by Strabo, equates them with nymphs and satyrs, i.e., fertility
demons.[13]
When we remember that the Gandharvas are the Indian equivalent of the
Satyrs the close parallel between the Maruts and the Kouretes, both
alike bands of armed youths, of elementary origin, and connected with
beings of a lower grade, is striking.
The home of the Kouretes was in Crete, where they were closely
associated with the worship of the goddess Rhea. The traditional
story held that, in order to preserve the infant Zeus from destruction
by his father Kronos, they danced their famous Sword Dance round the
babe, overpowering his cries by the clash of their weapons.
Their dance was by some writers identified with the Pyrrhic dance,
first performed by Athene, in honour of her victory over the Giants,
and taught by her to the Kouretes. It had however, as we shall see, a
very distinct aim and purpose, and one in no way connected with
warlike ends.
In Miss J. E. Harrison's deeply interesting volume, Themis,[14] she
gives the translation of a fragmentary Hymn of Kouretes, discovered
among the ruins of a temple in Crete, a text which places beyond all
doubt the fact that, however mythical in origin, the Kouretes,
certainly, had actual human representatives, and that while in the
case of the Maruts there may be a question as to whether their dance
actually took place, or not, so far as the Kouretes are concerned
there can be no doubt.
The following text is preserved to us; the slabs on which it is
inscribed are broken, and there are no consequent lacunae.
"Io, Kouros is most great, I give thee hail, Kronian, lord of all that
is wet and gleaming, thou art come at the head of thy Daimones. To
Dikte for the year, Oh march, and rejoice in the dance and song.
"That we make to thee with harps and pipes mingled together, and sing
as we come to a stand at thy well-fenced altar.
"Io, & c.
"For here the shielded Nurturers took thee, a child immortal, from
Rhea, and with noise of beating feet hid thee away.
"Io, & c.
"And the Horai began to be fruitful year by year, and Dike to possess
mankind and all wild living things were held about by wealth-loving
Peace.
"Io, & c.
"And the Horai began to be fruitful year by year, and Dike to possess
mankind and all wild living things were held about by wealth-loving
Peace.
"Io, & c.
"To us also leaps for full jars, and leap for fleecy flocks, and leap
for fields of fruit, and for hives to bring increase.
"Io, & c.
"Leap for our cities, and leap for our sea-borne ships, and leap for
our young citizens, and for goodly Themis."
This hymn is extraordinarily interesting; it places beyond all doubt
what was the root intention of this ceremonial dance; it was designed
to stimulate the reproductive energies of Nature, to bring into being
fruitful fields, and vineyards, plenteous increase in the flocks and
herds, and to people the cities with youthful citizens; and the god is
entreated not merely to accept the worship offered, but himself to
join in the action which shall produce such fair results, to leap for
full jars, and fleecy flocks, and for youthful citizens.
The importance of movement, notably of what we may call group
movement, as a stimulant to natural energies, is thoroughly recognized
among primitive peoples; with them Dance holds a position equivalent
to that which, in more advanced communities, is assigned to Prayer.
Professor von Schroeder comments on this, "It is remarkable to see
how, according to the belief of primitive peoples, the dance seems to
have a power and significance similar to that which, at higher stages
of culture, is attributed to devout prayer."[15] He cites the case of
the Tarahumara Indians of Central America; while the family as a whole
are labouring in the fields it is the office of one man to dance
uninterruptedly on the dance place of the house; if he fails in his
office the labour of the others will be unsuccessful. The one sin of
which a Tarahumara Indian is conscious is that of not having danced
enough. Miss Harrison, in commenting on the dance of the Kouretes,
remarks that among certain savage tribes when a man is too old to
dance he hands on his dance to another. He then ceases to exist
socially; when he dies his funeral is celebrated with scanty rites;
having 'lost his dance' he has ceased to count as a social unit.[16]
With regard to the connection of the Kouretes with the infant Zeus,
Miss Harrison makes the interesting suggestion that we have here a
trace of an Initiation Dance, analogous to those discussed by M. Van
Gennep in his Rites du Passage, that the original form was
T{\schwa i}t{\schwa a}n, 'White-clay men,' which later became
T{\macron i}t{\macron a}n, 'Giants,' and she draws attention to the
fact that daubing the skin with white clay is a frequent practice in
these primitive rituals. To this I would add that it is a noteworthy
fact that in our modern survivals of these dances the performers are,
as a rule, dressed in white.
The above suggestion is of extreme significance, as it brings out the
possibility that these celebrations were not only concerned with the
prosperity of the community, as a whole, but may also have borne a
special, and individual, aspect, and that the idea of Initiation into
the group is closely connected with the ceremonial exercise of group
functions.
To sum up, there is direct proof that the classic Greeks, in common
with their Aryan forefathers, held the conception of a group of
Beings, of mythic origin, represented under the form of armed youths,
who were noted dancers, and whose activities were closely connected
with the processes of Nature. They recognized a relation between
these beings, and others of a less highly developed aspect, phallic
demons, often of theriomorphic form. Thus the dance of the Kouretes
should be considered as a ceremonial ritual action, rather than as a
warlike exercise; it was designed to promote the fruitfulness of the
earth, not to display the skill of the dancers in the handling of
weapons. When we turn to an analogous group, that of the Korybantes,
we find that, while presenting a general parallel to the Kouretes
(with whom they are often coupled in mythologies), they also possess
certain distinct characteristics, which form a connecting link with
the other, and later, groups.
The Kourybantes were of Phrygian origin, attached to the worship of
the goddess Kybele, and Attis, the well-known Phrygian counterpart to
the Phoenician Adonis, and originally the most important embodiment of
the Vegetation Spirit. Roscher considers them to be of identical
origin with the Kouretes, i.e., as elementary 'daimons,' but the
Kourybantes of Classic art and tradition are undoubtedly human
beings. Priests of Kybele, the appear in surviving bas-reliefs in
company with the goddess, and with Attis.
The dance of the Kourybantes is distinguished from that of the
Kouretes by its less restrained, and more orgiastic character; it was
a wild and whirling dance resembling that of the modern Dervishes,
accompanied by a self-mutilation and unrhythmic clashing of weapons,
designed, some writers think, to overpower the cries of the victims.
If this suggestion be correct it would seem to indicate that, if the
Dance of the Kouretes was originally an Initiation Dance, that of the
Kourybantes was Sacrificial in character. We shall see later that
certain features in the surviving forms of the Sword Dance also point
in this direction.
The interest of the Kourybantes for our investigation lies in the fact
that there again we have the Sword Dance in close and intimate
connection with the worship of the Vegetation Spirit, and there can be
no doubt that here, as elsewhere, it was held to possess a stimulating
virtue.
A noticeable point in the modern survivals of these Dances is that the
Dance proper is combined with a more or less coherent dramatic
action. The Sword Dance originally did not stand alone, but formed
part of a Drama, to the action of which it may be held to have given a
cumulative force.
On this point I would refer the reader to Professor von Schroeder's
book, where this aspect of the Dance is fully discussed.[17]
We have already have spoken of the Maruts, and their dramatic
connection with Indra; the Greek Dancers offer us no direct parallel,
though the connection of the Kouretes with the infant Zeus may quite
possibly indicate the existence in original form of the Dance, of a
more distinctly dramatic element.
We have, however, in the Roman Salii a connecting link which proves
beyond all doubt that our modern dances, and analogous
representations, are in fact genuine symbols of primitive ceremonies,
and in no way a mere fortuitous combination of originally independent
elements.
The Salii formed a college of priests, twelve in number, dedicated to
the service of Mars, who, it is important to remember, was originally
a god of growth and vegetation, a Spring Deity, who bestowed his name
on the vernal month of March; only by degrees did the activities of
the god become specially connected with the Domain of War.[18]
There seems to have been two groups of Salii, one having their college
on the Palatine, the other on the Quirinal; the first were the more
important. The Quirinal group shared in the celebrations of the
latter part of the month only.
The first of March was the traditional birthday of Mars, and from that
date, during the whole of the month, the Salii offered sacrifices and
performed dances in his honour. They wore pointed caps, or helmets,
on their head, were girt with swords, and carried on the left arm
shields, copied from the 'ancilla' or traditional shield of Mars,
fabled to have fallen from heaven. In their right hand they bore a
small lance.
Dionysus of Halicarnassus, in a passage describing the Salii, says,
"they carried in their right hand a spear, or staff, or something of
that sort." Miss Harrison, quoting this passage, gives a
reproduction of a bas-relief representing the Salii carrying what she
says "are clearly drumsticks." (As a matter of fact they very closely
resemble the 'Wands' which in the Tarot cards sometimes represent the
'Lance' suit.)
Miss Harrison suggests that the original shields were made of skins,
stretched upon a frame, and beaten by these 'drumsticks.' This may
quite well have been the case, and it would bear out my contention
that the original contact of weapon and shield was designed rather as
a rhythmic accompaniment to the Dance, than as a display of skill in
handling sword and lance; i.e., that these dances were not primarily
warlike exercises.
At the conclusion of their songs the Salii invoked Mamurius Veturius,
the smith who was fabled to have executed the copies of the original
shield, while on the 14th of March, a man, dressed in skins, and
supposed to represent the aforesaid smith, was led through the
streets, beaten by the Salii with rods, and thrust out of the city.
The following day, on the 15th, was the feast of Anna Perenna, fabled
to be an old woman, to whom Mars had confided the tale of his love for
Nerio, and who, disguising herself as the maiden, had gone through the
ceremony of marraige with the god. This feast was held outside the
gates. On the 23rd the combined feast of Mars and Nerio was held with
great rejoicing throughout the city. Modern scholars have unanimously
recognized in Mamurius Veturius and Anna Perenna the representatives
of the Old Year, the Vegetation Spirit, and his female counterpart,
who, grown old, must yield place to the young god and his
correspondingly youthful bride. Reference to Chapter 5, where the
medieval and modern forms of this Nature ritual are discussed, and
instances of the carrying out of Winter, and ceremonial bringing in of
Spring, are given, will suffice to show how vital and enduring an
element in Folk-lore is this idea of driving out the Old Year, while
celebrating the birth of the New. Here then, again, we have a ritual
Sword Dance closely associated with the practice of a Nature cult;
there can, I think, be no doubt that ab initio the two were connected
with each other.
But the dance of the Salii with its dramatic Folk-play features forms
an interesting link between the classic Dance of the Kouretes, and the
modern English survivals, in which the dramatic element is strongly
marked. These English forms may be divided into three related groups,
the Sword Dance, the Morris Dance, and the Mumming Play. Of these the
Morris Dance stands somewhat apart; of identical origin, it has
discarded the dramatic element, and now survives simply as a Dance,
whereas the Sword Dance is always dramatic in form, and the Mumming
Play, acted by characters appearing also in the Sword Dance,
invariably contains a more or less elaborate fight.[19]
The Sword Dance proper appears to have been preserved mostly in the
North of England, and in Scotland. Mr Cecil Sharp has found four
distinct varieties in Yorkshire alone. At one time there existed a
special variant known as the Giant's Dance, in which the leading
characters were known by the names of Wotan, and Frau Frigg; one
figure of this dance consisted in making a ring of swords round the
neck of a lad, without wounding him.
Mr E. K. Chambers has commented on this as the survival of sacrificial
origin.[20] The remarks of this writer on the Sword Dance in its
dramatic aspect are so much to the point that I quote them here. "The
Sword Dance makes its appearance, not like the heroic poetry in
general, as part of the minstrel repertory, but as a purely popular
thing at the agricultural festivals. To these festivals we may
therefore suppose it to have originally belonged." Mr Chambers goes
on to remark that the dance of the Salii discussed above, was clearly
agricultural, "and belongs to Mars not as War god, but in his more
primitive quality of a fertilization Spirit."
In an Appendix to his most valuable book the same writer gives a full
description, with text, of the most famous surviving form of the Sword
Dance, that of Papa Stour (old Norwegian Papey in Stora), one of the
Shetland Islands.
The dance was performed at Christmas (Yuletide). The dancers, seven
in number, represented the seven champions of Christendom; the leader,
Saint George, after an introductory speech, performed a solo dance, to
the music of an accompanying minstrel. He then presented his
comrades, one by one, each in turn going through the same performance.
Finally the seven together performed an elaborate dance. The complete
text of the speeches is given in the Appendix referred to.[21]
The close connection between the English Sword Dance, and the Mumming
Play, is indicated by the fact that the chief character in these plays
is, generally speaking, Saint George. (The title has in some cases
been corrupted into King George.) In Professor von Schroeder's
opinion this is due to Saint George's legendary role as Dragon slayer,
and he sees in the importance assigned to this hero an argument in
favour of his theory that the "Slaying of the Dragon," was the
earliest Aryan Folk-Drama.
In Folk-Lore, Vol. X., a fully illustrated description of the Mumming
Play, as performed at Newbold, a village near Rugby, is given.[22]
Here the characters are Father Christmas, Saint George, a Turkish
Knight, Doctor, Moll Finney (mother of the Knight), Humpty Jack,
Beelzebub, and 'Big-Head-and-Little-Wit.' These last three have no
share in the action proper, but appear in a kind of Epilogue,
accompanying a collection made by Beelzebub.
The Play is always performed at Christmas time, consequently Father
Christmas appears as stage-manage, and introduces the characters. The
action consists in a general challenge issued by Saint George, and
accepted by the Turkish Knight. A combat follows, in which the Turk
is slain. His mother rushes in, weeps over the body, and demands the
services of a Doctor, who appears accordingly, vaunts his skill in
lines interspersed with unintelkigible gibberish, and restores the
Turk to life. In the version which used to be played throughout
Scotland and Hogmanay (New-Year-tide), the characters are Bol Bendo,
the King of France, the King of Spain, Doctor Beelzebub, Golishan, and
Sir Alexander.[23] The fight is between Bol Bendo (who represents the
Saint George of the English version), and Golishan. The latter is
killed, and, on the demand of Sir Alexander (who acts as
stage-manager), revived by the doctor, this character, as in the
English version, interlarding the recital of his feats of healing
skill with unintelligible phrases.[24] There is a general consensus
of opinion among Folk-lore authorities that in this rough drama, which
we find played in slightly modified form all over Europe (in
Scandinavia it is the Julbock, a man dressed in skins, who, after a
dramatic dance, is killed and revived),[25] we have a symbolic
representation of the death and rebirth of the year; a counterpart to
those ceremonies of driving out Winter, and bringing in Spring, which
we have already described.
This chapter had already been written when an important article, by Dr
Jevons, entitled Masks and the Origin of Greek Drama appeared in
Folk-Lore (Vol. XXVII.) The author, having discussed the different
forms of Greek Drama, and the variety of masks employed, decides that
"Greek Comedy originated in Harvest Festivals, in some ceremony in
which the Harvesters went about in procession wearing masks." This
ceremony he connects directly with the English Mumming Plays,
suggesting that "the characters represented on this occasion were the
Vegetation Spirit, and those who were concerned in bringing about his
revivification--in fine, Greek Comedy and the Mumming Play both sprang
from the rite of revivification." At a later stage of our enquiry we
shall have occasion to return to this point, and realize its great
importance for our theory.
The Morris Dances differ somewhat from the Sword, and Mumming Dances.
The performances as a rule take place in the Sprint, or early Summer,
chiefly May, and Whitsuntide. The dances retain little or no trace of
dramatic action but are dances pure and simple. The performers,
generally six in number, are attired in white elaborately-pleated
shirts, decked with ribbons, white mole-skin trousers, with bells at
the knee, and beaver hats adorned with ribbons and flowers. The
leader carries a sword, on the point of which is generally impaled a
cake; during the dancing slices of the cake are distributed to the
lookers on, who are supposed to make a contribution to the 'Treasury,'
a money-box carried by an individual called the Squire, or Clown,
dressed in motley, and bearing in the other hand a stick with a
bladder at one end, and a cows tail at the other.
In some forms of the dance there is a 'Lord' and a 'Lady,' who carry
'Maces' of office; these maces are short staves, with a transverse
piece at the top, and a hoop over it. The whole is decorated with
ribbons and flowers, and bears a curious resemblance to the Crux
Ansata.[26] In certain figures of the dance the performers carry
handkerchiefs, in others, wands, painted with the colours of the
village to which they belong; the dances are always more or less
elaborate in form.
The costume of the 'Clown' (an animal's skin, or cap of skin with tail
pendant) and the special character assumed by the Maytide celebrations
in certain parts of England, e.g., Cornwall and Staffordshire,[27]
would seem to indicate that, while the English Morris Dance has
dropped the dramatic action, the dancers not being designated by name,
and playing no special role, it has, on the other hand, retained the
theriomorphic features so closely associated with Aryan ritual, which
the Sword Dance, and Mumming Play, on their side, have lost.[28]
A special note of these English survivals, and one to which I would
now draw attention, is the very elaborate character of the figures,
and the existence of a distinct symbolic element. I am informed that
the Sword dancers of to-day always, at the conclusion of a series of
elaborate sword-lacing figures, form the Pentangle; as they hold up
the sign they cry, triumphantly, "A Nut! A Nut!" The word Nut==Knot
(as in the game of 'Nuts, i.e., breast-knots, nosegays, in May').
They do this often even when performing a later form of the Mumming
Play.
I have already drawn attention to the fact that in Gawain and the
Green Knight the hero's badge is the Pentangle (or Pentacle), there
explained as called by the English 'the Endless Knot.'[29] In the
previous chapter I have noted that the Pentangle frequently in the
Tarot suits replaces the Dish; in Mr Yeat's remarks, cited above, the
two are held to be interchangeable, one or the other always forms one
of the group of symbols.
In one form of the Morris Dance, that performed in Berkshire, the
leader, or 'Squire' of the Morris carries a Chalice! At the same time
he bears a Sword, and a bull's head at the end of a long pole. This
figure is illustrated in Miss Mary Neal's Esperance Morris Book.[30]
Thus our English survivals of these early Vegetation ceremonies
preserve, in a more or less detached form, the four symbols discussed
in the preceding chapter, Grail, Sword, Lance, and Pentangle, or
Dish. It seems to me that, in view of the evidence thus offered, it
is not a very hazardous, or far-fetched hypothesis to suggest that
these symbols, the exact value of which, as a group, we cannot clearly
determine, but of which we know the two most prominent, Cup and Lance,
to be sex symbols, were originally 'Fertility' emblems, and as such
employed in a ritual design to promote, or restore, the activity of
the reproductive energies of Nature.
As I have pointed out above an obvious dislocation has taken place in
our English survivals. Sword Dance, Mumming Play, and Morris Dance,
no longer form part of one ceremony, but have become separated, and
connected, on the one hand with the Winter, on the other with the
early Summer, Nature celebrations; it is thus not surprising that the
symbols should also have become detached. The fact that the three
groups manifestly form part of an original whole is an argument in
favour of the view that at one moemnt all the symbols were used
together, and the Grail chalice carried in a ceremony in which Sword,
Lance, and Pentangle, were also displayed.
But there is another point I would suggest. Is it not possible that,
in these armed youths, who were in some cases, notably in that of the
Salii, at once warriors and priests, we have the real origin of the
Grail Knights? We know now, absolutely, and indubitably, that these
Sword Dances formed an inportant part of the Vegetation ritual; is it
not easily within the bounds of possibility that, as the general
ceremonial became elevated, first to the rank of a Mystery Cult, and
then used as a vehicle for symbolic Christian teaching, the figures of
the attendant warrior-priests underwent a corresponding change? From
Salii to Templars is not after all so 'far a cry' as from the
glittering golden armed Maruts, and the youthful leaping Kouretes, to
the grotesque tatterdemalion personages of the Christmas Mumming
Play. We have learnt to acknowledge the common origin of these two
latter groups; may we not reasonably contemplate a possible relation
existing between the first two named?
CHAPTER IX
The Fisher King
The gradual process of our investigation has led us to the conclusion
that the elements forming the existing Grail legend--the setting of
the story, the nature of the task which awaits the hero, the symbols
and their significance--one and all, while finding their counterpart
in prehistoric record, present remarkable parallels to the extant
practice and belief of countries so widely separate as the British
Isles, Russia, and Central Africa.
The explanation of so curious a fact, for it is a fact, and not a mere
hypothesis, may, it was suggested, most probably be found in the
theory in this fascinating literature we have the, sometimes wholly
misinterpreted, record of a ritual, originally presumed to exercise a
life-giving potency, which, at one time of universal observance, has,
even in its decay, shown itself possessed of elements of the most
persistent vitality.
That if the ritual, which according to our theory lies at the root of
the Grail story, be indeed the ritual of a Life-Cult, it should, in
and per se, possess precisely these characteristics, will, I think, be
admitted by any fair-minded critic; the point of course is, can we
definitely prove our theory, i.e., not merely point to striking
parallels, but select, from the figures and incidents composing our
story, some one element, which, by showing itself capable of
explanation on this theory, and on this theory alone, may be held to
afford decisive proof of the soundness of our hypothesis?
It seems to me that there is one such element in the bewildering
complex, by whcich the theory can be thus definitely tested, that is
the personality of the central figure and the title by which he is
known. If we can prove that the Fisher King, qua Fisher King, is an
integral part of the ritual, and can be satisfactorily explained alike
by its intention, and inherent symbolism, we shall, I think, have
taken the final step which will establish our theory upon a sure
basis. On the other hand, if the Fisher King, qua Fisher King, does
not fit into our framework we shall be forced to conclude that, while
the provenance of certain elements of the Grail literature is
practically assured, the ensemble has been complicated by the
introduction of a terminology, which, whether the outcome of serious
intention, or of mere literary caprice, was foreign to the original
source, and so far, defies explanation. In this later case our theory
would not necessarily be manque, but would certainly be seriously
incomplete.
We have already seen that the personality of the King, the nature of
the disability under which he is suffering, and the reflex exercised
upon his folk and his land, correspond, in a most striking manner, to
the intimate relation at one time held to exist between the ruler and
his land; a relation mainly dependent upon the identification of the
King with the Divine principle of Life and Fertility.
If we examine more closely into the existing variants of our romances,
we shall find that those very variants are not only thoroughly dans le
cadre of our proposed solution, but also afford a valuable, and
hitherto unsuspected, indication of the relative priority of the
versions.
In Chapter I, I discussed the task of the hero in general, here I
propose to focus attention upon his host, and while in a measure
traversing the same ground, to do so with a view to determining the
true character of this enigmatic personage.
In the Bleheris version,[1] the lord of the castle is suffering under
no disability whatever; he is described as "tall, and strong of limb,
of no great age, but somewhat bald." Besides the King there is a Dead
Knight upon a bier, over whose body Vespers for the Dead are solemnly
sung. The wasting of the land, partially restored by Gawain's
question concerning the Lance, has been caused by the 'Dolorous
Stroke,' i.e., the stroke which brought the death of the Knight, whose
identity is here never revealed. Certain versions which interpolate
the account of Joseph of Arimathea and the Grail, allude to 'Le riche
Pescheur' and his heirs as Joseph's descendants, and, presumably, for
it is not directly stated, guardians of the Grail,[2] but the King
himself is here never called by that title. From his connection with
the Waste Land it seems more probable that is was the Dead Knight who
filled that role.
