If the foregoing exposition be accepted we have a valuable criterion for the age of the immediate originals of the romances. That famous version of the legend which pictured the dwellers in the otherworld as Kings, spell bound, awaiting the releasing word to come forth and aid their folk, to which special circumstances gave such wide popularity in the later middle ages, causing it to supplant older tales of gods dwelling in the hollow hills, this version has left no trace upon the romances. These must, therefore, be older than the full-blown Arthurian legend. One or two minor points may be briefly noticed. The ship in which is found the magic sword which wounds all bold enough to handle it save the destined Knight may be thought to have taken the place of an older island. The loathly Grail messenger shows the influence of the two formulas: as coming from the Bespelled Castle,[130]type of the otherworld, sheshould be radiantly fair; as the kinswoman of the destined avenger, under spells until the vengeance be accomplished, she is hideous in the last degree.
But before we take leave of this incident we must examine two features upon which, as yet, no light has been thrown, the meaning of the epithet theFisherKing, and the hero’s silence upon his first visit to the Castle of Talismans.
The Fisher King in the Conte du Graal, in the Queste, and in Borron and the Grand St. Graal—The accounts of latter complete each other—The Fish is the Salmon of Wisdom—Parallel with the Fionn Saga—The nature of the Unspelling Quest—The Mabinogi of Taliesin and its mythological affinities—Brons, Bran, Cernunnos—Perceval’s silence: Conte du Graal explanation late; explanation from the Fionn Saga—Comparison of incident withgeasa; nature of latter; references to it in Celtic folk-tales and in old Irish literature, Book of Rights, Diarmaid, Cuchulainn—Geasaandtaboo.
The Fisher King in the Conte du Graal, in the Queste, and in Borron and the Grand St. Graal—The accounts of latter complete each other—The Fish is the Salmon of Wisdom—Parallel with the Fionn Saga—The nature of the Unspelling Quest—The Mabinogi of Taliesin and its mythological affinities—Brons, Bran, Cernunnos—Perceval’s silence: Conte du Graal explanation late; explanation from the Fionn Saga—Comparison of incident withgeasa; nature of latter; references to it in Celtic folk-tales and in old Irish literature, Book of Rights, Diarmaid, Cuchulainn—Geasaandtaboo.
The Conte du Graal, as we have seen, offers no satisfactory explanation of the Fisher King. By Chrestien he is represented on Perceval’s first meeting with him as angling from a boat steered by his companion (v. 4,187); he directs Perceval to his castle. Perceval is afterwards informed that, being wounded and consequently unable to mount on horseback, fishing is his only solace, whence the name applied to him (vv. 4,681,et seq.). This is practically all the Conte du Graal has to say about him, as the continuators, whilst repeating the epithet, add no fresh details. Indeed in none of the after-visits of Perceval is the King represented as fishing, or is there the slightest reference to, let alone insistence upon, this favourite occupation of his. It is another proof of the inadequacy of Birch-Hirschfeld’s theory of the development of the legend, that it represents Chrestien, who,ex hypothesi, divested Borron’s poem of its religious character, as retaining this feature due wholly to religious symbolism, whilst the continuators with their obvious fondness for such symbolism entirely neglected it. The Queste, which in so far as the quest portion is concerned is formally connected with the Conte du Graal, says nothing about the Fisher, nor does that section of the Grand St. Graal whichpresents the same Early History as the Queste. In Borron’s poem, on the other hand, and in that later section of the Grand St. Graal which agrees with it, an explanation is given of the epithet. According to Borron, Brons catches a fish at Joseph’s bidding; Joseph, having placed the vessel on the table and covered it with a towel, takes the fish and lays it opposite the vessel; the people are then called together, and it is possible to distinguish the sinners from the righteous (vv. 2,500-2,600). Joseph is afterwards told by an angel, that, as Brons was a good man, it was the Lord’s will he should catch the fish (vv. 3,310,et seq.), and he is to be called the Rich Fisher (v. 3,348). In the Grand St. Graal (Vol. II., pp. 248,et seq.) not Brons but his son Alain is bidden by Joseph to fish, and this with a view to providing food for the sinners of the company whom the Holy Vessel leaves unsatisfied. Alain fishes from a boat with a net. He catches but one fish, and there are at first murmurs, but Joseph, by virtue of Alain’s prayers, multiplies the fish so that it feeds the host, and thus Alain wins the name of Rich Fisher.
