the Holy Grail

GRAIL, THE HOLY, the famous talisman of Arthurian romance, the object of quest on the part of the knights of the Round Table. It is mainly, if not wholly, known to English readers through the medium of Malory's translation of the French Quete del Saint Graal, where it is the cup or chalice of the Last Supper, in which the blood which flowed from the wounds of the crucified Saviour has been miraculously preserved. Students of the original romances are aware that there is in these texts an extraordinary diversity of statement as to the origin and nature of the Grail, and that it is extremely difficult to deter mine the precise value of the differing versions.

The word

grail undoubtedly originally signified dish; we read in an early French text of "boars' heads on grails of silver," and Robert de Borron, the author of the first Christian Grail romance, represents it as the dish on which, at the Last Supper, the Pas chal Lamb was served. Helinandus describes it as a "wide and somewhat shallow dish." This is certainly the primary sense of the word, which later on became attached to the varying man ifestations of this mysterious object. Thus it may be a direct food-providing talisman, as in the version attributed to the Welshman, Bleheris (probably identical with the Bledhericus to whom Giraldus Cambrensis refers as "famosus ille f abulator") . Here the king and his guests are fed by the "rich" Grail, which acts automatically, "sans serjant et sans seneschal," the butlers providing the wine. Or it may be indirectly such a talisman, as in the Perceval romances and the Galahad Queste, where its ap pearance synchronizes with the feast provided, but we are not told that it is, as in the first case, the actual source of the food. It may be a crystal vase, filled with blood, from which the Fisher king drinks, through a golden reed (Diu Crone, first visit) or a reliquary containing the Host (ibid., second visit). It may be a cup or dish, accompanied by a lance, which bleeds into it (Ble heris and Perlesvaus) ; the dish of the Last Supper (Borron's Joseph), or the cup (Queste). It may be a stone, as in the Par zival; or its place in procession may be taken, as in the Welsh Peredur, by a bleeding head on a dish. The task of the critic is to discover a solution which shall admit of all these diverse ob jects being one and the same, all equally "the Grail." Modern criticism is gradually arriving at the conclusion that there is only one solution which will meet these apparently contradictory de mands: that which lies in the direction of what is now termed the "ritual" origin, rather than in that of purely Christian legend or modified folk-tale. The theory of a Christian origin, once very generally accepted, has now been practically abandoned in face of the fact that no story of Joseph of Arimathea and the Grail exists in any legendary ; it makes its first appearance in the ro mance of Joseph of Arimathea by Robert de Borron, composed in the closing years of the I2th century, and by no means the earliest Grail romance. The connection of Joseph with Glastonbury, still credited in some circles, is even later, and is obviously imitated from the much earlier "Saint Sang" legend of Fescamp, of which Nicodemus is the protagonist. Glastonbury and Fescamp were alike Benedictine foundations, both enjoyed royal patronage, and their abbots were closely connected by family ties both with each other and with the royal family of England. The Joseph-Glaston bury story, which in its earliest form knows nothing of the Grail, is thus easily to be accounted for. The folk-tale theory has more in its favour, as there are undoubted folklore features in some of the romances, such as, e.g., the food-providing powers of the Grail, but we have no popular tale, even fragmentary, which pro vides us with the requisite mise-en-scene.

On the other hand, it is now very generally recognized that the machinery of the earlier romances—the Fisher king, sick, wounded or in extreme old age, whose incapacity entails disas trous consequences upon his land and folk, both alike ceasing to be fruitful; the quester, whose task is to heal the king, and restore fruitfulness to the land—bear a striking resemblance to the cults associated with such deities as Tammuz, Adonis and Attis, the object of which was the renewal of vegetation and the preservation of life. Further, we now know that a certain early Christian sect, the Naassenes, identified the Logos of the Chris tian worship with these earlier deities, practised a triple initia tion into the sources of life, physical and spiritual, and boldly proclaimed themselves to be "alone the true Christians, accom plishing the mystery at the Third Gate." The evidence for the connection between Christianity and the Attis cult in particular is clear, and has been commented upon by A. B. Cook in the sec ond volume of his monumental work on Zeus. Scholarly opinion is steadily coming round to the view that the only interpretation of the obscurities and apparent contradictions of the Grail story is to regard it as the confused record of a form of worship, semi Christian, semi-Pagan, at one time practised in these islands, the central object of which was initiation into the sources of life, physical and spiritual. This, and this alone, will account for the diverse forms assumed by the Grail, the symbol of that source. Thus is may be the dish from which the worshippers partook of the communal feast ; it may be the cup in juxtaposition with the lance, symbols of the male and female energies, source of physi cal life, and well known phallic emblems. It may be the "Holy" Grail, source of spiritual life, the form of which is not defined, and which is wrought of no material substance—" 'twas not of wood, nor of any manner of metal, nor was it in any wise of stone, nor of horn, nor of bone"; it is a spiritual object, to be spiritually discerned, but always, and under any form, a source of life. Thus Wolfram's stone, the mere sight of which preserves all inhabitants of the Grail castle, not only in life, but in youth, is what is popularly known as "the philosopher's stone," that stone of the alchemist which was the source of all life. Even the bleeding head of Peredur may be interpreted on the same lines. A passage in the York Breviary, for the Feast of the Be heading of St. John the Baptist, states "Caput Johannis in disco signat Corpus Christi quo pascimur in sancto altari." When the Grail had once been elevated to the purely Christian orthodox plane, as was done by Borron, and became the source, no longer of physical, but of spiritual life, such a substitution, by one fa miliar with the York Breviary, was possible, even as the author of Wolfram's source, or one before him, had introduced the al chemical stone. As the record of the perennial, too often unsuc cessful, quest for the source of life, all the puzzling features of the Grail story are capable of satisfactory explanation. There is no other clue to the maze.

The versions of the Grail Quest which have come down to us are (a) those of which Gawain is the hero : the version by Ble heris, incorporated in the first continuation. of Chretien de Troyes' Perceval, and Diu Crone, a long and rambling series of Gawain adventures, the source of which is unknown. (b) The important group of which Perceval is the central figure: the Conte del Graal or Perceval of Chretien, with its three continuations, re spectively due to Wauchier de Denain, Gerbert (probably Gerbert de Montreuil, author of Le Roman de la Violette), and Manessier; the Perceval of Robert de Borron; Perlesvaus, by an unknown writer, and Parzival, by Wolfram von Eschenbach, the finest romance of the cycle. Of the three continuations of Chretien's poem that of Gerbert is the most interesting, as it witnesses to the existence of a tradition connecting the Swan Knight with the Grail hero, a tradition known also to Wolfram and to the author of Sone de Nansai, and familiar to the present generation through the medium of Wagner's Lohengrin. (c) The latest of the Grail romances is the Queste, or Quete del Saint Graal, a section of the prose Lancelot, known to English readers through the medium of Malory's translation. Thus we have two romances of which Ga wain is the hero; seven, if we include the three continuations of Chretien, connected with Perceval; one only which knows Gala had, with Perceval as a good second. To treat Galahad as Grail hero par excellence, as is too often done, is a grave mistake.