In the second version of which Gawain is the hero, that of Diu
Crone,[3] the Host is an old and infirm man. After Gawain has asked
the question we learn that he is really dead, and only compelled to
retain the semblance of life till the task of the Quester be achieved.
Here, again, he is not called the Fisher King.
In the Perceval versions, on the contrary, we find the name invariably
associated with him, but he is not always directly connected with the
misfortunes which have fallen upon his land. Thus, while the Wanchier
texts are incomplete, breaking off at the critical moment of asking
the question, Manessier who continues, and ostensibly completes,
Wauchier, introduces the Dead Knight, here Goondesert or Gondefer
(which I suspect is the more correct form), brother of the King, whose
death by treachery has plunged the land in misery, and been the direct
cause of the self-wounding of the King.[4] The healing of the King
and the restoration of the land depend upon Perceval's slaying the
murderer Partinal. These two versions show a combination of Perceval
and Gawain themes, such as their respective dates might lead us to
expect.
Robert de Borron is the only writer who gives a clear, and tolerably
reasonable, account of why the guardian of the Grail bears the title
of Fisher King; in other cases, such as the poems of Chretien and
Wolfram, the name is connected with his partiality for fishing, an
obviously post hoc addition.
The story in question is found in Borron's Joseph of Arimathea.[5]
Here we are told how, during the wanderings of that holy man and his
companions in the wilderness, certain of the company fell into sin.
By the command of God, Brons, Joseph's brother-in-law, caught a Fish,
which, with the Grail, provided a mystic meal of which the unworthy
cannot partake; thus the sinners were separated from the righteous.
Henceforward Brons was known as 'The Rich Fisher.' It is noteworthy,
however, that in the Perceval romance, ascribed to Borron, the title
is as a rule, Roi Pescheur, not Riche Pescheur.[6]
In this romance the King is not suffering from any special malady, but
is the victim of extreme old age; not surprising, as he is Brons
himself, who has survived from the dawn of Christianity to the days of
King Arthur. We are told that the effect of asking the question will
be to restore him to youth,[7] as a matter of fact it appears to bring
about his death, as he only lives three days after his restoration.[8]
When we come to Chretien's poem we find ourselves confronted with a
striking alteration in the presentment. There are, not one, but two,
disabled kings; one suffering from the effects of a wound, the other
in extreme old age. Chretien's poem being incomplete we do not know
what he intended to be the result of the achieved Quest, but we may I
think reasonably conclude that the wounded King at least was
healed.[9]
The Parzival of von Eschenbach follows the same tradition, but is
happily complete. Here we find the wounded King was healed, but what
becomes of the aged man (here the grandfather, not as in Chretien the
father, of the Fisher King) we are not told.[10]
The Perlesvaus is, as I have noted above,[13] very unsatisfactory.
The illness of the King is badly motivated, and he dies before the
achievement of the Quest. This romance, while retaining certain
interesting, and undoubtedly primitive features, is, as a whole, too
late, and remaniee a redaction to be of much use in determining the
question of origins.
The same may be said of the Grand Saint Graal and Queste versions,
both of which are too closely connected with the prose Lancelot, and
too obviously intended to develope and complete the donnees of that
romance to be relied upon as evidence for the original form of the
Grail legend.[12] The version of the Queste is very confused: there
are two kings at the Grail castle, Pelles, and his father; sometimes
the one, sometimes the other, bears the title of Roi Pescheur.[13]
There is besides, an extremely old, and desperately wounded, king,
Mordrains, a contemporary of Joseph, who practically belongs, not to
the Grail tradition, but to a Conversion legend embodied in the Grand
Saint Graal.[14] Finally, in the latest cycle of texts, we have three
Kings, all of whom are wounded.[15]
The above will show that the presentment of the central figure is much
confused; generally termed Le Roi Pescheur, he is sometimes described
as in middle life, and in full possession of his bodily powers.
Sometimes while still comparatively young he is incapacitated by the
effects of a wound, and is known also by the title of Roi Mehaigne, or
Maimed King. Sometimes he is in extreme old age, and in certain
closely connected versions the two ideas are combined, and we have a
wounded Fisher King, and an aged father, or grandfather. But I would
draw attention to the significant fact that in no case is the Fisher
King a youthful character; that distinction is reserved for his
Healer, and successor.
Now it is possible to arrive at any conclusion as to the relative
value and probable order of these conflicting variants? I think that
if we admit that they do, in all probability, represent a more or less
coherent survival of the Nature ritual previously discussed, we may,
by help of what we know as to the varying forms of that ritual, be
enabled to bring some order out of this confusion.
If we turn back to Chapters 4, 5, and 7, and consult the evidence
there given as to the Adonis cults, the Spring Festivals of European
Folk, the Mumming Plays of the British Isles, the main fact that
emerges is that in the great majority of these cases the
representative of the Spirit of Vegetation is considered as dead, and
the object of these ceremonies is to restore him to life. This I hold
to be the primary form.
This section had already been written when I came across the important
article by Dr Jevons, referred to in a previous chapter.[16] Certain
of his remarks are here so much to the point that I cannot refrain
from quoting them. Speaking of the Mumming Plays, the writer says:
"The one point in which there is no variation is that--the character
is killed and brought to life again. The play is a ceremonial
performance, or rather it is the development in dramatic form of what
was originally a religious or magical rite, representing or realizing
the revivification of the character slain. This revivification is the
one essential and invariable feature of all the Mummers plays in
England."[17]
In certain cases, e.g., the famous Roman Spring festival of Mamurius
and the Swabian ceremony referred to above,[18] the central figure is
an old man. In no case do I find that the representative of
Vegetation is merely wounded, although the nature of the ritual would
obviously admit of such a variant.
Thus, taking the extant and recognized forms of the ritual into
consideration, we might expect to find that in the earliest, and least
contaminated, version of the Grail story the central figure would be
dead, and the task of the Quester that of restoring him to life.
Viewed from this standpoint the Gawain versions (the priority of which
is maintainable upon strictly literary grounds, Gawain being the
original Arthurian romantic hero) are of extraordinary interest. In
the one form we find a Dead Knight, whose fate is distinctly stated to
have involved his land in desolation, in the other, an aged man who,
while preserving the semblance of life, is in reality dead.
This last version appears to me, in view of our present knowledge, to
be of extreme critical value. There can, I think, be little doubt
that in the primary form underlying our extant versions the King was
dead, and restored to life; at first, I strongly suspect, by the
agency of some mysterious herb, or herbs, a feature retained in
certain forms of the Mumming play.
In the next stage, that represented by Borron, he is suffering from
extreme old age, and the task of the Quester is to restore him to
youth. This version is again supported by extant parallels. In each
of these cases it seems most probable that the original ritual (I
should wish it to be clearly understood that I hold the Grail story to
have been primarily dramatic, and actually performed) involved an act
of substitution. The Dead King in the first case being probably
represented by a mere effigy, in the second being an old man, his
place was, at a given moment of the ritual, taken by the youth who
played the role of the Quester. It is noteworthy that, while both
Perceval and Galahad are represented as mere lads, Gawain, whatever
his age at the moment of the Grail quest, was, as we learn from Diu
Crone, dowered by his fairy Mistress with the gift of eternal
youth.[19]
The versions of Chretien and Wolfram, which present us with a wounded
Fisher King, and a father, or grandfather,[20] in extreme old age, are
due in my opinion to a literary device, intended to combine two
existing variants. That the subject matter was well understood by the
original redactor of the common source is proved by the nature of the
injury,[21] but I hold that in these versions we have passed from the
domain of ritual to that of literature. Still, we have a curious
indication that the Wounding variant may have had its place in the
former. The suggestion made above as to the probable existence in the
primitive ritual of a substitution ceremony, seems to me to provide a
possible explanation of the feature found alike in Wolfram, and in the
closely allied Grail section of Sone de Nansai; i.e., that the wound
of the King was a punishment for sin, he had conceived a passion for a
Pagan princess.[22] Now there would be no incongruity in representing
the Dead King as reborn in youthful form, the aged King as "restored
to youth," but when the central figure was a man in the prime of life
some reason had to be found, his strength and vitality being restored,
for his supersession by the appointed Healer. This supersession was
adequately motivated by the supposed transgression of a fundamental
Christian law, entailing as consequence the forfeiture of his crown.
I would thus separate the doubling theme, as found in Chretien and
Wolfram, from the wounded theme, equally common to these poets. This
latter might possibly be accounted for on the ground of a ritual
variant; the first is purely literary, explicable neither on the
exoteric, nor the esoteric, aspect of the ceremony. From the exoteric
point of view there are not, and there cannot be, two Kings suffering
from parallel disability; the ritual knows one Principle of Life, and
one alone. Equally from the esoteric standpoint Fisher King, and
Maimed King, representing two different aspects of the same
personality, may, and probably were, represented as two individuals,
but one alone is disabled. Further, as the two are, in very truth,
one, these should be equals in age, not of different generations.
Thus the Bleheris version which gives us a Dead Knight, presumably,
from his having been slain in battle, still in vigourous manhood, and
a hale King is, ritually, the more correct. The original of
Manessier's version must have been similar, but the fact that by the
time it was compiled the Fisher King was generally accepted as being
also the Maimed King led to the introduction of the very awkward, and
poorly motivated, self-wounding incident. It will be noted that in
this case the King is not healed either at the moment of the slaying
of his brother's murderer (which would be the logical result of the
donnees of the tale), nor at the moment of contact with the successful
Quester, but at the mere announcement of his approach.
Thus, if we consider the King, apart from his title, we find that
alike from his position in the story, his close connection with the
fortunes of his land and people, and the varying forms of the
disability of which he is the victim, he corresponds with remarkable
exactitude to the central figure of a well-recognized Nature ritual,
and may therefore justly be claimed to belong ab origine to such a
hypothetical source.
But what about his title, why should he be called the Fisher King?
Here we strike what I hold to be the main crux of the problem, a
feature upon which scholars have expended much thought and ingenuity,
a feature which the authors of the romances themselves either did not
always understand, or were at pains to obscure by the introduction of
the obviously post hoc "motif" above referred to, i.e., that he was
called the Fisher King because of his devotion to the pastime of
fishing; a-propos of which Heinzel sensibly remarks, that the story of
the Fisher King "presupposes a legend of this personage only vaguely
known and remembered by Chretien."[24]
Practically the interpretations already attempted fall into two main
groups, which we may designate as the Christian-Legendary, and the
Celtic-Folk-lore interpretations. For those who hold that the Grail
story is essentially, and fundamentally, Christian, finding its root
in Eucharistic symbolism, the title is naturally connected with the
use of the Fish symbol in early Christianity: the Icthys anagram, as
applied to Christ, the title 'Fishers of Men,' bestowed upon the
Apostles, the Papal ring of the Fisherman--though it must be noted
that no manipulation of the Christian symbolism avails satisfactorily
to account for the lamentable condition into which the bearer of the
title has fallen.[25]
The advocates of the Folk-lore theory, on the other hand, practically
evade this main difficulty, by basing their interpretation upon
Borron's story of the catching of the Fish by Brons, equating this
character with the Bran of Welsh tradition, and pointing to the
existence, in Irish and Welsh legend, of a Salmon of Wisdom, the
tasting of whose flesh confers all knowledge. Hertz acutely remarks
that the incident, as related by Borron, is not of such importance as
to justify the stress laid upon the name, Rich Fisher, by later
writers.[26] We may also note in this connection that the Grail
romances never employ the form 'Wise Fisher,' which, if the origin of
the name were that proposed above, we might reasonably expect to find
it. It is obvious that a satisfactory solution of the problem must be
sought elsewhere.
In my opinion the key to the puzzle is to be found the rightful
understanding of the Fish-Fisher symbolism. Students of Grail
literature have been too prone to treat the question on the Christian
basis alone, oblivious of the fact that Christianity did no more than
take over, and adapt to its own use, a symbolism already endowed with
a deeply rooted prestige and importance.
So far the subject cannot be said to have received adequate treatment;
certain of its aspects have been more or less fully discussed in
monographs and isolated articles, but we still await a comprehensive
study on this most important question.[27]
So far as the present state of our knowledge goes we can affirm with
certainty that the Fish is a Life symbol of immemorial antiquity, and
that the title of Fisher has, from the earliest ages, been associated
with Deities who were held to be specially connected with the origin
and preservation of Life.
In Indian cosmogony Manu finds a little fish in the water in which
he would wash his hands; it asks, and receives, his protection,
asserting that when grown to full size it will save Manu from the
universal deluge. This is Jhasa, the greatest of all fish.[28]
The first Avatar of Vishnu the Creator is a Fish. At the great feast
in honour of his god, held on the twelfth day of the first month of
the Indian year, Vishnu is represented under the form of a golden
Fish, and addressed in the following terms: "As Thou, O God, hast in
the form of a fish saved the Vedas who were in the underworld, save me
also."[29] The Fish Avatar was afterwards transferred to Buddha.
In Buddhist religion the symbols of the Fish and Fisher are freely
employed. Thus in Buddhist monasteries we find drums and gongs in the
shape of a fish, but the true meaning of the symbol, while still
regarded as sacred, has been lost, and the explanations, like the
explanations of the Grail romances, are often fantastic afterthoughts.
In the M{macron a}h{macron a}yana scriptures Buddha is referred to as
the Fisherman who draws fish from the ocean of Samsara to the light of
Salvation. There are figures and pictures which represent Buddha in
the act of fishing, an attitude which, unless interpreted in a
symbolic sense, would be utterly at variance with the tenets of the
Buddhist religion.[30]
This also holds good for Chinese Buddhism. The goddess Kwanyin
(==Avalokitesvara), the female Deity of Mercy and Salvation, is
depicted either on, or holding, a Fish. In the Han palace of
Kin-Ming-Ch'ih there was a Fish carved in jade to which in time of
drought sacrifices were offered, the prayers being always answered.
Both in India and China the Fish is employed in funeral rites. In
India a crystal bowl with Fish handles was found in a reputed tomb of
Buddha. In China the symbol is found on stone slabs enclosing the
coffin, on bronze urns, vases, etc. Even as the Babylonians had the
Fish, or Fisher, god, Oannes who revealed to them the arts of Writing,
Agriculture, etc., and was, as Eisler puts it, 'teacher and lord of
all wisdom,' so the Chinese Fu-Hi, who is pictured with the mystic
tablets containing the mysteries of Heaven and Earth, is, with his
consort and retinue, represented as having a fish's tail.[31]
The writer of the article in The Open Court asserts that "the Fish was
sacred to those deities who were supposed to lead men back from the
shadows of death to life."[32] If this be really the case we can
understand the connection of the symbol first with Orpheus, later with
Christ, as Eisler remarks: "Orpheus is connected with nearly all the
mystery, and a great many of the ordinary chthonic, cults in Greece
and Italy. Christianity took its first tentative steps into the
reluctant world of Graeco-Roman Paganism under the benevolent
patronage of Orpheus."[33]
There is thus little reason to doubt that, if we regard the Fish as a
Divine Life symbol, of immemorial antiquity, we shall not go very far
astray.
We may note here that there was a fish known to the Semites by the
name of Adonis, although as the title signifies, 'Lord,' is the
generic rather than specific, too much stress cannot be laid upon it.
It is more interesting to know that in Babylonian cosmology Adapa the
Wise, the son of Ea, is represented as a Fisher.[34] In the ancient
Sumerian laments for Tammuz, previously referred to, that god is
frequently addressed as Divine Lamgar, Lord of the Net, the nearest
equivalent I have so far found to our 'Fisher King.'[35] Whether the
phrase is here used in an actual or a symbolic sense the connection of
idea is sufficiently striking.
In the opinion of the most recent writers on the subject of Christian
Fish symbolism derives directly from the Jewish, the Jews, on their
side having borrowed freely from Syrian belief and practice.[36]
What may be regarded as the central point of Jewish Fish symbolism is
the tradition that, at the end of the world, Messias will catch the
great Fish Leviathan, and divide its flesh as food among the faithful.
As a foreshadowing of this Messianic Feast the Jews were in the habit
of eating fish upon the Sabbath. During the Captivity, under the
influence of the worship of the goddess Atargatis, they transferred
the ceremony to a Friday, the eve of the Sabbath, a position which it
has retained to the present day. Eisler remarks that "in Galicia one
can see Israelite faimilies in spite of their being reduced to the
extrmest misery, procuring on Fridays a single gudgeon, to eat,
divided into fragments, at night-fall. In the 16th century Rabbi
Solomon Luria protested strongly against this practice. Fish, he
declared, should be eaten on the Sabbath itself, not on the Eve."[37]
This Jewish custom appears to have been adopted by the primitive
Church, and early Christians, on their side, celebrated a Sacramental
Fish-meal. The Catacombs supply us with numerous illustrations, fully
described by the two writers referred to. The elements of this mystic
meal were Fish, Bread, and Wine, the last being represented in the
Messianic tradition: "At the end of the meal God will give to the most
worthy, i.e., to King David, the Cupo of Blessing--one of fabulous
dimensions."[38]
Fish play an important part in Mystery Cults, as being the 'holy'
food. Upon a tablet dedicated to the Phrygian Magna Mater we find
Fish and Cup; and Dolger, speaking of a votive tablet discovered in
the Balkans, says, "Here the fish always stands out very clearly as
the holy food of a Mystery Cult."[30]
Now I would submit that here, and not in Celtic Folk-lore, is to be
found the source of Borron's Fish-meal. Let us consider the
circumstances. Joseph and his followers, in the course of their
wanderings, find themselves in danger of famine. The position is
somewhat curious, as apparently the leaders have no idea of the
condition of their followers till the latter appeal to Brons.[40]
Brons informs Jospeph, who prays for aid and counsel from the Grail.
A Voice from Heaven bids him send his brother-in-law, Brons, to catch
a fish. Meanwhile he, Joseph, is to prepare a table, set the Grail,
covered with a cloth, in the centre opposite his own seat, and the
fish which Brons shall catch, on the other side. He does this, and
the seats are filled--"A great many were seated there, and there were
more of those who did not sit at all than of those who did." Those
who are seated at the table are conscious of a great "douceur," and
"contentment of their hearts," the rest feel nothing.
No compare this with the Irish story of the Salmon of Wisdom.[41]
Finn Mac Cumhail enters the service of his namesake, Finn Eger, who
for seven years had remained by the Boyne watching the Salmon of Lynn
Feic, which it had been foretold Finn should catch. The younger lad,
who conceals his name, catches the fish. He is set to watch it while
it roasts but is warned not to eat it. Touching it with his thumb he
is burned, and puts his thumb in his mouth to cool it. Immediately he
becomes possessed of all knowledge, and thereafter has only to chew
his thumb to obtain wisdom. Mr Nutt remarks: "The incident in
Borron's poem has been recast in the mould of mediaeval Christian
Symbolism, but I think the older myth can still be clearly discerned,
and is wholly responsible for the incident as found in the Conte du
Graal."
But when these words were written we were in ignorance of the
Sacramental Fish-meal, common alike to Jewish, Christian, and Mystery
Cults, a meal which offers a far closer parallel to Borron's romance
than does the Finn story, in which, beyond the catching of the fish,
there is absolutely no point of contact with our romance, neither
Joseph nor Brons derives wisdom from the eating thereof; it is not
they who detect the sinners, the severance between the good and the
evil is brought about automatically. The Finn story has no common
meal, and no idea of spiritual blessing such as are connected
therewith.
In the case of the Messianic Fish-meal, on the other hand, the
parallel is striking; in both cases it is a communal meal, in both
cases the privilege of sharing it is the reward of the faithful, in
both cases it is a foretaste of the bliss of Paradise.
Furthermore, as remarked above, the practice was at one time of very
widespread prevalence.
Now whence did Borron derive his knowledge, from Jewish, Christian or
Mystery sources?
This is a question not very easy to decide. In view of the pronounced
Christian tone of Borron's romance I should feel inclined to exclude
the first, also the Jewish Fish-meal seems to have been of a more
open, general and less symbolic character than the Christian; it was
frankly an anticipation of a promised future bliss, obtainable by
all.
Orthodox Christianity, on the other hand, knows nothing of the Sacred
Fish-meal, so far as I am aware it forms no part of any Apocalyptic
expectation, and where this special symbolism does occur it is often
under conditions which place its interpretation outside the recognized
category of Christian belief.
A noted instance in point is the famous epitaph of Bishop Aberkios,
over the correct interpretation of which scholars have spent much time
and ingenuity.[42] In this curious text Aberkios, after mentioning
his journeys, says:
"Paul I had as my guide,
Faith however always went ahead and set before me as food a Fish
from a Fountain, a huge one, a clean one,
Which a Holy Virgin has caught.
This she gave to the friends ever to eat as food,
Having good Wine, and offering it watered together with Bread.
Aberkios had this engraved when 72 years of age in truth.
Whoever can understand this let him pray for Aberkios."
Eisler (I am here quoting from the Quest article) remarks, "As the
last line of our quotation gives us quite plainly to understand, a
number of words which we have italicized are obviously used in an
unusual, metaphorical, sense, that is to say as terms of the Christian
Mystery language." While Harnack, admitting that the Christian
character of the text is indisputable, adds significantly: "But it is
not the Christianity of the Church."
Thus it is possible that, to the various points of doubtful orthodoxy
which scholars have noted as characteristic of the Grail romances,
Borron's Fish-meal should also be added.
Should it be objected that the dependence of a medieval romance upon a
Jewish tradition of such antiquity is scarcely probable, I would draw
attention to the Voyage of Saint Brandan, where the monks, during
their prolonged wanderings, annually 'kept the Resurrection,' i.e.,
celebrate their Easter Mass, on the back of a great Fish.[43] On
their first meeting with this monster Saint Brandan tells them it is
the greatest of all fishes, and is named Jastoni, a name which bears
curious resemblance to the Jhasa of the Indian tradition cited
above.[44] In this last instance the connection of the Fish with
life, renewed and sustained, is undeniable.
The original source of such a symbol is most probably to be found in
the belief, referred to in a previous chapter,[45] that all life comes
from the water, but that a more sensual and less abstract idea was
also operative appears from the close connection of the Fish with the
goddess Astarte or Atargatis, a connection here shared by the Dove.