These accounts complete each other. Chrestien dwells upon the continued act of fishing which, for aught to the contrary we learn from him or his continuators, is always fruitless. Borron and the Grand St. Graal dwell upon the one successful haul, and especially upon the miraculous properties of the one fish caught. Reading the two accounts together, we find that the Fisher King passes his life seeking for a fish which, when caught, confers upon him the power of distinguishing good from evil, or enables him to furnish an inexhaustible meal to his men.
The Conte du Graal has been shown to derive more of its substance from the feud quest—the Didot-Perceval from the unspelling quest. Borron’s poem, as far as its primitive Celtic elements are concerned, is probably to be ranged with the Didot-Perceval, to which many links unite it. We may, therefore, turn to Celtic stories belonging to either of these formulas for parallel features. The inexhaustible nature of the fish at once recalls the pigs of Manannan Mac Lir (supra,p. 194); they, too, can feed a multitude. But it is in stories formally connected with the feud quest that we find what I venture to suggest is an adequate explanation of the nature of the Fisher King and of the fish. The latter is, Ithink, the Salmon of Wisdom,[131]which appears so often and so prominently in Irish mythic lore; and the former is that being who passes his life in vain endeavours to catch the wonderful fish, and who, in the moment of success, is robbed of the fruit of all his long toils and watchings. I am prepared to admit that the incident as found in Borron’s poem has been recast in the mould of mediæval 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.[132]
Let us first look at the Irish story. This is found in an account, to which allusion has already been made, of the Boyish Exploits of Finn Mac Cumhail.[133]It is there told how Finn seeks his namesake, Finn-eges, to learn poetry from him, as until then he durst not stay in Ireland for fear of his foes. Now Finn-eges had remained seven years by the Boyne, watching the salmon of Linn-Feic, which it had been foretold Finn (himself as he thought) should catch and know all things afterwards. Finn, who conceals his name, takes service with him and the salmon is caught. Finn is set to watch it while it roasts, but warned not to eat of it. Inadvertently he touches it with his thumb, which he burns, and carries to his mouth to cool. Immediately he becomes possessed of all knowledge, and thereafter he had only to chew his thumb to obtain wisdom. Finn-eges recognises that the prophecy has been fulfilled, and hails his pupil as Finn.
It is needless to dwell upon the archaic features of this tale,which represents the hero seeking service of a powerful magician, from whom he hopes to learn the spells and charms that may guard him against his foes. Here, as in many other portions of the Ossianic saga, Fionn is strikingly like a Red Indian medicine man, or the corresponding wizard among other savage tribes. It is more to our purpose to note that this tale contains the fullest presentment of Fionn as hero of the Expulsion and Return Formula, and that a similar incident is to be found in the lives of other heroes of the formula (notably Siegfried: the Adventure with Mimir.) Now, as we have already seen that Peredur-Perceval is a formula hero, there is nothing remarkable in finding an analogous incident in hissage. A formal connection is thus at once made out. But we must look into the matter a little closer, as the incident found in the romances is but a faint echo, and that in part distorted by alien conceptions, of the original story.
The unspelling quest in one form resolves itself ultimately into the hero’s search for riches, power, or knowledge, in prosecution of which he penetrates to the otherworld. This is figured in the Grail romances both by Brons’ or Alain’s (who here answers to Fionn) catching the wonderful fish, and by Peredur-Perceval coming to the house of Brons, the Fisher King (who here answers to Finn-eges), winning from him the mysterious vessel of increase, and learning the secret words which put an end to the enchantments of Britain. In the Grail romances the idea of wisdom is not associated with the Grail, the vessel, at all; it is either bound up with the fish, as in the Irish tale, or is the possession of the Fisher King as the wonder-working spells are the possession of Finn-eges.