Cumont, in his Les Religions Orientales dans le Paganisme Romain,
says: "Two animals were held in general reverence, namely, Dove and
Fish. Countless flocks of Doves greeted the traveller when he stepped
on shore at Askalon, and in the outer courts of all the temples of
Astarte one might see the flutter of their white wings. The Fish were
preserved in ponds near to the Temple, and superstitious dread forbade
their capture, for the goddess punished such sacrilege, smiting the
offender with ulcers and tumours."[46]
But at certain mystic banquets priests and initiates partook of this
otherwise forbidden food, in the belief that they thus partook of the
flesh of the goddess. Eisler and other scholars are of the opinion
that it was the familiarity with this ritual gained by the Jews during
the Captivity that led to the adoption of the Friday Fish-meal,
already referred to, Friday being the day dedicated to the goddess
and, later, to her equivalent, Venus. From the Jews the custom spread
to the Christian Church, where it still flourishes, its true origin,
it is needless to say, being wholly unsuspected.[47]
Dove and Fish also appear together in ancient iconography. In Comte
Goblet d'Alviella's work The Migration of Symbols there is an
illustration of a coin of Cyzicus, on which is represented an
Omphalus, flanked by two Doves, with a Fish beneath;[46] and a whole
section is devoted to the discussion of the representations of two
Doves on either side of a Temple entrance, or of an Omphalus. In the
author's opinion the origin of the symbol may be found in the sacred
dove-cotes of Phoenicia, referred to by Cumont.
Scheftelowitz instances the combination of Fish-meal and Dove, found
on a Jewish tomb of the first century at Syracuse, and remarks that
the two are frequently found in combination on Christian
tombstones.[49]
Students of the Grail romances will not need to be reminded that the
Dove makes its appearance in certain of our texts. In the Parzival it
plays a somewhat important role; every Good Friday a Dove brings from
Heaven a Host, which it lays upon the Grail; and the Dove is the
badge of the Grail Knights.[50] In the prose Lancelot the coming of
the Grail procession is heralded by the entrance through the window of
a Dove, bearing a censer in its beak.[51] It is not possible that it
was the already existing connection in Nature ritual of these two,
Dove and Fish, which led to the introduction of the former into our
romances, where its role is never really adequately motivated? It is
further to be noted that besides the Dove and Fish the Syrians
reverenced the Stones, more especially meteoric Stones, which the
yheld to be endowed with life potency, another point of contact with
our romances.[52]
That the Fish was considered a potent factor in ensuring fruitfulness
is proved by certain prehistoric tables described by Scheftelowitz,
where Fish, horse, and Swastika, or in another instance Fish and
Reindeer, are found in a combination which unistakeably denotes that
the object of the votive table was to ensure the frutfulness of lfocks
and herds.[53]
With this intention its influence was also invoked in marriage
ceremonies. The same writer points out that the Jews in Poland were
accustomed to hold a Fish feast ceremony and that a similar practice
can be proved for the ancient Greeks.[54] At the present day the Jews
of Tunis exhibit a Fish's tail on a cushion at their weddings.[55] In
some parts of India the newly-wedded pair waded knee-deep into the
water, and caught a fish in a new garment. During the ceremony a
Brahmin student, from the shore, asked solemnly, "What seest thou?" to
which the answer was returned, "Sons and Cattle."[56] In all these
cases there can be no doubt that is was the prolific nature of the
Fish, a feature which it shares in common with the Dove, which
inspired practice and intention.
Surely the effect of this cumulative body of evidence is to justify us
in the belief that Fish and Fisher, being, as they undoubtedly are,
Life symbols of immemorial antiquity, are, by virtue of their origin,
entirely in their place in a sequence of incidents which there is
solid ground for believing derive ultimately from a Cult of this
nature. That Borron's Fish-meal, that the title of Fisher King, are
not accidents of literary invention but genuine and integrap parts of
the common body of tradition which has furnished the incidents and
mise-en-scene of the Grail drama. Can it be denied that, while from
the standpoint of a Christian interpretation of the Fisher King is
simply incomprehensible, from the standpoint of a Folk-tale
inadequately explained, from that of a Ritual survival it assumes a
profound meaning and significance? He is not merely a deeply symbolic
figure, but the essential center of the whole cult, a being
semi-divine, semi-human, standing between his people and land, and the
unseen forces which control their destiny. If the Grail story be
based upon a Life ritual the character of the Fisher King is of the
very essence of the tale, and his title, so far from being
meaningless, expresses, for those who are at pains to seek, the
intention ad object of the perplexing whole. The Fisher King is, as I
suggested above, the very heart and center of the whole mystery, and I
contend that with an adequate interpretation of this enigmatic
character the soundness of the theory providing such an interpretation
may be held to be definitely proved.
CHAPTER X
The Secret of the Grail (1) The Mysteries
Students of the Grail literature cannot fail to have been impressed by
a certain atmosphere of awe and mystery which surrounds that enigmatic
Vessel. There is a secret connected with it, the revelation of which
will entail dire misfortune on the betrayer. If spoken of at all it
must be with scrupulous accuracy. It is so secret a thing that no
woman, be she wife or maid, may venture to speak of it. A priest, or
a man of holy life might indeed tell the marvel of the Grail, but none
can hearken to the recital without shuddering, trembling, and changing
colour for very fear.
"The Grail's secret must be concealed
And never by any man revealed,
For as soon as this tail is told,
It could never happen to one so bold,
If the teller should have a wife,
Evil will follow him all his life.
. . . . . . . . . . .
If Master Blihis does not lie
This secret none should ever tell."[1]
"But the marvel that he found here
Which often made him shake with fear,
He must never let anyone know,
He who tells it shall have great woe,
For of the Grail it is a sign
That he in pain and ills will pine
Who reveals its secret to any man."[2]
The above refers to Gawains' adventure at the Black Chapel, en route
to the Grail castle.
The following is the answer given to Perceval by the maiden of the
White Mule, after he has been overtaken by a storm in a forest. She
tells him the mysterious light he beheld proceeded from the Grail, but
on his enquiry as to what the Grail may be, refused to give him any
information.
"She said, 'Sire, it cannot be
That I may tell this mystery,
If a hundred times you ask
I may not speak more of my task,
For this would be too bold,
It is a secret to be told.
No lady, girl or maid may say it
Nor may any man betray it
Who is wedded to a wife.
Only a man of holy life
Or a priest of this may tell
Revealing all its wondrous spell
Which no man can ever hear
Without turning pale with fear,
Trembling, becoming a wretched sight,
A man stricken by utter fright.'"[3]
From this evidence there is no doubt that to the romance writers the
Grail was something secret, mysterious and awful, the exact knowledge
of which was reserved to a select few, and which was only to be spoken
of with bated breath, and a careful regard to strict accuracy.
But how does this agree with the evidence set forth in our preceding
chapters? There we have been led rather to emphasize the close
parallels existing between the characters and incidents of the Grail
story, and a certain well-marked group of popular beliefs and
observances, now very generally recognized as fragments of a once
widespread Nature Cult. These beliefs and observances, while dating
from the remotest antiquity, have, in their modern survivals, of
recent years, attracted the attention of scholars by their persistent
and pervasive character, and their enduring vitality.
Yet, so far as we have hitherto dealt with them, these practices were,
and are, popular in character, openly performed, and devoid of all
special element of mystery which is so characteristic a feature of the
Grail.
Nor, in these publick Folk-ceremonies, these Spring festivals, Dances,
and Plays, is there anything which, on the face of it, appears to
bring them into touch with the central mystery of the Christian
Faith. Yet the men who wrote these romances saw no incongruity in
identifying the mysterious Food-providing Vessel of the
Bleheris-Gawain version of the Chalice of the Eucharist, and in
ascribing the power of bestowing Spritual Life to that which certain
modern scholars have identified as a Wunsch-Ding, a Folk-tale Vessel
of Plenty.
If there be a mystery of the Grail surely the mystery lies here, in
the possibility of identifying two objects which, apparently, lie at
the very opposite poles of intellectual conception. What brought them
together? Where shall we seek a connecting link? By what road did
the romancers reach so strangely unexpected a goal?
It is, of course, very generally recognized that in the case of most
of the pre-Christian religions, upon the natue and character of whose
rites we possess reliable information, such rites possessed a two-fold
character--exoteric; in the celebrations openly and publicly
performed, in which all adherents of that particular cult could join
freely, the object of such public rites being to obtain some external
and material benefit, whether for the individual worshipper, or for
the community as a whole--esoteric; rites open only to a favoured few,
the initiates, the object of which appears, as a rule, to have been
individual rather than social, and non-material. In some cases,
certainly, the object aimed at was the attainment of a conscious,
ecstatic, union with the god, and the definite assurance of a future
life. In other words there was the public worship, and there were the
Mysteries.
Of late years there has been a growing tendency among scholars to seek
in the Mysteries of the clue which shall enable us to read aright the
baffling riddle of the Grail, and there can be little doubt that, in
so doing, we are on the right path. At the same time I am convinced
that to seek that clue in those Mysteries which are at once the most
famous, and the most familiar to the classical scholar, i.e., the
Eleusinian, is a fatal mistake. There are, as we shall see, certain
essential, and radical, differences between the Greek and the
Christian religios conceptions which, affecting as they do the root
conceptions of the two groups, render it quite impossible that any for
of the Eleusinian Mystery cult could have given such results as we
find in the Grail legend.[4]
Cumont in his Les Religions Oriantales dans le Paganisme Romain,
speaking of the influence of the Mysteries upon Christianity, remarks
acutely, "But when we speak of the mysteries, we should think of
Hellenized Asia rather than of Greece proper, in spite of all the
prestige that surrounds Eleusis. For the first Christian communities
where established, shaped and developed in the midst of Oriental
peoples--Semites, Phrygians, Egyptians."[5]
This is perfectly true, but it was not the only influence of milieu,
not only the fact that the 'hellenized' faiths were, as Cumont points
out, more advanced, richer in ideas and sentiments, more pregnant,
more poignant, than the more strictly 'classic' faiths, but they
possessed, in common with Christianity, certain distinctive features
lacking in these latter.
If we were asked to define the special characteristic of the central
Christian rite, should we not state it as being a Sacred meal of
Communion in which the worshipper, not merely symbolically, but
actually, partakes of, and becomes one with, his God, receiving
thereby the assurance of eternal life? (The Body of Our Lord Jesus
Christ preserve thy body and sould unto everlasting life.)
But it is precisely this conception which is lacking in the Greek
Mysteries, and that inevitably, as Rohde points out: "The Eleusinian
Mysteries in common with all Greek religion, differentiated clearly
between gods and men, 'there is one race of men, another race of
gods.'" The attainment of union with thee god, by way of ecstasy, as
in other Mystery cults, is foreign to the Eleusinian idea. As Cumont
puts it "The Greco-Roman deities rejoice in the perpetual calm and
youth of Olympus, the Eastern deities die to live again."[6] In other
words Greek religion lacks the Sacramental idea.
Thus even if we set aside the absence of a parallel between the ritual
of the Greek Mysteries and the mise-en-scene of the Grail stories,
Eleusis would be unable to offer us those essential elements which
would have rendered possible a translation of the incidents of those
stories into terms of high Christian symbolism. Yet we cannot refrain
from the conclusion that there was something in the legend that not
merely rendered possible, but actually invited, such a translation.
If we thus dismiss, as fruitless for our investigation, the most
famous representatives of the Hellenic Mysteries proper, how does the
question stand with regard to those faiths to which Cumont is
referring, the hellenized cults of Asia Minor?
Here the evidence, not merely of the existence of Mysteries, but of
their widespread popularity, and permeating influence, is
overwhelming; the difficulty is not so much to prove our case, as to
select and coordinate the evidence germane to our enquiry.
Regarding the question as a whole it is undoubtedly true that, as
Anrich remarks, "the extent of the literature devoted to the Mysteries
stands in no relation whatever (gar keinem Verhaltniss) to the
importance in reality attached to them."[7] Later in the same
connection, after quoting Clement of Alexandria's dictum "Mysteries
such as divinity are entrusted to speech, not to writing," he adds;
"Setting such things down in writing is already almost
profanation."[8] A just remark which it would be well if certain
critics who make a virtue of refusing to accept as evidence anything
short of a direct and positive literary statement would bear in mind.
There are certain lines of research which, as Bishop Butler long since
emphasized, probability must be our guide.
Fortunately, however, so far as our present research is concerned, we
have more than probability to rely upon; not only did these Nature
Cults with which we are dealing express themselves in Mystery terms,
but as regards thse special Mysteries we possess clear and definite
information, and we know, moreover, that in the Western world they
were, of all the Mystery faiths, the most widerly spread, and the most
influential.
As Sir J. G. Frazer has before now pointed out, there are parallel and
over-lapping forms of this cult, the name of the god, and certain
details of the ritual, may differ in different countries, but whether
he hails from Babylon, Phrygia, or Phoenicia, whether he be called
Tammuz, Attis, or Adonis, the main lines of the story are fixed, and
invariable. Always he is young and beautiful, always the beloved of a
great goddess; always he is the victim of a tragic and untimely death,
a death which entails him bitter loss and misfortune upon a mourning
world, and which for the salvation of that world, is followed by a
resurrection. Death and Resurrection, mourning and rejoicing, present
themselves in sharp antithesis in each and all of the forms.
We know the god best as Adonis, for it was under that name that,
though not originally Greek, he became known to the Greek world, was
adopted by them with ardour, carried by them to Alexandria, where his
feast assumed the character of a State solemnity; under that name his
story has been enshrined in Art, and as Adonis he is loved and
lamented to this day. The Adonis ritual may be held to be the classic
form of the cult.
But in Rome, the centre of Western civilization, it was otherwise:
there it was the Phrygian god who was in possession; the dominating
position held by the cult of Attis and the Magna Mater, and the
profound influence exercised by that cult over better known, but
subsequently introduced, forms of worship, have not, so far, been
sufficiently realized.
The first of the Oriental cults to gain a footing in the Imperial
city, the worship of the Magna Mater of Pessinote was, for a time,
rigidly confined withn the limits of her sanctuary. The orgiastic
ritual of the priests of Kybele mad at first little appeal to the more
disciplined temperament of the Roman population. By degrees, however,
it won its way, and by the reign of Claudius had become so popular
that the emperor instituted public feasts in honor of Kybele and
Attis, feasts which were celebrated at the Spring solstice, March
15th-27th.[9]
As the public feast increased in popularity, so did the Mystery feast,
of which the initiated alone were privileged to partake, acquire a
symbolic significance: the foods partaken of became "a food of
spiritual life, intended to sustain the initiate in the trials of
existence." Philosophers boldly utilized the framework of the Attis
cult as the vehicle for imparting their own doctrines, "When
Neoplatonism triumphs, the Phrygian fable will become the traditional
mould into which subtle exegetes will boldly pour their philosophical
speculations on the creative and fruitful principles of all material
forms, and on the deliverance of the divine spirit which is submerged
in the corruption of this terrestrial world."[10]
Certain of the Gnostic sects, both pre- and post-Christian, appear to
have been enthusiastic participants in the Attis mysteries;[12]
Hepding, in his Attis study, goes so far as to refer to Bishop
Aberkios, to whose enigmatic epitaph our attention was directed in the
last chapter, as "the priest of Attis."[12]
Another element aided in the diffusion of the ritual. Of all the
Oriental cults which journeyed Westward under the aegis of Rome none
was so deeply rooted or so widely spread as the originally Persian
cult of Mithra--the popular religion of the Roman legionary. But
between the cults of Mithra and of Attis there was a close and
intimate alliance. In parts of Asia Minor the Persian god had early
taken over features of the Phrygian deity. "As soon as we can
establish the presence of the Persian cult in Italy, we find it
intimately united with that of the Great Mother of Pessinonte."[13]
The union between Mithra and the goddess Anahita was held to be the
equivalent of that subsisting between the two great Phrygian deities
Attis-Kybele. The most ancient Mithreum known, that at Ostia, was
attached to the Metroon, the temple of Kybele. At Sallburg the ruins
of the two temples are but a few steps apart. "There is every reason
to believe that the cult of the Iranian god and that of the Phrygian
goddess existed in close communication throughout the whole extent of
the empire."[14]
A proof of the close union of the two cults is afforded by the mystic
rite of the Taurobolium, which was practised by both, and which, in
the West, at least, seems to have passed from the temples of the
Mithra to those of the Magna Mater. At the same time Cumont remarks
that the actual rite seems to have been practised in Asia from a great
antiquity, before Mithraism had attributed it a spiritual
significance. It is thus possible that the rite had earlier formed a
part of the Attis initiation, and had been temporarily disused.[15]
We shall see that the union of the Mithra-Attis cults becomes of
distinct importance when we examine, (a) the spiritual significance of
these rituals, and their elements of affinity with Christianity, (b)
their possible diffusion in the British Isles.
But now what do we know of the actual details of the Attis mysteries?
The first and most important point was a Mystic Meal, at which the
food partaken of was served in the sacred vessels, the tympanum, and
the cymbals. The formula of an Attis initiate was "I have eaten from
the tympanum, I have drunk from the cymbals." As I have remarked
above, the food thus partaken of was a Food of Life--"The devotees of
Attis believed, in fact, that they were eating a magic food of life
from the sacred vessels of their cult."[16]
Dieterich in his interesting study entitlesd Eine Mithrasliturgie
refers to this meal as the centre of the whole religious action.
Further, in some mysterious manner, the fate of the initiate was
connected with, and dependent upon, the death and resurrection of the
god. The Christian writer Firmicius Maternus, at one time himself an
initiate, has left an account of the ceremony, without, however,
specifying whether the deity in question was Attis or Adonis--as
Dieterich remarks "What he relates can be applied both to the devotees
of Attis and to those of Adonis."
This is what he says: "On a certain night the image is placed, lying
on its back, on a litter, and the devotees mourn it with rhymic
lamentations. At length, when they have satisfied themselves with
this pretended lamentation, a light is brought in. Then the throats
of all those who were weeping are anointed, he slowly murmurs thse
words to them:
'Have courage, O initiates of the saviour-god,
For there will be salvation for us from our toils--' on which
Dieterich remarks: "The salvation of the initiates depends on the
deliverance of the god."[17]
Hepding holds that in some cases there was an actual burial, and
awakening with the god to a new life.[18] In any case it is clear
that the successful issue of the test of initiation was dependent upon
the resurrection and revival of the god.
Not it is not clear that we have here a close parallel with the Grail
romances? In each case we have a common, and mystic, meal, in which
the food partaken of stands in close connection with the holy
vessels. In the Attis feast the initiates actually ate and drank from
these vessels; in the romances the Grail community never actually eat
from the Grail itself; but the food is, in some mysterious and
unexplained manner, supplied by it. In both cases it is a
Lebens-Speise, a Food of Life. This point is especially insisted upon
in the Parzival, where the Grail community never become any older than
they were on the day they first beheld the Talisman.[19] In the Attis
initiation the proof that the candidate has successfully passed the
test is afforded by the revival of the god--in the Grail romances the
proof lies in the healing of the Fisher King.
Thus, while deferring for a moment any insistence on the obvious
points of the parallelism with the Sacrament of the Eucharist, and the
possibilities of Spiritual teaching inherent in the ceremonies,
necessary links in our chain of argument, we are, I think, entitled to
hold that, even when we pass behond the outward mise-en-scene of the
story--the march of incident, the character of the King, his title,
his disability, and relation to his land and fold--to the inner and
deeper significance of the tale, the Nature Cults still remain
reliable guides; it is in their inner, their esoteric, ritual which
will enable us to bridge the gulf between what appears at first sight
the wholly irreconcilable elements of the Folk-tale and high
sprititual mystery.
CHAPTER XI
The Secret of the Grail (2) The Naassene Document
We have now seen that the Ritual which, as we have postulated, lies,
in a fragmentary and distorted condition, at the root of our existing
Grail romances, possessed elements capable of assimilation with a
religious system which the great bulk of its modern adherents would
unhesitatingly declare to be its very antithesis. That Christianity
might have borrowed from previously existing cults certain outward
signs and symbols, might have accommodated itself to already existing
Fasts and Feasts, may be, perforce has had to be, more or less
grudgingly admitted; that such a rapproachment should have gone
further, that it should even have been inherent in the very nature of
the Faith, that, to some of the deepest thinkers of old, Christianity
should have been held for no new thing but a fulfillment of the
promise enshrined in the Mysteries from the beginning of the world,
will to many be a strange and startling thought. Yet so it was, and I
firmly believe that it is only in the recognition of this one-time
claim of essential kinship between Christianity and the Pagan
Mysteries that we shall find the key to the Secret of the Grail.
And here at the outset I would ask those readers who are inclined to
turn with feelings of contemptuous impatience from what they deem an
unprofitable discussion of idle speculation which have little or
nothing to do with a problem they hold to be one of purely literary
interest, to be solved by literary comparison and criticism, and by no
other method, to withhold their verdict till they have carefully
examined the evidence I am about to bring forward, evidence which has
never so far been examined in this connection, but which if I am not
greatly mistaken provides us with clear and unmistakable proof of the
actual existence of a ritual in all points analogous to that indicated
by the Grail romances.
In the previous chapter we have seen that there is evidence, and
abundant evidence, not merely of the existence of Mysteries connected
with the worship of Adonis-Attis, but of the high importance assigned
to such Mysteries; at the time of the birth of Christianity they were
undoubtedly the most popular and influential of the foreign cults
adopted by Imperial Rome. In support of this statement I quoted
certain passages from Cumont's Religions Orientales, in which he
touches on the subject: here are two ther quotations which may well
serve as introduction to the evidence we are about to examine.
"Researches on the doctrines and practices common to Christianity and
the Oriental Mysteries almost invariably go back, beyond the limits of
the Roman Empire, to the Hellenized East. It is there we must seek
the key of enigmas still unsolved--The essential fact to remember is
that the Eastern religions had diffused, first anterior to, then
parallel with, Christianity, doctrines which acquired with the latter
a universal authority in the decline of the ancient world. The
preaching of Asiatic priests prepared in their own despite the triumph
of the Church."[1]
But the triumph of the new Faith once assured the organizing,
dominating, influences of Imperial Rome speedily came into play.
Christianity, originally an Eastern, became a Western, religion, the
'Mystery' elements were frowned upon, kinship with pre-Christian
faiths ignored, or denied; where the resemblances between the cults
proved too striking for either of these methods such resemblances were
boldly attributed to the invention of the Father of Lies himself, a
cunning snare whereby to deceive unwary souls. Christianity was
carefully trimmed, shaped, and forced into an Orthodox mould, and
anything that refused to adapt itself to this drastic process became
by that very refusal anathema to the righteous.
Small wonder that, under such conditions, the early ages of the Church
were marked by a fruitful crop of Heresies, and heresy-hunting became
an intellectual pastime in high favour among the strictly orthodox.
Among the writers of this period whose works have been preserved
Hippolytus, Biship of Portus in the early years of the third century,
was one of the most industrious. He compiled a voluminous treatise,
entitled Philosophumena, or The Refutation of all Heresies, of which
only one MS. and that of the fourteenth century, has descended to us.
The work was already partially known by quotations, the first Book had
been attributed to Origen, and published in the editio princeps of his
works. The text originally consisted of ten Books, but of these the
first three, and part of the fourth, are missing from the MS. The
Origen text supplies part of the lacuna, but two entire books, and
part of a third are missing.
Now these special Books, we learn from the Introduction, dealt with
the doctrines and Mysteries of the Egyptians and Chaldaeans, whose
most sacred secrets Hippolytus boasts that he has divulged.
Curiously enough, not only are these Books lacking but in the Epitome
at the beginning of Book X. the summary of their contents is also
missing, a significant detail, which, as has been suggested by
critics, looks like a deliberate attempt on the part of some copyist
to suppress the information contained in the Books in question.
Incidentally this would seem to suggest that the worthy bishop was not
making an empty boast when he claimed to be a revealer of secrets.
But what is of special interest to us is the treatment meted out to
the Christian Mystics, whom Hippolytus stigmatizes as heretics, and
whose teaching he deliberately asserts to be simply that of the Pagan
Mysteries. He had come into possession of a secret document belonging
to one of these sects, whom he calls the Naassenes; this document he
gives in full, and it certainly throws a most extraordinary light upon
the relation of this early Christian sect held to exist between the
New, and the Old, Faith. Mr G. R. S. Mead, in his translation of the
Hermetic writings entitled Thrice-Greatest Hermes, has given a careful
translation and detailed analysis of this important text, and it is
from his work that I shall quote.
So far as the structure of the document is concerned Mr Mead
distinguishes three stages.
(a) An original Pagan source, possibly dating from the last half of
the first century B.C., but containing material of an earlier date.
(b) The working over of this source by a Jewish mystic whom the critic
holds to have been a contemporary of Philo.
(c) A subsequent working over, with additions, by a Christian Gnostic
(Naassene), in the middle of the second century A. D. Finally the text
was edited by Hippolytus, in the Refutation, about 222 A. D. Thus the
ground covered is roughly from 50 B. C. to 220 A. D.
In the translation given by Mr Mead these successive layers are
distinguished by initial letters and difference of type, but these
distinctions are not of importance for us; what we desire to know is
what was really held and taught by these mystics of the Early Church.
Mr Mead, in his introductory remarks, summarizes the evidence as
follows: "The claim of thse Gnostics was practically that
Christianity, or rather the Good News of The Christ, was precisely the
consummation of the inner doctrine of the Mystery-institutions of all
the nations: the end of them all was the revelation of the Mystery of
Man."[3] In other words the teaching of these Naassenes was
practically a synthesis of all the Mystery-religions, and although
Hippolytus regards them as nothing more than devotees of the cult of
the Magna Mater, we shall see that, while their doctrine and teaching
are undoubtedly based mainly upon the doctrine and practices of the
Phrygian Mysteries, they practically identified the deity therein
worshipped, i.e., Attis, with the presiding deity of all the other
Mysteries.
Mr Mead draws attention to the fact that Hippolytus places these
Naassenes in the fore-front of his Refutation; they are the first
group of Heretics with whom he deals, and we may therefore conclude
that he considered them, if not the most important, at least the
oldest, of such sectaries.[4]
With these prefatory remarks it will be well to let the document speak
for itself. It is of considerable length, and, as we have seen, of
intricate construction. I shall therefore quote only from those
sections which bear directly upon the subject of our investigation;
any reader desirous of fuller information can refer to Mr Mead's work,
or to the original text published by Reitzenstein.[5]
At the outset it will be well to understand that the central doctrine
of all these Mysteries is what Reitzenstein sums up as "the doctrine
of the Man, the Heavenly Man, the Son of God, who descends and becomes
a slave of the Fate Sphere: the Man who, though originally endowed
with all power, descends into weakness and bondage, and has to win his
own freedom, and regain his original state. This doctrine is not
Egyptian, but seems to have been in its original part and parcel of
the Chaldean Mystery-tradition and was widely spread in Hellenistic
circles."[6]
Thus, in the introductory remarks prefixed by Hippolytus in the
document he is quoting he asserts that the Naassenes honour as the
Logos of all universals Man, and Son of Man--"and they divide him into
three, for they say he has a mental, psychic, and choic aspect; and
they think that the Gnosis of this Man is the beginning of the
possibility of knowing God, saying, 'The beginning of Perfection is
the Gnosis of Man, but the Gnosis of God is perfected Perfection.'
All these, mental, psychic, and earthy, descended together into one
Man, Jesus, the son of Mary."[7]
Thus the Myth of Men, the Mystery of Generation, is the subject matter
of the document in question, and this myth is set forth with reference
to all the Mysteries, beginning with the Assyrian.
Paragraph 5 runs: "Now the Assyrians call this Mystery Adonis, and
whenever it is called Adonis it is Aphrodite who is in love with and
desires Soul so-called, and Aphrodite is Genesis according to
them."[8]
But in the next section the writer jumps from the Assyrian to the
Phrygian Mysteries, saying, "But if the Mother of the Gods emasculates
Attis, she too regarding him as the object of her love, it is the
Blessed Nature above of the super-Cosmic, and Aeonian spaces which
calls back the masculine power of the Soul to herself."[9]
In a note to this Mr Mead quotes from The Life of Isidorus: "I fell
asleep and in a vision Attis seemed to appear to me, and on behalf of
the Mother of gods to initiate me into the feast called Hilario, a
mystery which discloses the way of our salvation from Hades."
Throughout the document reference is continually made to the Phrygians
and their doctrine of Man. The Eleusinian Mysteries are then treated
of as subsequent to the Phrygian, "after the Phrygians, the
Athenians," but the teaching is represented as being essentially
identical.
We have then a passage of great interest for our investigation, in
which the Mysteries are sharply divided into two classes, and their
separate content clearly defined. There are--"the little Mysteries,
those of the Fleshly Generation, and after men have been initiated
into them they should cease for a while and become initiated in the
Great, Heavenly, Mysteries--for this is the Gate of Heaven, and this
is the House of God, where the good God dwells alone, into which House
no impure man shall come."[10] Hippolytus remarks that "these
Naassenes say that the performers in theatres, they too, neither say
anything without design--for example, when the people assemble in the
theatre, and a man comes on stage clad in a robe different from all
others, with lute in hand on which he plays, and thus chants the Great
Mysteries, not knowing what he says:
'Whether blest Child of Kronos, or of Zeus, or of Great Rhea,
Hail Attis, thou mournful song of Rhea!
Assyrians call thee thrice-longed-for Adonis;
All Egypt calls thee Osiris;
The Wisdom of Hellas names thee Men's Heavenly Horn;
The Samothracians call thee august Adama;
The Haemonians, Korybas;
The Phrygians name thee Papa sometimes;
At times again Dead, or God, or Unfruitful, or Aipolos;
Or Green Reaped Wheat-ear;
Or the Fruitful that Amygdalas brought forth,
Man, Piper--Atlas?
This is the Attis of many forms, of whom they sing as follows:
'Of Attis will I sing, of Rhea's Beloved,
Not with the booming of bells,
Nor with the deep-toned pipe of Idaean Kuretes;
But I will blend my song with Phoebus' music of the lyre;
Evoi, Evan,--for thou art Pan, thou Bacchus art, and Shepherd of
bright stars!'"[11]
On this Hippolytus comments: "For thse and suchlike reasons these
Naassenes frequent what are called the Mysteries of the Great Mother,
believing that they obtain the clearest view of the universal Mystery
from the things done in them."
And after all this evidence of elaborate syncretism, this practical
identification of all the Mystery-gods with the Vegetation deity
Adonis-Attis, we are confronted in the concluding paragraph, after
stating that "the True Gate is Jesus the Blessed," with this
astounding claim, from the pen of the latest redactor, "And of all men
we alone are Christians, accomplishing the Mystery at the Third
Gate."[12]
Now what conclusions are to be drawn from this document which, in its
entirety, Mr Mead regards as "the most important source we have for
the higher side (regeneration) of the Hellenistic Mysteries"?
First of all, does it not provide a complete and overwhelming
justification of those scholars who have insisted upon the importance
of these Vegetation cults--a justification of which, from the very
nature of their studies, they could not have been aware?
Sir James Frazer, and those who followed him, have dealt with the
public side of the cult, with its importance as a recognized vehicle
for obtaining material advantages; it was the social, rather than the
individual, aspect which appealed to them. Now we find that in the
immediate pre- and post-Christian era thse cults were considered not
only the most potent factors for assuring the material prosperity of
land and folk, but were also held to be the most appropriate vehicle
for imparting the highest religious teaching. The Vegetation deities,
Adonis-Attis, and more especially the Phrygian god, were the chosen
guides to the knowledge of, and union with, the supreme Spiritual
Source of Life, of which they were the communicating medium.
We must remember that though the document before us is, in its actual
form, the expression of faith of a discredited 'Christian-Gnostic'
sect, the essential groundwork upon which it is elaborated belongs to
a period anterior to Christianity, and that the Ode in honour of Attis
quoted above not only forms part of the original source, but is, in
the opinion of competent critics, earlier than the source itself.
I would also recall to the memory of the reader the passage obviously
quoted from Cumont, in which he refers to the use made by the
Neo-Platonist philosophers of the Attis legend, as the mould into
which they poured their special theories of the universe, and of
generation.[13] Can the importance of a cult capable of such
far-reaching developments be easily exaggerated? Secondly, and of
more immediate importance for our investigation, is it not evident
that we have here all the elements necessary for a mystical
development of the Grail tradition? The Exoteric side of the cult
gives us the Human, the Folk-lore, elements--the Suffering King; the
Waste Land; the effect upon the Folk; the task that lies before the
hero; the group of Grail symbols. The Esoteric side provides us with
the Mystic Meal, the Food of Life, connected in some mysterious way
with a Vessel which is the center of the cult; the combination of that
vessel with a Weapon, a combination bearing a well-known 'generative'
significance; a double initiation into the source of the lower and
higher spheres of Life; the untimate proof of the successful issue of
the final test in the restoration of the King. I would ask any
hoest-minded critic whether any of the numerous theories previously
advanced has shown itself capable of furnishing so comprehensive a
solution of the ensemble problem?
At the same time it should be pointed out that the acceptance of this
theory of the origin of the story in no way excludes the possibility
of the introduction of other elements during the period of romantic
evolution. As I have previously insisted,[14] not all of those who
handled the theme knew the real character of the material with which
they were dealing, while even among those who did not know there were
some who allowed themselves considerable latitude in their methods of
composition; who did not scruple to introduce elements foreign to the
original Stoff, but which would make an appeal to the public of the
day. Thus while Bleheris who, I believe, really held a tradition of
the original cult, contented himself with a practically simple recital
of the initiations, later redactors, under the influence of the
Crusades, and the Longinus legend--possibly also actuated by a desire
to substitute a more edifying explanation than that originally
offered--added a directly Christian interpretation of the Lance. As
it is concerning the Lance alone that Gawain asks, the first
modification must have been at this point; the bringing into line of
the twin symbol, the Vase, would come later.
The fellowship, it may even be, the rivalry, between the two great
Benedictine houses of Fescamp and Glastonbury, led to the redaction,
in the interests of the latter, of a Saint-Sang legend, parallel to
that which was the genuine possession of the French house.[15] For we
must emphasize the fact that the original Joseph-Glastonbury story is
a Saint-Sang, and not a Grail legend. A phial containing the Blood of
our Lord was said to have been buried in the tomb of Joseph--surely a
cautious fate for so precious a relic--and the Abbey never laid claim
to the possession of the Vessel of the Last Supper.[16] Had it done
so it would certainly have become a noted centre of pilgrimage--as Dr
Brugger acutely remarks such relics are "visited, not sought after."
But there is reason to believe that the kindred Abbey of Fescamp had
developed its genuine Saint-Sang legend into a Grail romance, and
there is critical evidence to lead us to suppose that the text we know
as Perlesvaus was, in its original form, now is to be feared
practically impossible to reconstruct, connected with that Abbey. As
we have it, this alone, of all the Grail romances, connects the hero
alike with Nicodemus, and with Joseph of Arimathea, the respective
protagonists of the Saint-Sang legends; while its assertion that the
original Latin text was found in a holy house situated in marshes, the
burial place of Arthur and Guenevere, unmistakably points to
Glastonbury.
In any case, when Robert de Borron proposed to himself the task of
composing a trilogy on the subject the Joseph legend was already in a
developed form, and a fresh element, the combination of the Grail
legend with the story of a highly popular folk-tale hero, know in this
connection as Perceval (though he has had many names), was
established.
Borron was certainly aware of the real character of his material; he
knew the Grail cult as Christianized Myster, and, while following the
romance development, handled the them on distinctively religious
lines, preserving the Mystery element in its three-fold development,
and equating the Vessel of the Mystic Feast with the Christian
Eucharist. From what we now know of the material it seems certain
that the equation was already established, and that Borron was simply
stating in terms of romance what was already known to him in terms of
Mystery: In face of the evidence above set forth there can no longer
be any doubt that the Mystic Feast of the Nature cults really had, and
that at a very early date, been brought into touch with the Sacrament
of the Eucharist.
But to Chretien de Troyes the story was romance, pure and simple.
There was still a certain element of awe connected with the Grail, and
Grail Feast, but of the real meaning and origin of the incidents he
had, I am convinced, no idea whatever. Probably many modifications
were already in his source, but the result so far as his poem is
concerned is that he duplicated the character of the Fisher King; he
separated both, Father and Son, from the Wasted Land, transferring his
responsibility for the woes of the Land and Folk to the Quester,
who, although his failure might be responsible for their continuance,
never had anyting to do with their origin. He bestowed the wound of
the Grail King, deeply significant in its original conception and
connection, upon Perceval's father, a shadowy character, entirely
apart from the Grail tradition. There is no trace of the Initiation
elements in his poem, no Perilous Chapel, no welding of the Sword. We
have here passed completely and entirely into the land of romance, the
doors of the Temple are closed behind us. It is the story of Perceval
li Gallois, not the Ritual of the Grail, which fills the stage, and
with the story of Perceval there comes upon the scene a crowd of
Folk-tale themes, absolutely foreign to the Grail itself.
Thus we have not only the central theme of the lad reared in woodland
solitude, making his entrance into a world whose ordinary relations he
is absolutely and ludicrously ignorant, and the traditional
illustrations of the results of that ignorance, such as the story of
the Lady of the Tent and the stolen ring; but we have also the
sinister figure of the Red Knight with his Witch Mother; the three
drops of blood upon the snow, and the ensuing love trance; pure
Folk-tale themes, mingled with the more chivalric elements of the
rescue of a distressed maiden, and the vanquishing in single combat of
doughty antagonists, Giant, or Saracen. One and all of them elements
offering widespread popular parallels, and inviting the unwary critic
into paths which lead him far astray from the goal of his quest, the
Grail castle. I dispute in no way the possible presence of Celtic
elements in this complex. The Lance may well have borrowed at one
time features from early Irish tradition, at another details obviously
closely related to the Longinus legend. It is even possible that, as
Burdach insists, features of the Byzantine Liturgy may have coloured
the representation of the Grail procession, although, for my own part,
I consider such a theory highly improbable in view of the facts that
(a) Chretien's poem otherwise shows no traces of Oriental influence;
(b) the 'Spear' in the Eastern rite is simply a small pear-shaped
knife; (c) the presence of the lights is accounted for by the author
of Sone de Nansai on the ground of a Nativity legend, the authenticity
of which was pointed out by the late M. Gaston Paris; (d) it is only
in the later prose form that we find any suggestion of a Grail Chapel,
whereas were the source of the story really to be found in the Mass,
such a feature would certainly have had its place in the earliest
versions. But in each and all these cases the solution proposed has
no relation to other features in the story; it is consequently of
value in, and per se, only, and cannot be regarded as valid evidence
for the source of the legend as a whole. In the process of
transmutation from Ritual to Romance, the kernel, the Grail legend
proper, may be said to have formed for itself a shell composed of
accretions of widely differing provenance. It is the legitimate task
of criticism to analyse such accretions, and to resolve them into
their original elements, but they are accretions, and should be
treated as such, not confounded with the original and essential
material. After upwards of thirty years spent in careful study of the
Grail legend and romances I am firmly and entirely convinced that the
root origin of the whole bewildering complex is to be found in the
Vegetation Ritual, treated from the esoteric point of view as a
Life-Cult, and in that alone. Christian Legend, and traditional
Folk-tale, have undoubtedly contributed to the perfected romantic
corpus, but they are in truth subsidiary and secondary features; a
criticism that would treat them as original and primary can but defeat
its own object; magnified out of proportion they become
stumbling-blocks along the path, instead of sign-posts towards the
goal.
CHAPTER XII
Mithra and Attis
The fact that there was, at a very early date, among a certain sect of
Christian Gnostics, a well-developed body of doctrine, based upon the
essential harmony existing between the Old Faith and the New, which
claimed the means of a two-fold Initiation to impart to the inner
circle of its adherents the secret of life, physical and spiritual,
being, in face of the evidence given in the previous chapter, placed
beyond any possible doubt, we must now ask, is there any evidence that
such teaching survived for any length of time, or could have
penetrated to the British Isles, where in view of the priority of the
Bleheris-Gawain form, the Grail legend, as we know it, seems to have
originated? I think there is at least presumptive evidence of such
preservation, and transmission. I have already alluded to the close
connection existing between the Attis cult, and the worship of the
popular Persian deity, Mithra, and have given quotations from Cumont
illustrating this connection; it will be worth while to study the
question somewhat more closely, and discover, if possible, the reason
for this intimate alliance.
On the face of it there seems to be absolutely no reason for the
connection of these cults; the two duties in no way resemble each
other; the stories connected with them have no possible analogy; the
root conception is widely divergent.
With the character of the deity we know as Adonis, or Attis, we are
now thoroughly familiar. In the first instance it seems to be the
human element in the myth which is most insisted upon. He is a mortal
youth beloved by a great goddess; only after his tragic death does he
appear to assume divine attributes, and, alike in death and
resurrection, become the accepted personification of natural energies.
Baudissin, Adonis und Esmun, remarks that Adonis belongs to "a class
of beings of a very indefinite kind, which clarly stand above men but
below the great gods, and which possess less individuality than
these."[1] Such a criticism applies of course equally to Attis.
Mithra, on the other hand, occupies an entirely different position.
Cumont, in his Mysteres de Mithra, thus describes him; he is "the
spirit of celestial light. He is not the sun or the moon or the
stars, but the help of these thousand orbs and these two thousand
eyes, he watches over the world."[2]
His beneficent activites might seem to afford a meeting ground with
the Vegetation gods--"He grants increase and abundance, he enlarges
the flocks, he gives fertility and life."[3]
This summary might be aptly compared with the lament for Tammuz,
quoted in Chapter 3.
But the worship of Mithra in the form in which it spread throughout
the Roman Empire, Mithra as the god of the Imperial armies, the deity
beloved of the Roman legionary, was in no sense of this concrete and
material type.
This is how Cumont sums up the main features. Mithra is the Mediator,
who stands between "the inaccessible and unknowable God, who reigns in
the ethereal spheres, and the human race which suffers here
below."--"He is the Logos emanating from God and participating in all
His power, who, after having formed the world as a demiurge, continues
to watch over it." The initiates must practice a strict chastity.
"Resistance to sensuality was one of the aspects of the struggle
against the principle of evil--fundamentally, Mithraic dualism served
a very pure and efficacious mortality."[4]
Finally, Mithraism taught the resurrection of the body--Mithra will
descend upon earth, and will revive all men. "All will issue from
their graves, resume their former appearance and recognize each
other. All will be united in one great assembly, and the good will be
separated from the evil. Then in one supreme sacrifice Mithra will
immolate the divine bull, and mixing its fat with the consecrated wine
will offer to the righteous the cup of Eternal Life."[5]
The final parallel with the Messianic Feast described in Chapter 9 is
too striking to be overlooked.
The celestial nature of the deity is also well brought out in the
curious text edited by Dieterich from the great Magic Papyrus of the
Bibliotheque Nationale, and referred to in a previous chapter. This
text purports to be a formula of initiation, and we find the aspirant
ascending through the Seven Heavenly Spheres, to be finally met by
Mithra who brings him to the presence of God. So in the Mithraic
temples we find seven ladders, the ascent of which by the Initiate
typified by his passage to the seventh and supreme Heaven.[6]
Bousset points out that the original idea was the of three Heavens
above which was Paradise; the conception of Seven Heavens, ruled by
the seven Planets, which we find in Mithraism, is due to the influence
of Babylonian sidereal cults.[7]
There is thus a marked difference between the two initiations; the
Attis initiate dies, is possibly buried, and revives with his god; the
Mithra initiate rises direct to the celestial sphere, where he is met
and welcomed by his god. There is no evidence of the death and
resurrection of the deity.
What then is the point of contact between the cults that brought them
into such close and intimate relationship?
I think it must be sought in the higher teaching, which, under widely
differing external mediums, included elements common to both. In both
cults the final aim was the attainment of spiritual and eternal life.
Moreover, both possesed essential features which admitted, if they
did not encourage, an assimilation with Christianity. Both of them,
if forced to yield ground to their powerful rival, could, with a fair
show of reason, claim that they had been not vanquished, but
fulfilled, that their teaching had, in Christianity, attained its
normal term.
The extracts given above will show the striking analogy between the
higher docrine of Mithraism, and the fundamental teaching of its great
rival, a resemblance that was fully admitted, and which became the
subject of heated polemic. Greek philosophers did not hesitate to
establish a parallel entirely favourable to Mithraism, while Christian
apologists insisted that such resemblances were the work of the Devil,
a line of argument which, as we have seen above, they had already
adopted with regard to the older Mysteries. It is a matter of
historical fact that at one moment the religious fate of the West hung
in the balance, and it was an open question whether Mithraism or
Christianity would be the dominant Creed.[8]
On the other hand we have also seen that certainly one early Christian
sect, the Naassenes, while equally regarding the Logos as the center
of their belief, held the equivalent deity to be Attis, and frequented
the Phrygian Mysteries as the most direct source of spiritual
enlightenment, while the teaching as to the Death and Resurrection of
the god, and the celebration of a Mystic Feast, in which the
worshippers partook of the Food and Drink of Eternal Life, offered
parallels to Christian doctrine and practice to the full as striking
as any to be found in the Persian faith.
I would therefore submit that it was rather through the medium of
their inner, Esoteric, teaching, that the two faiths, so different in
their external practice, preserved so close and intimate a connection
and that, by the medium of that same Esoteric teaching, both alike
came into contact with Christianity, and, in the case of the Phrygian
cult, could, and actually did, claim identity with it.
Baudissin in his work above referred to suggests that the Adonis cult
owed its popularity to its higher, rather than to its lower, elements,
to its suggestion of ever-renewing life, rather than to the
satisfaction of physical desire to be found in it.[9] Later evidence
seems to prove that he judged correctly.