But in the Welsh tradition which corresponds to that of Fionn and the salmon, it is the vessel, the cauldron, or rather the drink which it holds, which communicates the gift of wisdom and knowledge. I allude, of course, to the story of Gwion, set by Ceridwen to watch the cauldron of inspiration, inadvertently tasting its contents, becoming thereby filled with knowledge, pursued by Ceridwen, who swallows him, and in whom he re-incarnates himself as Taliesin, the Allwise Bard. Campbell had already (Vol. IV., p. 299) drawn attention to the similarity of the two stories, and equated Fionn, father of Oisin, with Gwion, father of Taliesin;and, as Professor Rhys has now (Hibbert Lectures, p. 551) given the equation his sanction, it may be accepted as philologically sound.
I have hitherto refrained in the course of these studies from making any use of the Mabinogi of Taliesin, or of references to the cauldron of Ceridwen of a like nature with those contained in that tale; but it will, I think, be admitted now that the Welsh Mabinogi, however late in form, and however overlaid it may be with pseudo-archaic bardic rubbish, does go back to a primitive stratum of Celtic mythology.
In connection with this myth the name Brons is of high import. This catcher of the fish, this lord of the Grail, at once suggests Bran, who is also a guardian of the magic cauldron. Professor Rhys (pp. 85-95) shows reason for looking upon Bran (as he is presented in the Mabinogi of Branwen) as the representative of an old Celtic god, Cernunnos, that Celtic Dis from whom, as Cæsar reports, the Gauls claimed descent, and who, as god of the otherworld and the shades was also god of knowledge and riches. We are thus brought back again to the fundamental conception of the Grail quest.
It is to this tale that I would turn for one of the possible explanations of Perceval’s silence at the Court of the Fisher King. That the romance writers did not understand this incident is evident from the explanation they give.
Gonemans’ moral advice to his nephew on the evil of curiosity may have its foundation in a possible feature of the original, about which I shall speak presently; or it may simply be an expedient of Chrestien’s or of his immediate model. In either case its present form is obviously neither old nor genuine. The silence of Perceval may, perhaps, be referred to the same myth-root as Fionn’s concealment of his name whilst in the service of Finn-eges.[134]This prohibition might extend not only to the disclosing of his name by the mortal visitor to the realm of the shades, but to the utterance of any words at all. As he might not eat or drink in theunderworld, so he might not speak lest he lose the power to return to the land of the living. One tale we have seen (supra,p. 195) does contain this very injunction to say no word whilst in company of the dwellers in the Bespelled Castle. In this case we should have to assume that two varying redactions of the theme have been maladroitly fused into one in the romances—that, namely, which bids the visitor to the otherworld abstain from a certain act, and that which, on the contrary, bids him perform a certain act, failure of compliance with the injunction being punished in either case. The positive injunction of one form of the story is used as an explanation of the hero’s failure in another.
An alternative hypothesis is that whilst the hero’s unreadiness of speech, the cause of his want of success at his first visit, comes wholly from the unspelling quest, the motive by which the romances seek to account for that unreadiness comes from the feud quest. The latter, as has been shown, is closely akin to many task-stories; and it is a frequent feature in such stories, especially in the Celtic ones, that the hero has to accomplish his quest in spite of all sorts of odd restrictions which are laid upon him by an enemy, generally by a step-mother or some other evil-disposed relative. In the language of Irish mythic tradition Perceval would be undergeasato ask no questions, and Gonemans’ advice would be the last faint echo of such an incident. The form which such prohibitions take in Celtic folk-tales is very curious. Thegessis generally embodied in a magical formula, the language of which is very old and frequently unintelligible to the narrators themselves. As a rule, the hero, by advice of a friendly supernatural being, lays a counterspell upon his enemy. Thus, in “How the Great Tuairsgeul was put to Death” (Scot. Celt. Rev. I., p. 70) the magician “lays it as crosses and charms that water leave not your shoe until you found out how the Great Tuairsgeul was put to death.” The hero retorts by laying the same charms that the magician leave not the hillock until he return. In Campbell, No. XLVII., Mac Iain Direach, the stepmother, “sets it as crosses, and as spells, and as the decay of the year upon thee; that thou be not without a pool of water in thy shoe, and that thou be wet, cold, and soiled until, etc.;” and the hero bespells her, “that thou be standingwith the one foot on the great house and the other foot on the castle: and that thy face be to the tempest whatever wind blows, until I return back.” The formula in Campbell, No. LI, the Fair Gruagach is very archaic. “I lay thee under spells, and under crosses, under holy herdsmen of quiet travelling, wandering woman, the little calf, most feeble and powerless, to take thy head and thine ear and thy wearing of life from off thee if thou takest rest by night or day; where thou takest thy breakfast that thou take not thy dinner, and where thou takest thy dinner that thou take not thy supper, in whatsoever place thou be, until thou findest out in what place I may be under the four brown quarters of the globe.”