We may also note that the Attis Mysteries were utilized by the priests
of Mithra for the initiation of women who were originally excluded
from the cult of the Persian god. Cumont remarks that this, an
absolute rule in the Western communities, seems to have had exceptions
in the Eastern.[10] Is it possible that the passage quoted in the
previous chapter, in which Perceval is informed that no woman may
speak of the Grail, is due to contamination with Mithra worship? It
does not appear to be in harmony with the prominent position assigned
to women in the Grail ritual, the introduction of a femail Grail
messenger, or the fact that (with the exception of Merlin in the
Borron text) it is invariably a maiden who directs the hero on his
road to the Grail castle, or reproaches him for his failure there.
But there is little doubt that, separately, or in conjunction, both
cults travelled to the furthest borders of the Roman Empire. The
medium of transmission is very fully discussed by Cumont in both of
the works referred to. The channel appears to have been three-fold.
First, commercial, through the medium of Syrian merchants. As
ardently religious as practically business-like, the Syrians
introduced their native deities wherever they penetrated, "founding
their chapels at the same time as their counting-houses."[11]
Secondly, there was social penetration--by means of the Asiatic
slaves, who formed a part of most Roman households, and the State
employes, such as officers of customs, army paymasters, etc., largely
recruited from Oriental sources.
Thirdly, and most important, were the soldiers, the foreign legions,
who, drawn mostly from the Eastern parts of the Empire, brought their
native deities with them. Cumont signalizes as the most active agents
of the dispersion of the cult of Mithra, Soldiers, Slaves, and
Merchants.[12]
As far North as Hadrian's Dyke there has bee nfound an inscription in
verse in honour of the goddess of Hierapolis, the author of a prefect,
probably, Cumont remarks, the officer of a cohort of Hamii, statined
in this distant spot. Dedications to Melkart and Astarte have been
found at Corbridge near Newcastle. The Mithraic remains are
practically confined to garrison centres, London, York, Chester,
Caerleon-on-Usk, and along Hadrian's Dyke.[13] From the highly
interesting map attached to the Study, giving the sites of ascertained
Mithraic remains, there seems to have been such a centre in
Pembrokeshire.
Now in view of all this evidence is it not at least possible that the
higher form of the Attis cult, that in which it was known and
practised by early Gnostic Christians, may have been known in Great
Britain? Scholars have bee nstruck by the curiously unorthodox tone
of the Grail romances, their apparent insistence on a succession quite
other than the accredited Apostolic tradition, and yet, according to
the writers, directly received from Christ Himself. The late
M. Paulin Paris believed that the source of this peculiar feature was
to be found in the struggle for independence of the early British
Church; but, after all, the differences of that Church with Rome
affected only minor points of discipline: the date of Easter, the
fashion of tonsure of the clergy, nothing which touched vital
doctrines of the Faith. Certainly the British Church never claimed
the possession of a revelation a part, but if the theory based upon
the evidence of the Naassene document be accepted such a presentation
can well be accounted for. According to Hippolytus the doctrines of
the sect were derived from James, the brother of Our Lord, and Clement
of Alexandria asserts that "The Lord imparted the Gnosis to James the
Just, to John and to Peter, after His Resurrection; these delivered it
to the rest of the Apostles, and they to the Seventy."[14] Thus the
theory proposed in these pages will account not only for the
undeniable parallels existing between the Vegetation cults and the
Grail romances, but also for the Heterodox colouring of the latter,
two elements which at first sight would appear to be wholly
unconnected, and quite incapable of relation to a common source.
Nor in view of the persistent vitality and survival, even to our own
day, of the Exoteric practices can there be anything improbable in the
hypothesis of a late survival of the Esoteric side of the ritual.
Cumont points out that the worship of Mithra was practised in the
fifth century in certain remote cantons of the Alps and the
Vosges--i.e., at the date historically assigned to King Arthur. This
it would not be in any way surprising if a tradition of the survival
of these semi-Christian rites at this period also existed.[15] In my
opinion it is the tradition of such a survival which lies at the root,
and explains the confused imagery, of the text we know as the
Elucidation. I have already, in my short study of the subject, set
forth my views; as I have since found further reasons for maintaining
the correctness of the solution proposed, I will repeat it here.[16]
The text in question is found in three of our existing Grail versions:
in the MS. of Mons; in the printed edition of 1530; and in the German
translation of Wisse-Colin. It is now prefixed to the poem of
Chretien de Troyes, but obviously, from the content, had originally
nothing to do with that version.
It opens with the passage quoted above (p. 137) in which Master Blihis
utters his solemn warning against revealing the secret of the Grail.
It goes on to tell how aforetime there were maidens deelling in the
hills[17] who brought forth to the passing traveller food and drink.
But King Armangons outranged one of these maidens, and took away from
her her golden Cup:
"One of the maidens he took by force
and from her seized her golden cup."[18]
His knights, when they saw their lord act thus, followed his evil
example, forced the fairest of the maidens, and robbed them of their
cups of gold. As a result the springs dried up, the land became
waste, and the court of Rich Fisher, which had filled the land with
plenty, could no longer be found.
For 1000 years the land lies waste, till, in the days of King Arthur,
his knights find maidens wandering in the woods, each with her
attendant knight. They joust, and one, Blihos-Bliheris, vanguished by
Gawain, comes to court and tells how these maidens are the descendants
of those ravished by King Amangons and his men, and how, could the
court of the Fisher King, and the Grail, once more be found, the land
would again become fertile. Blihos-Bliheris is, we are told, so
entrancing a story-teller that none at court could ever weary of
listening to his words.
The natural result, which here does not imediately concern us, was
that Arthur's knights undertook the quest, and Gawain achieved it. Now
at first sight this account apprars to be nothing but a fantastic
fairy-tale (as such Professor Brown obviously regarded it), and
although the late Dr Sebastian Evans attempted in all seriousness to
find a historical basis for the story in the events which provoked the
pronouncement of the Papal Interdict upon the realm of King John, and
the consequent deprivation of the Sacraments, I am not aware that
anyone took the solution seriously. Yet, on the basis of the theory
now set forth, is it not possible that there may be a real foundation
of historical fact at the root of this wildly picturesque tale? May
it not be simple a poetical version of the disappearance from the land
of Britain of the open performance of an ancient Nature ritual? A
ritual that lingered on in the hills and mountains of Wales as the
Mithra worship did in the Alps and Vosges, celebrated as that cult
habitually was, in natural caverns, and mountain hollows? That it
records the outrage offered by some, probably local, chieftain to a
priestess of the cult, an evil example followed by his men, and the
subsequent cessation of the public celebration of the rites, a
cessation which in the folk-belief would certainly be held sufficient
to account for any subsequent drought that might affect the land? But
the ritual, in its higher, esoteric form, was still secretly observed,
and the tradition, alike of its disappearance as a public cult, and of
its persistence in some carefully hidden strong-hold, was handed on in
the families of those who had been, perhaps still were, officiants of
these rites.
That among the handers on of the torch would be the descendants of the
outraged maidens, is most probable. The snese of mystery, of a real
danger to be faced, of an overwhelming Spiritual gain to be won, were
of the essential nature of the tale. It was the very mystery of Life
which lay beneath the picturesque wrappings; small wonder that the
Quest of the Grail became the synonym for the highest achievement that
could be set before men, and that when the romantic evolution of the
Arthurian tradition reached its term, this supreme adventure was swept
within the magic circle. The knowledge of the Grail was the utmost
man could achieve, Arthur's knights were the very flower of manhood,
it was fitting that to them the supreme test be offered. That the man
who first told the story, and boldly, as befitted a born teller of
tales, weddit it to the Arthurian legend, was himself actually held
the Secret of the Grail, and told, in purposely romantic form, that of
which he knew, I am firmly convinced, nor do I think that the time is
far distant when the missing links will be in hand, and we shall be
able to weld once more the golden chain which connects Ancient Ritual
and Medieval Romance.
CHAPTER XIII
The Perilous Chapel
Students of the Grail romances will remember that in many of the
versions the hero--sometimes it is a heroine--meets with a strange and
terrfying adventure in a mysterious Chapel, an adventure which, we are
given to understand, is fraught with extreme peril to life. The
details vary: sometimes there is a Dead Body laid on the altar;
sometimes a Black Hand extinguishes the tapers; there are strange and
threatening voices, and the general impression is that this is an
adventure in which supernatural, and evil forces are engaged.
Such an adventure befalls Gawain on his way to the Grail castle.[1]
He is overtaken by a terrible storm, and coming to a Chapel, standing
at a crossways in the middle of a forest, enters the shelter. The
altar is bare, with no cloth, or covering, nothin is thereon but a
great golden candlestick with a tall taper burning within it. Behind
the altar is a window, and as Gawain looks a Hand, black and hideous,
comes through the window, and extinguishes the taper, while a voice
makes lamentation loud and dire, beneath which the very building
rocks. Gawain's horse shies for terror, and the knight, making the
sign of the Cross, rides out of the Chapel, to find the storm abated,
and the great wind fallen. Thereafter the night was calm and clear.
In the Perceval section of Wauchier and Maessier we find the same
adventure in a dislocated form.[2]
Perceval, seeking the Grail castle, rides all day through a heavy
storm, which passes off at nightfall, leaving the weather calm and
clear. He rides all day through a heavy storm, which passes off at
nightfall, leaving the weather calm and clear. He rides by moonlight
through the forest, till he sees before him a great oak, on the
branches of which are lighted candles, ten, fifteen, twenty, or
twenty-five. The knight rides quickly towards it, but as he comes
near the lights vanish, and he only sees before him a fair little
Chapel, with a candle shining through the open door. He enters, and
finds on the altar the body of a dead knight, covered with a rich
samite, a candle burning at his feet.
Perceval remains some time, but nothing happens. At midnight he
departs; scarcely has he left the Chapel when, to his great surprise,
the light is extinguished.
The next day he reaches the castle of the Fisher King, who asks him
where he passed the preceding night. Perceval tells him of the
Chapel; the King sighs deeply, but makes no comment.
Wauchier's section breaks off abruptly in the middle of this episode;
when Manessier takes up the story he gives explanations of the Grail,
etc., at great length, explanations which do not at all agree with the
indications of his predecessor. When Perceval asks of the Chapel he
is told it was built by Queen Brangemore of Cornwall, who was later
murdered by her son Espinogres, and buried beneath the altar. Many
knights have since been slain there, none know by whom, save it be by
the Black Hand which appeared and put out the light. (As we saw above
it had not appeared.) The enchantment can only be put an end to if a
valiant knight will fight the Black Hand, and, taking a veil kept in
the Chapel, will dip it in holy water, and sprinkle the walls, after
which the enchantment will cease.
At a much later point Manessier tells how Perceval, riding through the
forest, is overtaken by a terrible storm. He takes refuge in a Chapel
which he recognizes as that of the Black Hand. The Hand appears,
Perceval fights against and wounds it; then appears a Head; finally
the Devil in full form who seizes Perceval as he is about to seek the
veil of which he has been told. Perceval makes the sign of the Cross,
on which the Devil vanishes, and the knight falls insensible before
the altar. On reviving he takes the veil, dips it in holy water, and
sprinkles the walls within and without. He sleeps there that night,
and the next morning, on waking, sees a belfry. He rings the bell,
upon which an old man, followed by two thers, appears. He tells
Perceval he is a priest, and has buried 3000 knights slain by the
Black Hand; every day a knight has been slain, and every day a marble
tomb stands ready with the name of the victim upon it. Queen
Brangemore founded the cemetery, and was the first to be buried within
it. (But according to the version given earlier she was buried
beneath the altar.) We have here evidently a combination of two
themes, Perilous Chapel and Perilous Cemetery, originally independent
of each other. In other MSS. the Wauchier adventure agrees much more
closely with the Manessier sequel, the Hand appearing, and
extinguishing the light. Sometimes the Hand holds a bridle, a feature
probably due to contamination with a Celtic Folk-tale, in which a
mysterious Hand (here that of a giant) steals on their birth-night a
Child, and a foal.[3] These Perceval versions are manifestly confused
and dislocated, and are probably drawn from more than one source.
In the Queste Gawain and Hector de Maris come to an old and ruined
Chapel where they pass the night. Each has a marvellous dream. The
next morning, as they are telling each other their respective visions,
they see, "a Hand, showing unto the elbow, and was covered with red
samite, and upon that hung a bridle, not rich, and held withing the
fist a great candle that burnt right clear, and so passed afore them,
and entered into the Chapel, and then vanished away, and they wist not
where."[4] This seems tob e an unitelligent borrowing from the
Perceval version.
We have, also, a group of visits to the Perilous Chapel, or Perilous
Cemetery, which appear to be closely connected with each other. In
each case the object of the visit is to obtain a portion of the cloth
which covers the altar, or a dead body lying upon the altar. The
romances in question are the Perlesvause, the prose Lancelot, and the
Chevalier a deux Espees. The respective protagonists bein Perceval's
sister, Sir Lancelot, and the young Queen of Garadigan, whoe city has
been taken by King Ris and who dars the venture to win her freedom.
In the first case the peril appears to lie in the Cemetery, which is
surrounded by the ghosts of knights slain in the forest, and buried in
unconsecrated ground. The Lancelot version is similar, but here the
title is definitely Perilous Chapel. In the last version there is no
hint of a Cemetery.
In the Lancelot version there is a dead knight on the altar, whose
sword Lancelot takes in addition to the piece of cloth. In the poem a
knight is brought in, and buried before the altar; the young queen,
after cutting off a piece of the altar cloth, uncovers the boody, and
buckles on the sword. There is no mention of a Hand in any of the
three versions, which appear to be late and emasculated forms of the
theme.
The earliest mention of a Perilous Cemetery, as distinct from a
Chapel, appears to be in the Chastel Orguellous section of the
Perceval, as section probably derived from a very early stratum of
Arthurian tradition. Here Arthur and his knights, on their way to the
siege of Chastel Orguellous, come to the Vergier des Sepoltures, where
the eat with the Hermits, of whom there are a hundred and more.
"There is none could ever tell
Of the graveyard's marvellous spell,
Its wonders so diverse and great
No one alive could now relate
Or even dream that there could be
Such things as these for men to see."[6]
But there is no hint of a Perilous Chapel here.
The adventures of Gawain in the Atre Perilleus,[7] and of Gawain and
Hector in the Lancelopt of the final cyclic prose version, are of the
most banal description; the theme, originally vivid and picturesque,
has become wateeed down into a meaningless adventure of the most
conventional type.
But originally a high importance seems to have been attached to it.
If we turn back to the first version given, that of which Gawain is
the hero, we shall find a special stress is laid on this adventure, as
being part of 'the Secret of the Grail,' of which no man may speak
without grave danger.[8] We are told that, but for Gawain's loyalty
and courtesy, he would not have survived the perils of that night. In
the same way Percival, before reaching the Fisher King's castle, meets
amaiden, of whom he asks the meaning of the lighted tree, Chapel, etc.
She tells him it is all part of the saint secret of the Grail.[9] Now
what does this mean? Unless I am much mistaken the key is to be found
in a very curious story related in the Perlesvaus, which is twice
referred to in texts of a professedly historical character. The tale
runs thus. King Arthur has fallen into slothful and faineant ways,
much to the grief of Guenevere, who sees her lord's fame and prestige
waning day by day. In this crisis she urges him to visit the Chapel
of Saint Austin, a perilous adventure, but one that may well restore
his reputation. Arthur agrees; he will take with him only one squire;
the place is too dangerous. He calls a youth named Chaus, the son of
Yvain the Bastard, and bids him to be ready to ride with him at dawn.
The lad, fearful of over-sleeping, does not undress, but lies down as
he is in the hall. He falls asleep--and it seems to him that the King
has wakened and gone without him. Thus he comes to a forest glade,
where he sees a Chapel, set in the midst of a grave-yard. He enters,
but the King is not there; there is no living thing, only the body of
a knight on a bier, with tapers burning in golden candlesticks at head
and foot. Chaus takes out one of the tapers, and thrusting the golden
candlestick betwixt hose and thigh, remonts and rides back in search
of the King. Before he has gone far he meets a man, black, and
foul-favoured, armed with a large two-edged knife. He asks, has he
met King Arthur? The man answers, No, but he has met him, Chaus; he
is a thief and a traitor; he has stolen the golden candlestick; unless
he gives it up he shall pay for it dearly. Chaus refuses, and the man
smites him in the side with the knife. With a loud cry the lad
awakes, he is lying in the hall at Cardoil, wounded to the death, the
knife in his side and the golden candlestick still in his hose.
He lives long enough to tell the story, confess, and be shriven, and
then dies. Arthur, with the consent of his father, gives the
candlestick to the church of Saint Paul, then newly founded, "for he
would that his marvellous adventure should everywhere be known, and
that prayer should be made for the soul of the squire."[10]
The pious wish of the King seems to have been fulfilled, as the story
was certainly well known, and appears to have bee naccepted as a
genuine tradition. Thus the author of the Histoire de Fulk Fitz-Warin
gives a resume of the adventure, and asserts that the Chapel of Saint
Austin referred to was situated in Fulk's patrimony, i.e., in the
tract known as the Blaunche Launde, situated in Shropshire, on the
border of North Wales. As source for the tale he refers to Le Graal,
le lyvre de le Seint Vassal, and goes on to state that here King
Arthur recovered sa bounte et sa valur when he had lost his knighthood
and fame. This obviously refers to the Perlesvaus romance, though
whether in its present, or in an earlier form, it is impossible to
say. In any case the author of the Histoire evidently thought that
the Chapel in question really existed, and was to be located in
Shropshire.[11] But John of Glastonbury also refers to the story, and
he connects it with Glastonbury.[12]
Now how can we account for so wild, and at first sight so improbable,
a tale assuming what we may term a semi-historical character, and
becoming connected with a definite and precise locality?--a feature
which is, as a rule, absent from the Grail stories.
At the risk of startling my readers I must express my opinion that it
was because the incidents recorded were a reminiscence of something
which had actually happened, and which, owing to the youth, and
possible social position, of the victim, had made a profound
impression upon the popular imagination.
For this is the story of an initiation (or perhaps it would be more
correct to say the test of fitness for an initiation) carried out on
the astral plane, and reacting with fatal results upon the physical.
We have already seen in the Naassene document that the Mystery ritual
comprised a double initiation, the Lower, into the mysteries of
generation, i.e., of physical Life; the higher, into the Spiritual
Divine Life, where man is made one with God.[13]
Some years ago I offered the suggestion that the test for the primary
initiation, that into the sources of physical life, would probably
consist in a contact with the horrors of physical death, and that the
tradition of the Perilous Chapel, which survives in the Grail romances
in confused and contaminated form, was a reminiscence of the test for
this lower initiation.[14] This would fully account for the
importance ascribed to it in the Bleheris-Gawain form, and for the
asserted connection with the Grail. It was not till I came to study
the version of the Perlesvaus, with a view to determining its original
provenance, that I recognized its extreme importance for critical
purposes. The more one studies this wonderful legend the more one
discovers significance in what seem at first to be entirely
independent and unrelated details. If the reader will refer to my
Notes on the Perlesvaus, above referred to, he will find that the
result of an investigation into the evidence for locale pointed to the
conclusion that the author of the Histoire de Fulk Fitz-Warin and most
probably also the author of the Perlesvause before him, were mistaken
in their identification, that there was no tradition of any such
Chapel in Shropshire, and consequently no tale of its foundation, such
as the author of the Histoire relates. But I was also able to show
that further north, in Northumberland, there was also a Blanchland,
connected with the memory of King Arthur, numerous dedications to
Saint Austin, and a tradition of that Saint driving out the local
demons closely analogous to the tale told of the presumed Shropshire
site. I therefore suggested that inasmuch as the Perlesvaus
represented Arthur as holding his court at Cardoil (Carlisle), the
Northarn Blanchland, which possessed a Chapel of Saint Austin, and lay
within easy reach, was probably the original site rather than the
Shropshire Blaunche Launde, which had no Chapel, and was much further
away.
Now in view of the evidence set forth in the last chapter, is it not
clear that this was a locality in which these semi-Pagan,
semi-Christian, rites, might, prima facie, be expected to linger on?
it is up here, along the Northern border, that the Roman legionaries
were stationed; it is here that we find monuments and memorials of
their heathen cults; obviously this was the locality where the
demon-hunting activities of the Saint might find full scope for
action. I would submit that there is at least presumtive evidence
that we may here be dealing with the survival of a genuine tradition.
And should any of my readers find it difficult to believe that, even
did initiations take place, and even were they of a character that
involved a stern test of mental and physical endurance--and I imagine
most scholars would admit that there was, possibly, more in the
original institutions, than, let us say, in a modern admission to
Free-Masonry--yet it is 'a far cry' from pre-Christian initiations to
Medieval Romance, and a connection between the two is a rash
postulate, I would draw their attention to the fact that, quite apart
from our Grail texts, we possess a romance which is, plainly, and
blatantly, nothing more or less than such a record. I refer, of
course, to Owain Miles, or The Purgatory of Saint Patrick, where we
have an account of the hero, after purification by fasting and prayer,
descending into the Nether World, passing through the abodes of the
Lost, finally reaching Paradise, and returning to earth after Three
Days, a reformed and regenerated character.[15]
"Then with his monks the Prior anon,
With Crosses and with Gonfanon
Went to that hole forthright,
Thro' which Knight Owain went below,
There, as of burning fire the glow,
They saw a gleam of light;
And right amidst that beam of light
He came up, Owain, God's own knight,
By this knew every man
That he in Paradise had been,
And Purgatory's pains had seen,
And was a holy man."
Now if we turn to Bousset's article Himmelfahrt der Seele, to which I
have previously referred (p. 167), we shall find abundant evidence
that such a journey to the Worlds behond was held to be a high
spiritual adventure of actual possibility--a venture to be undertaken
by those who, greatly daring, felt that the attainment of actual
knowledge of the Future Life was worth all the risks, and they were
great and terrible, which such an enterprise involved.
Bousset comments fully on Saint Paul's claim to have been 'caught up
into the Third Heaven' and points out that such an experience was the
property of the Rabbinical school to which Saul of Tarsus had
belonged, and was brought over by him from his Jewish past; such
experiences were rare in Orthodox Christianity.[16] According to
Jewish classical tradition but one Rabbi had successfully passed the
test, other aspirants either failing at a preliminary stage, or, if
they persevered, losing their senses permanently. The practice of
this ecstatic ascent ceased among Jews in the second century A.D.
Bousset also gives instances of the soul leaving the body for three
days, and wandering through other worlds, both good and evil, and also
discusses the origin of the bridge which must be crossed to reach
Paradise, both features characteristic of the Owain poem.[17] In fact
the whole study is of immense importance for a critical analysis of
the sources of the romance in question.