These instances will suffice to show the nature of thegessin Celtic folk-lore, but some references to older Irish literature are necessary to show its great importance in the social and religious life of the race. O’Donovan (Book of Rights, p. xlv.) explains the wordgeasaas “any thing or act forbidden because of the ill luck that would result from its doing;” also “a spell, a charm, a prohibition, an interdiction or hindrance.” This explanation occurs in the introduction to a poem on the restrictions (geasa) and prerogatives (buada) of the Kings of Eire, found in the Book of Ballymote (late fourteenth century) and Book of Lecan (early fifteenth century). The poem is ascribed to Cuan O’Lochain (A.D.1024), and, from the historical allusions contained in it, O’Donovan looks upon it as in substance due to that poet, and as embodying much older traditions. Some of thesegeasamay be quoted. For the King of Eire, “that the sun should rise upon him on his bed in Magh Teamhrach;” for the King of Leinster, “to go round Tuath Laighean left hand-wise on Wednesday;” for the King of Munster, “to remain, to enjoy the feast of Loch Lein from one Monday to another;” for the King of Connaught, “to go in a speckled garment on a grey speckled steed to the heath of Luchaid;” for the King of Ulster, “to listen to the fluttering of the flocks of birds of Luin Saileach after sunset.”[135]Even these instances do not exhaust the force or adequately connote thenature of this curious institution. In the Irish hero-talesgeasaattach themselves to the hero from his birth up, and are the means by which fate compasses the downfall of the otherwise invincible champion; thus it is agessof Diarmaid that he never hunt a swine, and when he is artfully trapped into doing it by Fionn he meets his death; it is agessof Cuchulainn’s that he never refuse food offered him by women, and as he goes to his last fight he accepts the poisoned meal of the witches though he full well knows it will be fatal to him.[136]But, besides this,geasamay also be an appeal to the hero’s honour as well as a magic charm laid upon him, and it is sometimes difficult to see by which of the two motives the hero is moved. Thus Graine, wife of Fionn, laysgeasaupon Diarmaid that he carry her off from her husband, and though he is in the last degree unwilling he must comply.[137]
Enough has been said to show that we have in thegeasaa cause quite sufficient to explain the mysterious prohibition to ask questions laid upon Perceval, if the first explanation I have offered of this prohibition be thought inadequate.
Summing up of the elements of the older portion of the cycle—Parallelism with Celtic tradition—The Christian element in the cycle: the two forms of the Early History; Brons form older—Brons and Bran—The Bran conversion legend—The Joseph conversion legend: Joseph in apocryphal literature—Glastonbury—The head in the platter and the Veronica portrait—The Bran legend the starting point of the Christian transformation of the legend—Substitution of Joseph for Bran—Objections to this hypothesis—Hypothetical sketch of the growth of the legend.