And here I would venture to beg the adherents of the 'Celtic' school
to use a little more judgment in their attribution of sources. Visits
to the Otherworld are not always derivations from Celtic Fairy-lore.
Unless I am mistaken the root of this theme is fare more deeply
imbedded than in the shifting sands of Folk and Fairy tale. I believe
it to be essentially a Mystery tradition; the Otherworld is not a
myth, but a reality, and in all ages there have been souls who have
been willing to brave the great adventure, and to risk all for the
chance of bringing back with them some assurance of the future life.
Naturally these ventures passed into tradition with the men who risked
them. The early races of men became semi-mythic, their beliefs, their
experiences, receded into a land of mist, where their figures assumed
fantastic outlines, and the record of their deeds departed more and
more widely from historic accuracy.
Thoe poets and dreamers wove their magic webs, and a world apart from
a world of actual experience came to life. But it was not all myth,
nor all fantasy; there was a basis of truth and reality at the
foundation of the mystic growth, and a true criticism will not rest
conetent with wandering in these enchanted lands, and holding all it
meets with for the outcome of human imagination.
The truth may lie very deep down, but it is there, and it is worth
seeking, and Celtic fairy-tales, charming as they are, can cnever
afford a satisfactory, or abiding, resting place. I, for one, utterly
refuse to accept such as an adequate goal for a life's research. A
path that leads but into a Celtic Twilight can only be a by-path, and
not the King's Highway!
The Grail romances repose eventually, not upon a poet's imagination,
but upon the ruins of an august and ancient ritual, a ritual which
once claimed to be the accredited guardian of the deepest secrets of
Life. Driven from its high estate by the relentless force of
religious evolution--for after all Adonis, Attis, and their congeners,
were but the 'half-gods' who must needs yield place when 'the Gods'
themselves arrive--it yet lingered on; openly, in Folk practice, in
Fast and Feast, whereby the well-being of the land might be assured;
secretly, in cave or mountain-fastness, or island isolation, where
those who craved for a more sensible (not necessarily sensuous)
contact with the unseen Spiritual forces of Life than the orthodox
development of Christianity afforded, might, and did, find
satisfaction.
Were the Templars such? Had they, when in the East, come into touch
with a survival of the Naassene, or some kindred sect? It seems
exceedingly probable. If it were so we could understand at once the
puzzling connection of the Order with the Knights of the Grail, and
the doom which fell upon them. That they were held to be Heretics is
very generally admitted, buin in what their Heresy consisted no one
really knows; little credence can be attached to stories of idol
worship often repeated. If their Heresy, however, were such as
indicated above, a Creed which struck at the very root and vitals of
Christianity, we can understand at once the reason for punishment, and
the necessity for secrecy. In the same was we can now understand why
the Church knows nothing of the Grail; why that Vessel, surrounded as
it is with an atmosphere of reverence and awe, equated with the
central Sacrament of the Christian Faith, yet appears in no legendary,
is figured in no picture, comes on the scene in no Passion Play. The
Church of the eleventh and twelfth centuries knew well what the Grail
was, and we, when we realize its genesis and true lineage, need no
longer wonder why a themse, for some short space so famous and so
fruitful a source of literary inspiration, vanished utterly and
completely from the world of literature.
Were Grail romances forbidden? Or were they merely discouraged?
Probably we shall never know, but of this one thing we may be sure,
the Grail is a living force, it will never die; it may indeed sink out
of sight, and, for centuries even, disappear from the field of
literature, but it will rise to the surface again, and become once
more a theme of vital inspiration even as, after slumbering from the
days of Malory, it woke to new life in the nineteenth century, making
its fresh appeal through the genius of Tennyson and Wagner.
CHAPTER XIV
The Author
Having now completed our survey of the various elements which have
entered into the composite fabric of the Grail Legend, the question
naturally arises where, and when, did that legend assume romantic
form, and to whom should we ascribe its literary origin?
On these crucial points the evidence at our disposal is far from
complete, and we can do littel more than offer suggestions towards the
solution of the problem.
With regard to the first point, that of locality, the evidence is
unistakably in favour of a Celtic, specifically a Welsh, source. As a
literary theme the Grail is closely connected with the Arthurian
tradition. The protagonist is one of Arthur's knights, and the hero
of the earlier version, Gawain, is more closely connected with Arthur
than are his successors, Perceval and Galahad. The Celtic origin of
both Gawain and Perceval is beyond doubt; and the latter is not merely
a Celt, but is definitely Welsh; he is always 'li Galois.' Galahad I
hold to be a literary, and not a traditional, hero; he is the product
of deliberate literary invention, and has no existence outside the
frame of the later cyclic redactions. It is not possible at the
precent moment to say whether the Queste was composed in the British
Isles, or on the continent, but we may safely lay it down as a basic
principle that the original Grail heroes are of insular origin, and
that the Grail legend, in its romantic, and literary, form is closely
connected with British pseudo-historical tradition.
The beliefs and practices of which, if the theory maintained in these
pages be correct, the Grail stories offer a more or lesscoherent
survival can be shown, on the evidence of historic monuments, and
surviving Folk-customs, to have been popular throughout the area of
the British Isles; while, with regard to the higher teaching of which
I hold these practices to have been the vehicle, Pliny comments upon
the similarity existing between the ancient Magian Gnosis and the
Druidical Gnosis of Gaul and Britain, an indication which in the
dearth of accurate information concerning the teaching of the Druids,
is of considerable value.[1]
As we noted in the previous chapter, an interesting parallel exists
between Wales, and localities, suchy as the Alps, and the Vosges,
where we have definite proof that these Mystery cults lingered on
after they had disappeared from public celebration. The Chart
appended to Cumont's Monuments de Mithra shows Mithraic remains is
precisely the locality where we have reason to believe certain of the
Gawain and Perceval stories to have originated.
As to the date of origin, that, of course, is closely connected with
the problem of authorship; if we can, with any possibility, identify
the author we can approximately fix the date. So far as the literary
evidence is concerned, we have no trace of the story before the
twelfth century, but when we do meet with it, it is already in
complete, and crystallized form. More, there is already evidence of
competing versions; we have no existing Grail romance which we can
claim to be free from contamination, and respresenting in all respects
the original form.
There is no need here to go over old, and well-trodden, ground; in my
studies of the Perceval Legend, and in the later popular resume of the
evidence,[2] The Quest of the Holy Grail, I have analysed the texts,
and shown that, while the poem of Chretien de Troyes is our earliest
surviving literary version, there is the strongest possible evidence
that Chretien, as he himself admits, was not inventing, but
re-telling, an already popular tale.[3] The Grail Quest was a theme
which had been treated not once nor twice, but of which numerous, and
conflicting, versions were already current, and, when Wauchier de
Denain undertook to complete Chretien's unfinished work, he drew
largely upon these already existing forms, regardless of the fact that
they not only contradicted the version they were stensibly completing,
but were impossible to harmonize with each other.
It is of importance for our investigation, however, to note that where
Wauchier does refer to a definite source, it is to an evidently
important and alread famous collection of tales, Le Grant Conte,
comprising several 'Branches,' the hero of the collection being not
Chretien's hero, Perceval, but Gawain, who, both in pseudo-historic
and romantic tradition, is far more closely connected with the
Arthurian legend, occupying, as he does, the traditional position of
nephew, Sister's Son, to the monarch who is the centre of the cycle;
even as Cuchullinn is sister's son to Conchobar, Diarmid to Finn,
Tristan to Mark, and Roland to Charlemagne. In fact this relationship
was so obviously required by tradition that we find Perceval figuring
now as sister's son to Arthur, no to the Grail King, according as the
Arthurian, or the Grail, tradition dominates the story.[4]
The actual existence of such a group of tales as those referred to by
Wauchier derives confirmation from our surviving Gawain poems, as well
as from the references in the Elucidation, and on the evidence at our
disposal I have ventured to suggest the hypothesis of a group of
poems, dealing with the adventures of Gawain, his son, and brother,
the ensemble being originally known as The Geste of Syr Gawayne, a
title which, in the inappropriate form The Jest of Sir Gawain, is
preserved in the English version of that hero's adventure with the
sister of Brandelis.[5] So keen a critic as Dr Brugger has not
hesitated to accept the theory of the existence of this Geste, and is
of opinion that the German poem Diu Crone may, in part at least, be
derived from this source.
The central adventure ascribed to Gawain in this group of tails is
precisely the visit to the Grail castle to which we have already
referred, and we have pointed out that the manner in which it is
related, its directness, simplicity, and conformity with what we know
of the Mystery teaching presumably involved, taken in connection with
the personality of the hero, and his position in Arthurian romantic
tradition, appear to warrant us in assigning to it the position of
priority among the conflicting versions we possess.
At two points in the re-telling of these Gawain tales Wauchier
definitely refers to the author by name, Bleheris. On the second
occasion he states categorically that this Bleheris was of Welsh birth
and origin, ne et engenuis en Galles, and that he told the tale in
connection with which the statement is made to a certain Comte de
Poitiers, whose favourite story it was, he loved it above all others,
which would imply that it was not the only tale Bleheris had told
him.[6]
As we have seen in a previous chapter, the Elucidation prefaces its
account of the Grail Quest by a solemn statement of the gravity of the
subject to be treated, and a warning of the penalties which would
follow on a careless revelation to the secret. These warnings are put
into the mouth of a certain Master Blihis, concerning whom we hear no
more. A little further on in the poem we meet with a knight,
Blihos-Bliheris, who, made prisoner by Gawain, reveals to Arthur and
his court the identity of the maidens wandering in the woods, of the
Fisher King, and the Grail, and is so good a story-teller that none
can weary of listening to his tales.[7]
Again, in the fragmentary remains of Thomas's Tristan we have a
passage in which the poet refers, as source, to a certain Breri, who
knew "all the feats, and all the tales, and all the kings, and all the
counts who had lived in Britain."[8]
Finally, Giraldus Cambrensis refers to "that famous story-teller,"
Bledhericus, who had lived "shortly before our time" and whose renown
he evidently takes for granted was familiar to his readers.
Now are we told that the Bleheris who, according to Wauchier, had told
tales concerning Gawain, and Arthur's court, one of which tales was
certainly the Grail adventure; the Master Blihis, who knew the Grail
mystery, and gave solemn warning against its revelation; the
Blihos-Bliheris, who knew of the Grail, and many other tales; the
Breri, who knew all the legendary tales concerning the princes of
Britain; the famous story-teller Bledhericus, of whom Giraldus speaks,
are distinct and separate personages, or mere inventions of the
separate writers, or do all these passages refer to one and the same
individual, who, in that case, may well have deserved the title
famosus ille fabulator?
With regard to the attitude taken up by certain critics, that no
evidential value can be attached to these references, I would point
out that when Medieval writers quote an authority for their statements
they, as a rule, refer to a writer whose name carries weight, and will
impress their readers; they are offering a guarantee for the
authenticity of their statements. The special attribution may be
purely fictitious but the individual referred to enjoys an established
reputation. Thus, the latter cyclic redactions of Arthurian romances
are largely attributed to Walter Map, who, in view of this public
position, and political activities, could certainly never have had
the leisure to compose one half of the literature with which he is
credited! In the same way Robert de Borron, Chretien de
Troyes, Wolfram von Eschenbach, are all referred to as sources without
any justification in fact. Nor is it probable that Wauchier, who
wrote on the continent, and who, if he be really Wauchier de Denain,
was under the patronage of the Count of Flanders, would have gone out
of his way to invent a Welsh source.
Judging from the analogy, the actual existence of a personage named
Bleheris, who enjoyed a remarkable reputation as a story-teller, is,
prima-facie, extremely probable.[9]
But are these references independent, was there more than one
Bleheris? I think not. The name is a proper, and not a family,
name. In the latter case it might be possible to argue that we were
dealing with separate members of a family, or group, of bardic poets,
whose office it was to preserve, and relate, the national legends.
But we are dealing with variants of a proper name, and that of
distinctly insular, and Welsh origin.[10]
The original form, Bledri, was by no means uncommon in Wales: from
that point of view there might well have been four or five, or even
more, of that name, but that each and all of these should have
possessed the same qualifications, should have been equally well
versed in popular traditions, equally dowered with the gift of
story-telling, on equally friendly terms with the Norman invaders, and
equally possessed of such a knowledge of the French language as should
permit them to tell their stories in that tongue, i.e., the knowledge
of French, seems to me to be of critical importance. Given the
relations between conqueror and conquered, the intransigeant character
of Welsh patriotism, the men who were on sufficiently friendly terms
with the invaders to be willing to relate to national legends, with an
assurance of finding a sympathetic hearing, must have been few and far
between. I do not think the importance of this point has been
sufficiently grasped by the critics.
The problem then is to find a Welshman who, living at the end of the
eleventh and commencement of the twelfth centuries, was well versed in
the legendary lore of Britain; was of sufficiently good social status
to be well received at court; possessed of a good knowledge of the
French tongue; and can be shown to have been on friendly terms with
the Norman nobles.
Mr Edward Owen, of the Cymmorodorion Society, has suggested that a
certain Welsh noble, Bledri ap Cadivor, fulfils, to a large measure,
the conditions required. Some years ago I published in the Revue
Celtique a letter in which Mr Owen summarized the evidence at his
disposal. As the review in question may not be easily accessible to
some of my readers I will recapitulate the principle points.[11]
The father of Bledri, Cadivor, was a great personage of West Wales,
and is looked upon as the ancestor of the most important families in
the ancient Dyfed, a division now represented by Pembrokeshire, and
the Western portion of Carmarthen. (We may note here that the
traditional tomb of Gawain is at Ross in Pembrokeshire, and that there
is reason to believe that the Perceval story, in its earliest form,
was connected with that locality.)
Cadivor had three sons, of whom Bledri was the eldest; thus, at his
father's death, he would be head of this ancient and distinguished
family. At the division of the paternal estates Bledri inherited, as
his share, lands ranging from the right bank of the lower Towey, and
the coast of South Pembrokeshire, extending as far as Manorbeer, the
birthplace of Giraldus Cambrensis. (This again is a geographical
indication which should be borne in mind.) Cadivor himself appears to
have been on friendly terms with the Normans; he is said to have
entertained William the Conqueror on his visit to St David's in 1080,
while every reference we have to Bledri shows him in close connection
with the invaders.
Thus, in 1113 the Brut-y-Tywysogion mentions his name as ally of the
Norman knights in their struggle to maintain their ground in, and
around, Carmarthen. In 1125 we find his name as donor of lands to the
Augustinian Church of St John the Evangelist, and St Theuloc of
Carmarthen, newly founded by Henry I. Here his name appears with the
significant title Latinarius (The Interpreter), a qualification
repeated in subsequent charters of the same collection. In one of
these we find Griffith, the son of Bledri, confirming his father's
gift. Professor Lloyd, in an article in Archaeologica Cambrensis,
July 1907, has examined these charters, and considers the grant to
have been made between 1129 and 1134, the charter itself being of the
reign of Henry I, 1101-1135.[12]
In the Pipe Roll of Henry I, 1131, Bledri's name is entered as debtor
for a fine incurred by the killing of a Fleming for his men; while a
highly significant entry records the fine of 7 marks imposed upon a
certain Bleddyn of Mabedrud and his brothers for outraging Bledri's
daughter. When we take into consideration the rank of Bledri, this
insult to his family by a fellow Welshman would seem to indicate that
his relations with his compatriots were not of a specially friendly
character.
Mr Owen also points out that portion of the Brut-y-Tywysigion which
covers the eyars 1101-1120 (especially the events of the year 1113,
where we find Bledri, and other friendly Welsh nobles, holding the
castle of Carmarthen for the Normans against the Welsh), is related at
an altogether disproportionate length, and displays a strong bias in
favour of the invaders. The year just referred to, for instance,
occupies more than twice the space assigned to any other year. Mr
Owen suggests that here Bledri himself may well have been the
chronicler; a hypothesis which, if he really be the author we are
seeking, is quite admissible.
So far as indications of date are concerned, Bledri probably lived
between the years 1070-1150. His father Cadivor died in 1089, and his
lands were divided between his sons of whom Bledri, as we have seen,
was the eldest. Thus they cannot have been children at that date;
Bledri, at least, would have been born before 1080. From the evidence
of the Pipe Roll we know that he was living in 1131. The charter
signed by his son, confirmatory of his grant, must have been
subsequent to 1148, as it was executed during the Episcopate of David,
Bishop of St David's 1148-1176. Thus the period of 80 years suggested
above (1070-1150) may be taken as covering the extreme limit to be
assigned to his life, and activity.
The passage in which Giraldus Cambrensis refers to "Bledri, that
famous story-teller 'who' lived shortly before our time," was written
about 1194; thus it might well refer to a man who had died some 40 or
50 years previously. As we have noted above, Giraldus was born upon
ground forming a part of Bledri's ancestral heritage, and thus might
well be familiar with his fame.
The evidence is of course incomplete, but it does provide us with a
personality fulfilling the main conditions of a complex problem.
Thus, we have a man of the required name, and nationality; living at
an appropriate date; of the requisite social position; on excellent
terms with the French nobles, and so well acquainted with their
language as to sign himself officially 'The Interpreter.' We have no
direct evidence of his literary skill, or knowledge of the traditional
history of his country, but a man of his birth could scarcely have
failed to possess the latter, while certain peculiarities in that
section of the national Chronicle which deals with the aid given by
him to the Norman invaders would seem to indicate that Bledri himself
may well have been responsible for the record. Again, we know him to
have been closely connected with the locality from which came the
writer who refers to the famous story-teller of the same name. I
would submit that we have here quite sufficient evidence to warrant us
in accepting Bledri ap Cadivor as, at least, the possible author of
the romantic Grail tradition. In any case, so far, there is no other
candidate in the field.[13]
Shortly after the publication of the second volume of my Perceval
studies, I received a letter from Professor Singer, in which, after
expressing his general acceptance of the theories there advanced, in
especial of the suggested date and relation of the different versions,
which he characterized as "very successful and very much in accord
with my own conception of the development of Old French literature,"
he proceeded to comment upon the probable character of the literary
activity of Bleheris. His remarks are so interesting and suggestive
that I venture to submit them for the consideration of my readers.
Professor Singer points out that in Eilhart von Oberge's Tristan we
find the name in the form of Pleherin attached to a knight of Mark's
court. The same name in a slightly varied form, Pfelerin, occurs in
the Tristan of Heinrich von Freiberg; both poems, Professor Singer
considers, are derived rom a French original. Under a compund form,
Blihos, (or Blio)-Bliheris, he appears, in the Gawain-Grail
compilation, as a knight at Arthur's court. Now Breri-Blihis-Bleheris
is referred to a authority alike in the Tristan, Grail and Gawain
tradition, and Professor Singer makes the interesting suggestion that
these references are originally due to Bleheris himself, who not only
told the stories in the third person (a common device at that period,
v. Chretien's Erec, and Gerbett's continuation of the Perceval), but
also introduced himself as eye-witness of, and actor, in a subordinate
role, in, the incidents he recorded. Thus in the Tristan he is a
knight of Mark's, in the Elucidation and the Gawain stories a knight
of Arthur's, court. Professor Singer instances the case of Dares in
De exidio Trojae, and Bishop Pilgrim of Passau in the lost Nibelungias
of his secretary Konrad, as illustrations of the theory.
If this be the case such a statement as that which we find in
Wauchier, regarding Bleheris himself, and simply been taken over by
the later writer form his source; he incorporated the whole tale of
the shield as it stood, a quite natural and normal proceeding.[14]
Again, this suggestion would do away with the necessity for
postulating a certain lapse of time before the story-teller Bleheris
could be converted into an Arthurian knight--the two "roles, author
and actor," as Professor Singer expresses it, are coincident in date.
I would also suggest that the double form, Blihos-Bliheris, would have
been adopted by the author himself, to indicate the identity of the
two, Blihis, and Bleheris. It is worthy of note that, when dealing
directly with the Grail, he assumes the title of Master, which would
seem to indicate that here he claimed to speak with special authority.
I sent the letter in question to the late Mr Alfred Nutt, who was
forcibly struck with the possibilities involved in the suggestion, the
full application of which he thought the writer had not grasped. I
quote the following passages from the long letter I received from him
in return.
"Briefly put we presuppose the existence of a set of semi-dramatic,
semi-narrative, poems, in which a Bledri figures as an active, and at
the same time a recording, personage. Now that such a body of
literature may have existed we are entitled to assume from the fact
that two such have survived, one from Wales, in the Llywarch Hen
cycle, the other from Ireland, in the Finn Saga. In both cases, the
fact that the descriptive poems are put in the mouth, in Wales of
Llywarch, in Ireland largely of Oisin, led to the ascription at an
early date of the whole literature to Llwarch and Oisin. It is
therefore conceivable that a Welsh 'litterature,' familiar as he must
have been wit hthe Llywarch, and as he quite possibly was with the
Oisin, instance, should cast his version of the Arthurian stories in a
similar form, and that the facts noted by you and Singer may be thus
explained."
Now that both Professor Singer (who has an exceptionally wide
knowledge of Medieval literature), and the late Mr Alfred Nutt, knew
what they were talking about, does not need to be emphasized, and the
fact that two such competent authorities should agree upon a possible
solution of a puzzling literary problem, makes that solution worthy of
careful consideration; it would certainly have the merit of
simplifying the question and deserves to be placed upon record.
But while it would of course be far more satisfactory could one
definitely place, and label, the man to whom we owe the original
conception which gave birth and impetus to his immortal body of
literature, yet the precise identity of the author of the earliest
Grail romance is of the accident, rather than the essence, of our
problem. Whether Bliheris the Welshman be, or be not, identical with
Bledri ap Cadivor, Interpreter, and friend of the Norman nobles, the
general hypothesis remains unaffected and may be thus summarized--
The Grail story is not du fond en comble the product of imagination,
literary or popular. At its root lies the record, more or less
distorted, of an ancient Ritual, having for its ultimate object the
initiation into the secret of the sources of Life, physical and
spiritual. This ritual, in its lower, exoteric, form, as affecting
the processes of Nature, and physical life, survives to-day, and can
be traced all over the world, in Folk ceremonies, which, however
widely separated the countries in which they are found, show a
surprising identity of detail and intention. In its esoteric
'Mystery' form it was freely utilized for the imparting of high
spiritual teaching concerning the relation of Man to the Divine Source
of his being, and the possiblity of a sensible union between Man, and
God. The recognition of the cosmic activities of the Logos appears to
have bee na characteristic feature of this teaching, and when
Christianity came upon the scene it did not hesitate to utilize the
already existing medium of instruction, but boldly identified the
Deity of Vegetation, regarded as Life Principle, with the God of
Christian Faith. Thus, to certain of the early Christians, Attis was
but an earlier manifestation of the Logos, Whom they held identical
with Christ. The evidence of the Naassene document places this beyond
any shadow of doubt, and is of inestimable value as establishing a
link between pre-Christian, and Christian, Mystery tradition.