Summing up of the elements of the older portion of the cycle—Parallelism with Celtic tradition—The Christian element in the cycle: the two forms of the Early History; Brons form older—Brons and Bran—The Bran conversion legend—The Joseph conversion legend: Joseph in apocryphal literature—Glastonbury—The head in the platter and the Veronica portrait—The Bran legend the starting point of the Christian transformation of the legend—Substitution of Joseph for Bran—Objections to this hypothesis—Hypothetical sketch of the growth of the legend.
I have now finished the examination of all those incidents in the Grail Quest romances which are obviously derived from some other sources than Christian legend, and which are, indeed, referred by pronounced adherents of the Christian-origin hypothesis to Celtic tradition. I have also claimed a Celtic origin for features hitherto referred to Christian legend. This examination will, I trust, convince many that nearly all the incidents connected with the Quest of the Grail are Celtic in their origin, and that thus alone can we account for the way in which they appear in the romances. The latter are, as we have seen, in the highest degree inconsistent in their account of the mystic vessel and its fortunes; the most cursory examination shows the legend to be composed of two parts, which have no real connection with each other; the older of these parts, the Quest, can easily be freed from the traces of Christian symbolism; this older part is itself no homogeneous or consistent tale, but a complex of incidents diverse in origin and character. These incidents are: the rearing of the hero in ignorance of the world and of men; his visit to the court of the King, his uncle; his slaying of his father’s murderer, the trial made of him by means of the broken sword; his service with the Fisher King; his quest in search of the sword and of the vessel by means of which he is toavenge the death or wounding of his kinsman; his accomplishment of this task by the aid of a kinsman who is under spells from which he will not be loosed until the quest be ended; the adventure of the stag-hunt, in which the bespelled kinsman tests the hero’s skill and courage; the hero’s visit to the Castle of Talismans; the prohibition under which he labours; his failure to accomplish certain acts; the effects of his failure; his visit to the Magic Castle, the lord of which is under the enchantment of death-in-life; his visit to the Castle of Maidens; his visit to the Castle Perillous; and his deliverance of the captive damsels by means of the trials which he successfully undergoes. To one and all of these incidents Celtic parallels have been adduced; these have in each case been drawn from stories which present a general similarity of outline with the Grail romances, or share with them similar guiding conceptions, whilst at the same time they are so far disconnected with them that no hypothesis of borrowing can account for the features they have in common. The inconsistencies of the romances have been explained by the fusion into one of two originally distinct groups of stories, and this explanation is confirmed by the fact that traces of this fusion may readily be found in the parallel Celtic tales. These latter, when studied by scholars who never thought of comparing them with the Grail romances, have been found to contain mythical elements which other scholars had detected independently in the romances. Those features of the romances which have perplexed previous students, the Fisher King and the omitted question, have been explained from the same group of Celtic traditions, and in accordance with the same scheme of mythical interpretation which have been used to throw light upon the remainder of the cycle. Finally, the one Celtic version of the Grail Quest, the Mabinogi, which presents no admixture of Christian symbolism, has been shown, when cleared of certain easily distinguishable interpolations, to be genuine in character, and to present the oldest form of one of the stories which enters into the romances.
I have tried not to force these parallels, nor to go one step beyond what the facts warrant. I have also tried to bear in mind that a parallel is of no real value unless it throws light upon thepuzzling features in the development of the romances. I thus rest my case, not so much upon the accumulative effect of the similarities which I have pointed out between the romances and Celtic tradition, as upon the fact that this reference of the romances to certain definite cycles of Celtic myth and legend makes us understand, what otherwise we cannot do, how they came by their present shape. It now remains to be seen if this reference, can in any way explain the Christian element in the legend, which I have hitherto left almost entirely out of account. Birch-Hirschfeld’s hypothesis is condemned, in my opinion, by its failure to account for the Celtic element; although I do not think an explanation of a late and intruding feature is as incumbent upon me as that of the original Celtic basis of the legend is upon him, I yet feel that an hypothesis which has nothing to say on such a vital point can hardly be considered satisfactory. It is the Christian transformation of the old Celtic myths and folk-tales which gave them their wide vogue in the Middle Ages, which endowed the theme with such fascination for the preachers and philosophers who used it as a vehicle for their teaching, and which has endeared it to all lovers of mystic symbolism. The question how and why the Celtic tales which I have tried, not unsuccessfully I trust, to disentangle from the romances were ever brought into contact with Christ and His disciples, and how the old mystic vessel of healing, increase, and knowledge became at last the sacramental cup, must, therefore, be faced. The hypotheses set forth in the preceding page might be accepted in their entirety, and the merit of this transformation still be claimed, as Birch-Hirschfeld claims it, for the North French poets, to whom we owe the present versions of the romances. On first reading Birch-Hirschfeld’s book, I thought this claim one of the flaws in his argument, and, as will be seen by reference toChapter IV., other investigators, who accept the Christian origin of the larger part of the legend, hold that it has been shaped in these islands, or in accordance with Celtic traditions now lost. I think we can go a step farther. A number of myths and tales have been used to illustrate the romances. In them may be found the personages through whom probably took place the first contact between Celtic mythic tradition and Christian legend.
We must revert for one moment to the results obtained inChapter III.by an examination of the way in which the Grail and its fortunes are mentioned in the romances. We there distinguished two forms of the distinctively Christian portion of the legend, the Early History. In both Joseph is the first possessor and user of the holy vessel, but in one its farther fortunes are likewise bound up with him or with his seed. He, or his son, it is who leads the Grail host to Britain, who converts the island, and by whom the precious vessel is handed down through a chosen line of kings in anticipation of the promised Knight’s coming. In the other form, on the contrary, Joseph has nothing to do with Britain, which is converted by Brons and his son, Alain; Brons is the guardian of the holy vessel, and, in one version, the fisher of the mystic fish, whilst in another his son takes this part. There is repeated insistence upon the connection between the Grail host and Avalon. Finally Brons is the possessor of “secret words,” and may not die until he has revealed them to his grandson.
This account is, we saw, later in form than the Joseph one. As we have it, it was written after the greater portion of the Conte du Graal, after that redaction of the Early History made use of by the author of the Queste and of the first draft of the Grand St. Graal. Its influence only makes itself felt in the later stages of development of the legend. But none the less it clearly represents an older and purer form of the Early History than that of the Queste and of Chrestien’s continuators. It has not been doctored into harmony with the full-blown Arthurian legend as the Joseph Early History has. It is still chiefly, if not wholly, a legend, the main purport of which is to recount the conversion of Britain.
Such a legend is surely more likely to have been shaped by Welsh or Breton monks than by North Frenchtrouvères. And when we notice the Celtic names of the personages, and their connection with the Celtic paradise, Avalon, there can remain little, if any, doubt respecting the first home of the story. We may thus look upon Brons, owner of a mystic vessel, fisher of a mystic fish, as the hero of an early conversion legend. But the name Brons has at once suggested to most students of the cycle that of Bran. The latter is, as we saw in the last Chapter, the representative of anold Celtic god of the otherworld. He is the owner of the cauldron of renovation. He is also the hero in Welsh tradition of a conversion legend, and is commonly known as Bran the Blessed. Unfortunately the only explanation we have of this epithet occurs in a late triad, to which it is not safe to assign an earlier date than the fourteenth century. He is described therein as son of Llyr Llediath, “as one of the three blissful Rulers of the Island of Britain, who first brought the faith of Christ to the nation of the Cymry from Rome, where he was seven years a hostage for his son Caradawc.”[138]But if late in form this triad may well embody an old tradition. It gives the significant descent of Bran from Llyr, and thereby equates him with Mannanan Mac Lir, with whom he presents otherwise so many points of contact. It is quite true that the Bran legend, as is pointed out to me by Professor Rhys, is mentioned neither in the earliest genealogies nor in Geoffrey. But it should be noted that the Grand St. Graal does bring one member of the Brons group, Petrus, into contact with King Luces, the Lucius to whom Geoffrey ascribes the conversion. Again, the epithet “blessed” is applied to Bran in the Mabinogi of Branwen, daughter of Llyr. I have placed this tale as a whole as far back as the eleventh-tenth centuries, and my arguments have met with no opposition, and have won the approval of such authorities as Professor Windisch and Monsieur Gaidoz. But the Mabinogi, as we have it, was written down in the fourteenth century; the last transcriber abridged it, and at times did not apparently understand what he was transcribing. By his time the full-blown Bran legend of the triad was in existence, and it may be contended that the epithet was due to him and did not figure in his model. On the other hand, Stephens (Lit. of the Cymry, p. 425) quotes a triad of Kynddelw, a poet of the twelfth century, referring to the three blessed families of the Isle of Britain, one of which is declared by a later tradition to be that of Bran.