This curious synthetic belief, united as it was with the highly
popular cult of Mithra, travelled with the foreign legionaries,
adherents of that cult, to the furthest bounds of the Roman Empire and
when the struggle between Mithraism and Christianity ended in the
definite triumph of the latter, by virtue of that dual synthetic
nature, the higher ritual still survived, and was celebrated in sites
removed from the centres of population--in caves, and mountain
fastnesses; in islands, and on desolate seacoasts.
The earliest version of the Grail story, represented by our Bleheris
form, relates the visit of a wandering knight to one of these hidden
temples; his successful passing of the test into the lower grade of
Life initiation, his failure to attain the highest degree. It matters
little whether it were the record of an actual, or of a possible,
experience; the casting into romantic form of an event which the
storyteller knew to have happened, had, perchance, actually witnessed;
or the objective recital of what he knew might have occurred; the
essential fact is that the mise-en-scene of the story, the
nomenclature, the march of incident, the character of the tests,
correspond to what we know from independent sources of the details of
this Nature Ritual. The Grail quest was actually possible then, it is
actually possible to-day, for the indication of two of our romaces as
to the final location of the Grail is not imagination, but the record
of actual fact.
As first told the story preserved its primal character of a composite
between Christianity and the Nature Ritual, as witnessed by the
ceremony over the bier of the Dead Knight, the procession with Cross
and incense, and the solemn Vespers for the Dead. This, I suspect,
correctly represents the final stage of the process by which
Attis-Adonis was identified with Christ. Thus, in its first form the
story was the product of conscious intention.
But when the tale was once fairly launched as a romantic tale, and
came into the hands of those unfamilair with its Ritual origin (though
the fact that it had such an origin was probably well understood), the
influence of the period came into play. The Crusades, and the
consequent traffic in relics, especially in relics of the Passion,
caused the identification of the sex Symbols, Lance and Cup, with the
Weapon of the Crucifixion, and the Cup of the Last Supper; but the
Christianization was merely external, the tale, as a whole, retaining
its pre-Christian character.
The conversion into a definitely Christian romance seems to have been
due to two causes. First, the rivalry betwen the two great monastic
houses of Glastonbury and Fescamp, the latter of which was already in
possession of a genuine Saint-Sang relic, and fully developed
tradition. There is reason to suppose that the initial combination of
the Grail and Saint-Sang traditions took place at Fescamp, and was the
work of some member of the minstrel Guild attached to that Abbey. But
the Grail tradition was originally British; Glasonbury was from time
immemorial a British sanctuary; it was the reputed burial place of
Arthur, of whose court the Grail Quest was the crowning adventure; the
story must be identified with British soil. Consequently a version
was composed, now represented by our Perlesvaus text, in which the
union of Nicodemus of Fescamp, and Joseph of Glastonbury, fame, as
ancestors of the Grail hero, offers a significant hint of the
provenance of the version.
Secondly, a no less important element in the process was due to the
conscious action of Robert de Borron, who well understood the
character of his material, and radically remodelled the whole on the
basis of the triple Mystery tradition translated into terms of high
Christian Mysticism. A notable feature of Borron's version is his
utilization of the tradition of the final Messianic Feast, in
combination with his Eucharistic symbolism, a combination thoroughly
familiar to early Christian Mystics.
Once started on a definitely romantic career, the Grail story rapidly
became a complex of originally divergent themse, the most important
stage in its development being the incorporation of the popular tale
of the Widow's Son, brought up in the wilderness, and launched into
the world in a condition of absolute ignorance of men, and manners.
The Perceval story is a charming story, but it has originally nothing
whatever to do with the Grail. The original tale, now best
represented by our English Syr Percyvelle of Galles, has no trace of
Mystery element; it is Folk-lore, pure and simple. I believe the
connection with the Grail legend to be purely fortuitous, and due to
the fact that the hero of the Folk-tale was known as 'The Widow's
Son,' which he actually was, while this title represented in Mystery
terminology a certain grade of Initiation, and as such is preserved
to-day in Masonic ritual.[15]
Finally the rising tide of dogmatic Medievalism, with its crassly
materialistic view of the Eucharist; its insistence on the saving
grace of aceticism and celibacy; and its scarcely veiled contempt for
women, overwhelmed the original conception. Certain of the features
of the ancient ritual indeed survive, but the are factors of
confusion, rather than clues to enlightenment. Thus, while the Grail
still retains its character of a Feeding Vessel, comes and goes
without visible agency, and supplies each knight with 'such food and
drink as he best loved in the world,' it is none the less the Chalice
of the Sacred Blood, and critics are sorely put to it to harmonize
these conflicting aspects. In the same way Galahad's grandfather
still bears the title of the Rich Fisher, and there are confused
references to a Land laid Waste as the result of a Dolorous Stroke.
But while the terminology lingers on to our perplexity the characters
involved lie outside the march of the story; practically no trace of
the old Nature Ritual survives in the final Queste form. The
remodelling is so radical that it seems most reasonable to conclude
that it was purposeful, that the original author of the Queste had a
very clear idea of the real nature of the Grail, and was bent upon a
complete restatement in terms of current orthodoxy. I advisedly use
this term, as I see no trace in the Queste of a genuine Mystic
conception, such as that of Borron. So far as criticism of the
literature is concerned I adhere to my previously expressed opinion
that the Queste should be treated rather as a Lancelot than as a Grail
romance. It is of real importance in the evolution of the Arthurian
romantic cycle; as a factor in determining the true character and
origins of the Grail legend it is worse than useless; what remains of
the original features is so fragmentary, and so distorted, that any
attempt to use the version as basis for argument, or comparison, can
only introduce a further element of confusion into an already more
than sufficiently involved problem.
I am also still of opinion that the table of descent given on p. 283
of Volume II. of my Perceval studies, represents the most probable
evolution of the literature; at the same time, in the light of further
research, I should feel inclined to add the Grail section of Sone de
Nansai as deriving from the same source which gave us Kiot's poem, and
the Perlesvaus.[16] As evidence for a French original combining
important features of these two versions, and at the same time
retaining unmistakably archaic elements which have disappeared from
both, I hold this section of the poem to be of extreme value for the
criticism of the cycle.
While there are still missing links in the chain of descent, versions
to be reconstructed, writers to be identified, I believe that in its
ensemble the theory set forth in these pages will be found to be the
only one which will satisfactorily meet all the conditions of the
problem; which will cover the whole ground of investigation, omitting
no element, evading no difficulty; which will harmonize apparently
hopeless contradictions, explain apparently meaningless terminology,
and thus provide a secure foundation for the criticism of a body of
literature as important as it is fascinating.
The study and criticism of the Grail literature will possess an even
deeper interest, a more absorbing fascination, when it is definitely
recognized that we possess in that literature a unique example of the
restatement of an ancient and august Ritual in terms of imperishable
Romance.
NOTES
CHAPTER II
[1] MS. Bibl. Nat., f. Franc. 12576 fo. 90.
[2] Ibid. fo. 90vo, 91.
[3] Diu Crone (ed. Stoll, Stuttgart, 1852). Cf. Sir Gawain of
the Grail Castle for both versions.
[4] Cf. MS. B.N. 12576, fo. 154.
[5] Perceval, ed. Hucher, p. 466; Modena, p. 61.
[6] Cf. Hucher, p. 482; Modena, p. 82.
[7] Percevel li Gallois, ed. Potvin, ll. 6048-52.
[8] Ib. ll. 6056-60.
[9] Potvin, Vol. I. p. 15.
[10] Ib. p. 26.
[11] Ib. p. 86.
[12] Ib. pp. 176, 178.
[13] MS. B.N. 12576, ff. 221-222vo.
[14] Mabinogion, ed. Nutt, p. 282.
[15] Cf. Peredur (ed. Nutt), pp. 282, 291-92.
[16] Parzival, Book v. ll. 947-50.
[17] Ib. Book VI. ll. 1078-80.
[18] Parzival, Book XVI, ll 275-86.
[19] Cf. Morte Arthure, Malory, Book XVII. Chap. 18. Note the remark
of Mordrains that his flesh which has waxen old shall become young
again.
[20] Parzival, Bk. IX. ll. 1388-92.
[21] Sone de Nansai (ed. Goldschmidt, Stuttgart, 1899), ll 4775-76.
[22] Sone de Nansai, ll. 4841-56.
[23] It is evidently such a version as that of Sone de Nansai, and
Parzival, which underlies the curious statement of the Merlin
MS. B.N. f. Fr. 337, where the wife of the Fisher King is known as 'la
Veve Dame,' while her husband is yet in life, though sorely wounded.
CHAPTER III
[1] Cf. Rig-Veda Sanhita, trans. H. H. Wilson, 6
vols. 1854-1888. Vol. I. p. 88, v. 12. 172, v. 8 206, v. 10
Vol. III. p. 157, vv. 2, 5, 7, 8.
[2] Zeitschrift der Deutschen Morgenlandischen Geschichte,
Vols. XXXVII. and XXXIX.
[3] Cf. Le Theatre Indien, Paris, 1890.
[4] Cf. Wiener Zeitsch, fur die Kunde des Morgenlandes,
Vol. XVIII. 1904.
[5] Leipzig, 1908.
[6] Op. cit. p. 105.
[7] Ib. p. 230.
[8] Ib. p. 292, for sources, and variants of tale.
[9] On this point cf. Cornford, Origin of Attic Comedy, pp. 8, 78,
for importance of this feature.
[10] Op. cit. pp. 161-170, for general discussion of question, and
summary of authorities. Also pp. 297 et seq.
[11] Cf. Legend of Sir Peceval, Vol. I. Chapter 3.
[12] MS. Bibl. Nat., f. Fr. 12576, fo. 173. Cf. also Legend of Sir
Perceval, I. Chap. 4.
[13] Malory, Le Morte Arthure, Book XIV. Chaps. 8 and 9. Potvin,
ll. 40420 et seq.
CHAPTER IV
[1] Cf. Frazer, Adonis, Attis, Osiris, p. 5.
[2] In this connection not only the epoch-making works of Mannhardt
and Frazer, which are more specifically devoted to an examination of
Folk-belief and practice should be studied, but also works such as The
Mediaeval Stage, E. K. Chambers; Themis, J. E. Harrison; The Origin of
Attic Comedy, F. Cornford; and Sir Gilbert Murray's essay on the
evolution of the Greek Drama, published in Miss Harrison's Themis.
The cumulative evidence is most striking.
[3] A full study of this evolutionary process will be found in Miss
Harrison's Themis, A Study of Greek Social Origins, referred to above.
[4] Baudissin, in his exhaustive study of these cults, Adonis und
Esmun, comes to the conclusion that Tammuz and Adonis are different
gods, owing their origin to a common parent deity. Where the original
conception arose is doubtful; whether in Babylon, in Canaan, or in a
land where the common ancestors of Phoenicians and Babylonian Semites
formed an original unit.
[5] Cf. Tammuz and Ishtar, S. Langdon, p. 5.
[6] It may be well to note here the the 'Life' deity has no proper
name; he is only known by an appellative; Damu-zi, Damu, 'faithful
son,' or 'son and consort,' is only a general epithet, which
designates the dying god in a theological aspect, just as the name
Adoni, 'my lord,' certainly replaced a more specific name for the god
of Byblos. Esmun of Sidon, another type of Adonis, is a title only,
and means simply, 'the name.' Cf. Langdon, op. cit. p. 7. Cf. this
with previous passages on the evolution of the Greek idea from a
nameless entity to a definite god. Mr Langdon's remarks on the
evolution of the Tammuz cult should be carefully studied in view of
the theory maintained by Sir W. Ridgeway--that the Vegetation deities
were all of them originally men.
[7] From a liturgy employed at Nippur in the period of the Isin
dynasty. Langdon, op. cit. p. 11. Also, Sumerian and Babylonian
Psalms, p. 338.
[8] Cf. Langdon, Tammuz and Ishtar, p. 23.
[9] What we have been able to ascertain of the Sumerian-Babylonian
religion points to it rather as a religion of mourning and
supplication, than of joy and thanksgiving. The people seem to have
been in perpetual dread of their gods, who require to be appeased by
continual acts of humiliation. Thus the 9th, 15th, 19th, 28th, and
29th of the month were all days of sack-cloth and ashes, days of
wailing; the 19th especially was 'the day of the wrath of Gulu.'
[10] Cf. Langdon, op. cit. p. 24.
[11] Cf. Langdon, op. cit. p. 26.
[12] The most complete enquiry into the nature of the god is to
be found in Baudissin, Adonis und Esmun. For the details of the cult
cf. Farnell, Cults of the Greek States, Vol. II.; Vellay, Adonis
(Annales du Musee Guimet). For the Folk-lore evidence cf. Mannhardt,
Wald un Feld-Kulte; Frazer, The Golden Bough, and Adonis, Attis and
Osiris. These remarks apply also to the kindred cult of Attis, which
as we shall see later forms an important link in our chain of
evidence. The two cults are practically identical and scholars are
frequently at a loss to which group surviving fragments of the ritual
should be assigned.
[13] In this connection note the extremely instructive remarks of Miss
Harrison in the chapter on Herakles in the work referred to above.
She points out that the Eniautos Daimon never becomes entirely and
Olympian, but always retains traces of his 'Earth' origin. This
principle is particularly well illustrated by Adonis, who, though,
admitted to Olympus as the lover of Aphrodite, is yet by this very
nature forced to return to the earth, and descend to the realm of
Persephone. This agrees well with the conclusion reached by Baudissin
(Adonis und Esmun, p. 71) that Adonis belongs to "einer Klasse von
Wesen sehr unbestimmter Art, die wohl uber den Menschen aber unter den
grossen Gottern stehen."
[14] Cf. Vellay, op. cit. p. 93. Dulaure, Des Divinites
Generatrices. If Baudissin is correct, and the introduction of the
Boar a later addition to the story, it would seem to indicate the
intrusion of a phallic element into ritual which at first, like that
of Tammuz, dealt merely with the death of the god. The Attis form, on
the contrary, appears to have been phallic from the first.
Cf. Baudissin, Adonis und Esmun, p. 160.
[15] Op. cit. p. 83.
[16] Cf. L. von Schroeder, Vollendung den Arischen Mysterium, p. 14.
[17] It may be well to explain the exact meaning attached to these
terms by the author. In Professor von Schroeder's view Mysterium may
be held to connote a drama in which the gods themselves are actors;
Mimus on the contrary, is the term applied to a drama which treats of
the doings of mortals.
[18] Op. cit. Vol. II. p. 647.
[19] Op. cit. p. 115. Much of the uncertainty as to date is doubtless
due to the reflective influence of other forms of the cult; the Tammuz
celebrations were held from June 20th, to July 20th, when the Dog-star
Sirius was in the ascendant, and vegetation failed beneath the heat of
the summer sun. In other, and more temperate, climates the date would
fall later. Where, however, the cult was an off-shoot of a Tammuz
original (as might be the case through emigration) the tendency would
be to retain the original date.
[20] Cf. Vellay, op. cit. p. 55; Mannhardt, Vol. II. pp. 277-78, for a
description of the feast. With regard to the order and sequence of
the celebration cf. Miss Harrison's remark, Themis, p. 415: "In the
cyclic monotony of the Eniautos Daimon it matters little whether Death
follows Resurrection, or Resurrection, Death."
[21] Cf. Mannhardt, supra, p. 279.
[22] Cf. Vellay, op. cit. p. 103. This seems also to have been the
case with Tammuz, cf. Ezekiel, Chap. viii. v. 14.
[23] Cf. Frazer, The Golden Bough, under heading Adonis.
[24] Vellay, p. 130, Mannahrdt, Vol. II. p. 287; note the writer's
suggestion that the women here represent the goddess, the stranger,
the risen Adonis.
[25] Cf. Vellay, p. 93.
[26] Vide supra, pp. 20. 21.
[27] Supra, p. 21.
[28] Cf. Potvin, appendix to Vol. III.; Sir Gawain and the Grail
Castle, pp. 41, 44, and note.
[29] My use of this parallel has been objected to on the ground that
the prose Lancelot is a late text, and therefore cannot be appealed to
as evidence for original incidents. But the Lancelot in its original
form was held by so competent an authority as the late M. Gaston Paris
to have been one of the earliest, if not the very earliest, of French
prose texts. (Cf. M. Paris's review of Suchier and
Birch-Hirschfield's Geschichte der Franz. Litt.) The adventure in
question is a 'Gawain' adventure; we do not know whence it was
derived, and it may well have been included in an early version of the
romance. Apart from the purely literary question, from the strictly
critical point of view the adventure is here obviously out of place,
and entirely devoid of raison d'etre. If the origins of the Grail
legend is really to be found in these cults, which are not a dead but
a living tradition (how truly living, the exclusively literary critic
has little idea), we are surely entitled to draw attention to the
obvious parallels, no matter in which text they appear. I am not
engaged in reconstructing the original form of the Grail story, but in
endeavoring to ascertain the ultimate source, and it is surely
justifiable to point out that, in effect, no matter what version we
take, we find in that version points of contact with one special group
of popular belief and practice. If I be wrong in my conclusions my
critics have only to suggest another origin for this particular
feature of the romance--as a matter of fact, they have failed to do
so.
[30] Cf. Perlesvaus, Branch II. Chap. I.
[31] Throwing into, or drenching with, water is a well known part of
the 'Fertility' ritual; it is a case of sympathetic magic, acting as a
rain charm.
CHAPTER V
[1] Ancient Greek Religion, and Modern Greek Folk-Lore, J. C. Lawson,
gives some most interesting evidence as to modern survivals of
mythological beliefs.
[2] Wald und Feld-Kulte, 2nd edition, 2 vols., Berlin, 1904. Cf.
Vol. II. p. 286. The Golden Bough, 3rd edition, 5 vols.
[3] I cite from Mannhardt, as the two works overlap in the particular
line of research we are following: the same instances are given in
both, buyt the honour of priority belongs to the German scholar.
[4] Op. cit. Vol. I. p. 411.
[5] See G. Calderon, 'Slavonic Elements in Greek religion,' Classical
Review, 1918, p. 79.
[6] Op. cit. p. 416.
[7] Op. cit. pp. 155 and 312.
[8] Op. cit. p. 353.
[9] Op. cit. p. 358.
[10] Op. cit. p. 358.
[11] Op. cit. p. 359. Cf. the Lausitz custom given supra, which
Mannhardt seems to have overlooked.
[12] In the poem, besides the ordinary figures of the Vegetation
Deity, his female counterpart, and the Doctor, common to all such
processions, Laubfrosch, combining the two first, and Horse.
Cf. Mannhardt, Mythol. Forsch. pp. 142-43; Mysterium und Mimus,
pp. 408 et seq.; also, pp. 443-44. Sir W. Ridgeway (op. cit. p. 156)
refers slightingly to this interpretation of a 'harmless little
hymn'--doubless the poem is harmless; until Prof. von Schroeder
pointed out its close affinity with the Fertility processions it was
also meaningless.
[13] Op. cit. Chap. 17, p. 253.
[14] Cf. Folk-Lore, Vol. XV. p. 374.
[15] Op. cit. Vol. V. The Dying God, pp. 17 et seq.
[16] See Dr Seligmann's study, The Cult of Nyakang and the Divine
Kings of the Shilluk in the Fourth Report of the Wellcome Research
Laboratories, Kkartum, 1911, Vol. B.
[17] Cf. Address on reception into the Academy when M. Paris succeeded
to Pasteur's fauteuil.
CHAPTER VI
[1] Op. cit. Vol. I. p. 94.
[2] The Legend of Longinus, R. J. Peebles (Bryn Mawr College
monographs, Vol. IX.).
[3] I discussed this point with Miss Lucy Broadwood, Secretary of the
Folk-Song Society, who has made sketches of these Crosses, and she
entirely agrees with me. In my Quest of the Holy Grail, pp. 54 et
seq., I have pointed out the absolute dearth of ecclesiastical
tradition with regard to the story of Joseph and the Grail.
[4] Cf. Littaturzeitung, XXIV. (1903), p. 2821.
[5] Cf. The Bleeding Lance, A. C. L. Brown.
[6] Cf. Brown, op. cit. p. 35; also A. Nutt, Studies in the Legend of
the Holy Grail, p. 184.
[7] Cf. Brown, Notes on Celtic Cauldrons of Plenty, p. 237.
[8] Cf. Queste, Malory, Book XIII. Chap. 7, where the effect is the
same.
[9] Cf. Germanische Elben und Gotter beim Estenvolker, L. von
Schroeder (Wien, 1906).
[10] I suggested this point in corrspondence with Dr Brugger, who
agreed with me that it was worth working out.
[11] Before leaving the discussion of Professor Brown's theory, I
would draw attention to a serious error made by the author of The
Legend of Longinus. On p. 191, she blames Professor Brown for
postulating the destructive qualities of the Lance, on the strength of
'an unsupported passage' in the 'Mons' MS., whereas the Montpellier
text says that the Lance shall bring peace. Unfortunately, it is this
latter version which is unsupported, all the MSS., without even
excepting B.N. 1429, which as a rule agrees with Montpellier, give the
'destructive' version.
[12] Cf. Dulaure, Des Divinites Generatrices, p. 77. Also additional
chapter to last edition by Van Gennep, p. 333; L. von Schroeder,
Mysterium und Mimus, pp. 279-80, for symbolic use of the Spear.
McCulloch, Religion of the Celts, p. 302, suggests that it is not
impossible that the cauldron==Hindu yoni, which of course would bring
it into line with the above suggested meaning of the Grail. I think
however that the real significance of the cauldron is that previously
indicated.
[13] It is interesting to note that this relative position of Lance
and Grail lingers on in late and fully Christianized versions;
cf. Sommer, The Quest of the Holy Grail, Romainia, XXXVI. p. 575.
[14] My informant on this point was a scholar, resident in Japan, who
gave me the facts within his personal knowledge. I referred the
question to Prof. Basil Hall Chamberlain, who wrote in answer that he
had not himself met with the practice but that the Samurai ceremonies
differed in different provinces, and my informant might well be
correct.
[15] This explanation has at least the merit of simplicity as compared
with that proposed by the author of The Legend of Longinus, pp. 209 et
seq., which would connect the feature with an obscure heretical
practice of the early Irish church. It would also meet Professor
Brown's very reasonable objections, The Bleeding Lance, p. 8; cf. also
remarks by Baist quoted in the foot-note above.
[16] Cf. my Legend of Sir Perceval, Vol. II. pp. 314-315, note.
[17] Mr A. E. Waite, who has published a book on the subject, informs
me that the 17 cards preserved in the Bibliotheque du Roi
(Bibl. Nationale?) as specimens of the work of the painter Charles
Gringonneur, are really Tarots.
[18] Falconnier, in a brochure on Les XXII Lames Hermetiques du Tarot,
gives reproductions of these Egyptian paintings.
[19] Journal of the Gipsy-Lore Society, Vol. II. New Series,
pp. 14-37.
[20] From a private letter. The ultimate object of Magic in all ages
was, and is, to obtain control of the sources of Life. Hence,
whatever was the use of these objects (of which I know nothing), their
appearance in this connection is significant.
CHAPTER VII
[1] Mysterium und Mimus, p. 50. This work contains a most valuable
and interesting study of the Maruts, and the kindred groups of Sword
Dancers.
[2] Op. cit. pp. 47 et seq.
[3] Rig-Veda, Vol. III. p. 337.
[4] Mysterium und Mimus, p. 48.
[5] Op. cit., Indra, die Maruts, und Agastya, pp. 91 et seq.
[6] Rig-Veda, Vol. III. pp. 331, 334, 335, 337.
[7] Mysterium un Mimus, p. 121.
[8] Vollendung des Arische Mysterium, p. 13. The introductory section
of this book, containing a study of early Aryan belief, and numerous
references to modern survivals, is both interesting and valuable. The
latter part, a panegyric on the Wagnerian drama, is of little
importance.
[9] Mysterium und Mimus, p. 131.
[10] Cf. Roscher's Lexikon, under heading Kureten.
[11] Op. cit.
[12] Cf. Preller, Graechishe Mythologie, p. 134.
[13] Quoted by Preller, p. 654.
[14] Themis, A Study in Greek Social Origins (Cambridge, 1912), pp. 6
et seq.
[15] Mysterium un Mimus, p. 23.
[16] Themis, p. 24.
[17] Cf. Mysterium und Mimus, section Indra, die Maruts, und Agastya
specially pp. 151 et seq.
[18] Cf. von Schroeder, op. cit. pp. 141 et seq. for a very full
account of the ceremonies; also, Themis, p. 194; Mannhardt, Wald und
Feld-Kulte, and Roscher's Lexikon, under heading Mars, for various
reasons.
[19] Folk-Lore, Vols. VII., X., and XVI. contain interesting and fully
illustrated accounts of some of these dances and plays.
[20] The Mediaeval Stage, Vol. III. p. 202. It would be interesting to
know the precise form of this ring; was it the Pentangle?
[21] Cf. also Mysterium und Mimus, pp. 110, 111, for a general
description of the dance, minus the text of the speeches.
[22] Pp. 186-194.
[23] Cf. Folk-Lore, Vol. XVI. pp. 212 et seq.
[24] I would draw attention to the curious name of the adversary,
Golisham; it is noteworthy that in one Arthurian romance Gawain has
for adversary Golagros, in another Percival fights against
Golerotheram. Are these all reminiscences of the giant Goliath, who
became the synonym for a dangerous, preferably heathen, adversary,
even as Mahomet became the synonym for an idol?
[25] Cf. Mannhardt, Wald und Feld-Kulte, Vol. II. pp. 191 et seq. for
a very full account of the Julbock (Yule Buck).
[26] Cf. Folk-Lore, Vol. VIII. 'Some Oxfordshire Seasonal Festivals,'
where full illustrations of the Bampton Morris Dancers and their
equipment will be found.
[27] Cf. The Padstow Hobby-Horse, F.-L. Vol. XVI. p. 56; The
Staffordshire Horn-Dance, Ib. Vol. VII. p. 382, and VIII. p. 70.
[28] Cf. supra, pp. 56, 84, 89.
[29] Cf. Legend of Sir Perceval, Vol. II. p. 264.
[30] See English Folk-Song and Dance by Frank Kidson and Mary Neal,
Cambridge, 1915, plate facing p. 104. A curious point in connection
with the illustration is that the Chalice is surmounted by a Heart,
and in the Tarot suits Cups are the equivalent of our Hearts. The
combination has now become identified with the cult of the Sacred
Heart, but is undoubtedly much older.
CHAPTER IX
[1] Cf. my Sir Gawain and the Grail Castle, pp. 3-30. The best text
is that of MS. B.N., fonds Franc. 12576, ff. 87vo-91. The above
remarks apply also to the Elucidation, which is using a version of the
Bleheris form.
[2] B.N. 12577, fo. 136vo.
[3] Cf. Sir Gawain at the Grail Castle, pp. 33-46.
[4] Cf. B.N. 12576, ff. 220-222vo and fo. 258.
[5] Hucher, Le Sait Graal, Vo. I. pp. 251 et seq., 315 et seq.
[6] Cf. Modena MS. pp. 11, 12, 21, etc.; Dr Nitze, The Fisher-King in
the Grail Romances, p. 373, says Borron uses the term Rice Pescheur,
as opposed to the Roi Pescheur of Chretien. This remark is only
correct as applied to the Joseph.
[7] Modena MS p. 61 and note.
[8] Ibid. p. 63.
[9] The evidence of the Parzival and the parallel Grail sections of
Sone de Nansai, which appear to repose ultimately on a source common
to all three authors, makes this practically certain.
[10] This is surely a curious omission, if the second King were as
essential a part of the scheme as Dr Nitze supposes.
[11] Cf. Chapter 2, p. 16.
[12] I cannot agree with Dr Nitze's remark (op. cit. p. 374) that "in
most versions the Fisher King has a mysterious double." I hold that
feature to be a peculiarity of the Chretien-Wolfram group. It is not
found in the Gawain versions, in Wauchier, nor in Manessier. Gerbert
is using the Queste in the passage relative to Mordrains, and for the
reason stated above I hold that heither Queste nor Grand Saint Graal
should be cited when we are dealing, as Dr Nitze is here dealing, with
questions of ultimate origin.
[13] Cf. my Legend of Sir Lancelot, pp. 167 and 168.
[14] Cf. Heinzel, Ueber die Alt-Franz. Gral-Romanen, pp. 136 and 137.
[15] Cf. Legend of Sir Perceval, Vol. II. p. 343, note. These three
kings are found in the curious Merlin MS. B.N., f. Franc. 337, fo. 249
et seq.
[16] Vide supra, pp. 96. 97.
[17] Op. cit. p. 184.
[18] Cf. Chapter 5, p. 55, Chap. 7, p. 92.
[19] Diu Crone, ll. 17329 et seq.
[20] In the Parzival Titurel is grandfather to Anfortas, Frimutel
intervening; critics of the poem are apt to overlook this difference
between the German and French versions.
[21] Cf. Chapter 2, p. 22.
[22] Cf. here my notes on Sone de Nansai (Romania,
Vol. XLIII. p. 412).
[23] In connection with my previous remarks on the subject (p. 119) I
would point out that the Queste and Grand Sainte Graal versions repeat
the Maimed King motif in the most unintelligent manner. The element
of old age, inherent in the Evalach-Mordrains incident, is complicated
and practically obscured, by an absurdly exaggerated wounding element,
here devoid of its original significance.
[24] Heinzel, op. cit. p. 13.
[25] For an instance of the extravagances to which a strictly
Christian interpretation can lead, cf. Dr Sebastian Evans's theories
set forth in his translation of the Perlesvaus (The High History of
the Holy Grail) and in his The Quest of the Holy Grail. The author
places the origin of the cycle in the first quarter of the thirteenth
century, and treats it as an allegory of the position in England
during the Interdict pronounced against King John, and the consequent
withholding of the Sacraments. His identification of the character
with historical originals is most ingenious, an extraordinary example
of misapplied learning.
[26] For a general discussion of the conflicting views cf. Dr Nitze's
study, referred to above. The writer devotes special attention to the
works of the late Prof. Heinzel and Mr Alfred Nutt as leading
representatives of their respective schools.
[27] R. Pischel's Ueber die Ursprung des Christlichen Fisch-Symbols is
specifically devoted to the possible derivation from Indian sources.
Scheftelowitz, Das Fischsymbolik in Judentem und Christentum (Archiv
fur Religionswissenschaft, Vol. XIV.), contains a great deal of
valuable material. R. Eisler, Orpheus the Fisher (The Quest, Vols. I
and II.), John, Jonas, Joannes (ibid. Vol. III.), the Messianic
Fish-meal of the Primitive Church (ibid. Vol. IV.), are isolated
studies, forming part of a comprehensive work on the subject, the
publication of which has unfortunately been prevented by the War.
[28] Mahabhatra, Bk. III.
[29] Cf. Scheftekowitz, op. cit. p. 51.
[30] Cf. The Open Court, June and July, 1911, where reproductions of
these figures will be found.
[31] Op. cit. p. 403. Cf. here an illustration in Miss Harrison's
Themis (p. 262), which shows Cecrops, who played the same role with
regard to the Greeks, with a serpent's tail.
[32] Ibid. p. 168. In this connection note the prayer to Vishnu,
quoted above.
[33] Cf. Eisler, Orpheus the Fisher (The Quest, Vol. I. p. 126).
[34] Cf. W. Staerk, Ueber den Ursprung der Gral-Legende, pp. 55, 56.
[35] Df. S. Langdon, Sumerian and Babylonian Psalms, pp. 301, 305,
307, 313.
[36] Cf. Eisler, The Messianic Fish-meal of the Primitive Church (The
Quest, Vol. IV.), where the various frescoes are described; also the
article by Scheftelowitz, already referred to. While mainly devoted to
Jewish beliefs and practices, this study contains much material
derived from other sources. So far it is the fullest and most
thoroughly documente treatment of the subject I have met with.
[37] Cf. Eisler, op. cit. and Scheftelowitz, pp. 19. 20.
[38] Cf. Eisler, op. cit. p. 508.
[39] Cf. Scheftelowitz, op. cit. pp. 337, 338, and note 4.
[40] Hucher, Le Saint Graal, Vol. I. pp. 251 et seq., 315 et seq.
[41] Cf. A. Nutt, Studies in the Legend of the Holy Grail, p. 209.
[42] Cf. Eisler, The Mystic Epitaph of Bishop Aberkios (The Quest,
Vol. V. pp. 302-312); Scheftelowitz, op. cit. p. 8.
[43] Cf. The Voyage of Saint Brandan, ll. 372, et seq., 660 et seq.
[44] Op. cit. ll. 170 et seq., and supra, p. 126.
[45] Vide supra, p. 74.
[46] Op. cit. p. 168.
[47] Cf. The Messianic Fish-meal.
[48] Op. cit. p. 92, fig. 42 a.
[49] Op. cit. p. 23, and note, p. 29.
[50] Parzival, Bk. IX. ll., 1109 et seq., Bk. XVI. ll. 175 et seq.
[51] Cf. Sir Gawain at the Grail Castle, p. 55. Certain of the
Lancelopt MSS., e.g., B.N., f. Fr. 123, give two doves.
[52] Cf. Scheftelowitz, p. 338. Haven, Der Gral, has argued that
Wolfram's stone is such a meteoric stone, a Boetylus. I am not
prepared to take up any position as to the exact nature of the stone
itself, whether precious stone or meteor; the real point of importance
being its Life-giving potency.
[53] Op. cit. p. 381.
[54] Ibid. p. 376 et seq.
[55] Ibid. p. 20.
[56] Ibid. p. 377.
CHAPTER X
[1] Elucidation, ll. 4-9 and 12, 13.
[2] Potvin, ll. 19933-40. I quote from Potvin's edition as more
accessible than the MSS., but the version of mons is, on the whole, an
inferior one.
[3] Potvin, ll. 28108-28.
[4] This is to my mind the error vitiating much of Dr Nitze's later
work, e.g., the studies entitled The Fisher-King in the Grail Romances
and The Sister's Son, and the Conte del Graal.
[5] Op. cit. Introduction, p. X.
[6] Rohde, Psyche, p. 293, and Cumont, op. cit. p. 44.
[7] Anrich, Das alte Mysterien-Wesen in seinem Verhaltniss zum
Christentum, p. 46.
[8] Op. cit. p. 136.
[9] Cumont, op. cit. p. 84.
[10] Op. cit. pp. 104, 105.
[11] Cf. Anrich, op. cit. p. 81.
[12] Hepding, Attis, p. 189.
[13] Cumont, Mysteres de Mithra, pp. 19 and 78.
[14] Ibid. p. 188.
[15] Ibid. pp. 190 et seq.
[16] Vide Hepding, Attis, Chap. 4, for details.
[17] Dieterich, Eine Mithrasliturgie, p. 174.
[18] Hepding, op. cit. p. 196.
[19] Cf. my Legend of Sir Perceval, Vol. II. p. 313. Hepding mentions
(op. cit. p. 174) among the sacra of the goddess Phrygium ferrum,
which he suggests was the knife from which the Archigallus wounded
himself on the 'Blood' day. Thus it is possible that the primitive
ritual may have contained a knife.
CHAPTER XI
[1] Cumont, op. cit. Introd. pp. XX and XXI.
[2] Thrice-Greatest Hermes, Vol. I, p. 195.
[3] Op. cit. p. 141.
[4] Op. cit. p. 142.
[5] Op. cit. pp. 146 et seq. Reitzenstein, Die Hellenistischen
Mysterien Religionen, Leipzig, 1910, gives the document in the
original. There is also a translation of Hippolytus in the
Ante-Nicene Library.
[6] Quoted by Mead, op. cit. p. 138.
[7] Op. cit. pp. 146, 147.
[8] Op. cit. p. 151.
[9] Op. cit. p. 152. Mr Mead concludes that there is here a lacuna of
the original.
[10] Op. cit. p. 181. In a note Mr Mead says of the Greater
Mysteries, "presumaby the candidate went through some symbolic rite of
death and resurrection."
[11] Op. cit. pp. 185, 186. I would draw especial attention to this
passage in view of the present controversey as to the Origin of
Drama. It looks as if the originnal writer of the document (and this
section is in the Pagan Source) would have inclined to the views of
Sir Gilbert Murray, Miss Harrison, and Mr Cornford rather than to
those championed by their sarcastic critic, Sir W. Ridgeway.
[12] Op. cit. p. 190.
[13] Vide supra, p. 144.
[14] Cf. Legend of Sir Perceval, Vol. II. Chapters 10 and 11.
[15] Cf. my Quest of the Holy Grail, Bell, 1913, Chap. 4, for summary
of evidence on this point.
[16] Cf. Heinzel, Alt-Franz. Gral-Romanen, p. 72.
CHAPTER XII
[1] Op. cit. p. 71.
[2] Op. cit. p. 3.
[3] Op. cit. p. 4.
[4] Cumont, op. cit. pp. 129-141 et seq.
[5] Op. cit. p. 148.
[6] Dieterich, Eine Mithrasliturgie, the text is given with
translation and is followed by an elaborate commentary. The whole
study is most interesting and suggestive.
[7] Cf. Bousset, Der Himmelfahrt der Seele, Archiv fur
Religionswissenschaft, Vol. IV.
[8] Cumont, op. cit. pp. 199 et seq.
[9] Adonis und Esumn, p. 521.
[10] Cf. Mead, op. cit. p. 179, note; Cumont, Mysteres de Mithra,
p. 183.
[11] Cumont, Les Religions Orientales, pp. 160 et seq.
[12] Mysteres de Mithra, p. 77.
[13] Les Religions Orientales, pp. 166, 167, Mysteres de Mithra,
p. 57.
[14] Mead, op. cit. pp. 147, 148, and note.
[15] Without entering into indiscreet details I may say that students
of the Mysteries are well aware of the continued survival of this
ritual under circumstances which correspond exactly with the
indications of two of our Grail romances.
[16] The Quest of the Holy Grail, pp. 110 et seq.
[17] Professor A. C. L. Brown, Notes on Celtic Cauldrons of Plenty,
n. p. 249, translates this 'wells,' an error into which the late Mr
Alfred Nutt had already fallen. Wisse Colin translates this
correctly, berg, gebirge.
[18] I suspect that the robbery of the Golden Cup was originally a
symbolic expression for the outrage being offered.
CHAPTER XIII
[1] MS B.N. 12576, ff. 87vo et seq. A translation will be found in my
Sir Gawain at the Grail Castle, pp. 13-15.
[2] MS B.N. 12576, ff. 150vo, 222, 238vo.
[3] Cf. here Prof. Kittredge's monograph Arthur and Gorlagon.
[4] Cf. Malory, Book XVI. Chap. 2.
[5] Cf. Perlesvaus, Branch XV. sections XII.-XX.; Malory, Book
VI. Chap. 15; Chevalier a deux Espees, ll. 531 et seq.
[6] B.N. 12576, fo. 74vo.
[7] Cf. B.N. MS 1433, ff. 10, 11, and the analysis and remarks in my
Legend of Sir Lancelopt, p. 219 and note.
[8] Cf. passage in question quoted on p. 137.
[9] B.N. 12576, fo. 150vo.
[10] Perlesvaus, Branch I. sections III., IV.
[11] Cf. my notes on the subject, Romania, Vol. XLIII. pp. 420-426.
[12] Cf. Nitze, Glastonbury and the Holy Grail, where the reference is
given.
[13] Vide supra, p. 155.
[14] Cf. Legend of Sir Perceval, Vol. II. p. 261. I suggested then
that the actual initiation would probably consist in enlightenment
into the meaning of Lance and Cup, in their sexual juxtaposition. I
would now go a step further, and suggest that the identification of
the Lance with the weapon of Longinus may quite well have rpelaced the
original explanation as given by Bleheris. In The Quest, Oct. 1916, I
have given, under the title "The Ruined Temple," a hypothetical
reconstruction of the Grail Initiation.
[15] Owain Miles, edited from the unique MS. by Turnbull and Laing,
Edinburgh, 1837. The Purgatory of Saint Patrick will be found in
Horstmann's Southern Legendary. I have given a modern English
rendering of part of Owain Miles in my Chief Middle-English Poets,
published by Houghton Mifflin Co., Boston, U.S.A.
[16] Cf. op. cit. pp. 148 et seq.
[17] Op. cit. pp. 155 and 254.
CHAPTER XIV
The Author
[1] Cf. Mead, Thrice Greatest Hermes, Vol III. p. 295. On this point
the still untranslated corpus of Bardic poetry may possibly throw
light.
[2] The Quest of the Holy Grail (Quest series, Bell, 1913).
[3] On the point that Chretien was treating an already popular theme,
cf. Brugger, Enserrement Merlin, I. (Zeitschrift fur Franz. Sprache,
XXIX.).
[4] That is, the relationship is due to romantic tradition, not to
Mystery survival, as Dr Nitze maintains.
[5] Cf. Romaia, Vol. XXXIII. pp. 333 et seq.
[6] Cf. Legend of Sir Perceval, Vol. I. Chap. 12, for the passages
referred to, also article in Romania, XXXIII.
[7] Cf. my Quest of the Holy Grail, pp. 110 et seq.
[8] Cf. Tristan (Bedier's ed.) Vol. I. l. 2120.
[9] A critic of my Quest volume remarks that "we have as little faith
in Wauchier's appeal to a Welshman Bleheris as source for his
continuation of Chretien's 'Perceval' as we have in Layamon's similar
appeal to Bede and St Austin at the beginning of the 'Brut.'" The
remark seems to me singularly inept, there is no parallel between the
cases. In the first place Layamon does not refer to Bede and St
Austin as source, but as models, a very different thing. Then the
statement is discredited by the fact that we possess the writings of
these men, and know them to be of another character than Metrical
Chronicles. In the case of Wauchier his reference does not stand
alone; it is one of a group, and that group marked by an extraordinary
unaminity of statement; whoever Bleheris may have been he was
certainly possessed of two definite qualifications--he knew a vast
number of tales, and he possessed a remarkable gift of narration,
i.e., he was a story-teller, par excellence. Thus he was, a priori, a
probable source for that section of Wauchier's work which is
attributed to him, a section consisting of short, picturesque, and
mutually independent tales, which formed part of a popular
collection. It is misleading to speak as if Wauchier refers to him as
general source for his Perceval continuation; the references are
clearly marked and refer to Gawain tales. Apart from the fact that
Wauchier's reference does not stand alone we have independent evidence
of the actual existence of such a group of tales, in our surviving
Gawain poems, certain of which, such as Kay and the Spit, and Golagros
and Gawayne are versions of the stories given by Wauchier, while the
author of the Elucidation was also familiar with the same collection.
If evidence for the identity of Bleheris is incomplete, that for his
existence appears to be incontrovertible. Would it not be more honest
if such a would-be critic as the writer referred to said, 'I do not
choose to believe in the existence of Bleheris, because it runs
counter to my pre-conceived theory of the evolution of literature'?
We should then know where we are. Such a parallel as that cited above
has no value for those familiar with the literature but may easily
mislead the general reader. I would also draw attention to the fact
noted in the text--the extreme improbability of Wauchier, a
continental writer, inventing an insular Welsh source. This is a
point critics carefully evade.
[10] Cf. Bledhericus de Cornouailles, note contributed by
M. Ferd. Lot, to Romania, Vol. XXVIII. p. 336. M lit remarks that he
has not met with the name in Armorica; it thus appears to be insular.
[11] Cf. Revue Celtique, 1911, A note on the identification of
Bleheris.
[12] Ed. Rhys-Evans, Vol. II. p. 297; cf. als Revue Celtique.
[13] In the course of 1915-16 I received letters from Mr Rogers Rees,
resident of Stepaside, Pembrokeshire, who informed me that he held
definite proof of the connection of Bledri with both Grail and
Perceval legends. The locality had been part of Bledri's estate, and
the house in which he lived was built on the site of what had been
Bledri's castle. Mr Rogers Rees maintained the existence of a living
tradition connecting Bledri with the legends in question. At his
request I sent him the list of the names of the brothers of Alain li
Gros, as given in the 1516 edition of the perlesvaus, a copy of which
is in the Bibliotheque Nationale, and received in return a letter
stating that the list must have been compiled by one familiar with the
district. Unfortunately, for a year, from the autumn of 1916, I was
debarred from work and when, on resuming my studies, I wrote to my
correspondent asking for the promised evidence I obtained no answer to
my repeated appeal. On communicating with Mr Owen I found he had had
precisely the same experience, and, for his part, was extremely
sceptical as to there being any genuine foundation for our
correspondent's assertions. While it is thus impossible to use the
statements in question as elements in my argument, I think it right in
the interests of scholarship to place them on record; they may afford
a clue which some Welsh scholar may be able to follow up to a more
satisfactory conclusion.
[14] Had Wauchier really desired to invent an authority, in view of
his date, and connection with the house of Flanders, he had a famous
name at hand--that of Chretien de Troyes.
[15] Cf. Legend of Sir Perceval, Vol. II. p. 307 and note. I have
recently received Dr Brugger's review of Mr R. H. Griffith's study on
the English poem, and am glad to see that the critic accepts the
independence of this version. If scholars can see there way to accept
as faits acquis the mutual independence of the Grail, and Perceval
themes, we shall, at last, have a solid basis for future criticism.
[16] Cf. my notes, Romania, Vol. XLIII. pp. 403 et seq.
End of From Ritual to Romance
by Jessie L. Weston
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