[139]Again, the triads of Arthur and hisWarriors, printed by Mr. Skene, Four Ancient Books, Vol. II., p. 457, from MS. Hengwrt, 566, of the beginning of the fourteenth century, and probably at least fifty years older, mentions the “blessed head of Bran.”[140]On the whole, in spite of the silence of older sources, I look upon the epithet and the legend which it presupposes as old, and I see in a confusion between Bran, Lord of the Cauldron, and Bran the Blessed, the first step of the transformation of the Peredursageinto the Quest of the Holy Grail. In the first capacity Bran corresponds to the Lord of the Castle of Talismans. From the way in which the fish is dwelt upon in his legend, it may, indeed, be conjectured that he stood to Peredur in some such relation as Finn-eges to Fionn. As hero of a conversion legend he came into contact with Joseph. We do not know how or at what date the legend of the conversion of Britain by Joseph originated. It is found enjoying wide popularity in the latter half of the twelfth century, the very time in which the romances were assuming their present shape. Wülcker (Das Evangelium Nicodemi in der abendländischen Literatur, Paderborn, 1872) shows that the legend is not met with before William of Malmesbury; and Zarncke, as already stated (supra,p. 107), has argued that the passage in William is a late interpolation due to the popularity of the romances.[141]But to accept Zarncke’s contention merely shifts back the difficulty. If William did not first note and give currency to the tradition, the unknown predecessor of Robert de Borron and of the authors of the Queste and Grand St. Graal did so; and the question still remains how did he come by the tradition, and what led him to associate it with Glastonbury. Birch-Hirschfeld, it is true, makes short work ofthis difficulty. The fact that there is no earlier legend in which Joseph figures as the Apostle of Britain is to him proof that Borron evolved the conception of the Grail out of the canonical and apocryphal writings in which Joseph appears, and then devised the passage to Britain in order to incorporate the Arthurian romances with the legend he had invented. It is needless to repeat that this theory, unacceptable ona priorigrounds, is still more so when tested by facts.
But Joseph under other aspects than that of Apostle of Britain is worthy of notice. The main source whence the legend writers drew their knowledge of him was the Evangelium Nicodemi, the history of which has been investigated by Wülcker. The earliest allusion in western literature to this apocryphal gospel is that of Gregory of Tours (Wülcker, p. 23), but no other trace of its influence is to be met with in France until we come to the Grail romances, and to mystery-plays which relate Christ’s Harrowing of Hell. In Provence, Italy, and Germany the thirteenth and twelfth centuries are the earliest to which this gospel can be traced. In England, on the contrary, it was known as far back as the latter quarter of the eighth century; Cynewulf based upon it a poem on the Harrowing of Hell, and alludes to it in the Crist; the ninth century poem, “Christ and Satan,” likewise shows knowledge of it, and there is a West-Saxon translation dating from the early eleventh century.
Whence this knowledge and popularity of the gospel in England several centuries before it entered prominently into the literature of any other European people? Wülcker can only point by way of answer to the early spread of Christianity in these Islands, and to the possibility of this gospel having reached England before it did France or Germany. He also insists upon the early development of Anglo-Saxon literature.
Whether the fact that the apocryphal writings which told of Joseph were known here when they were unknown on the Continent be held to warrant or no the existence of a specifically British Joseph legend, they at all events prove that he was a familiar and favourite legendary figure on British soil. It would be rash to go any farther, and to argue from the inadequacy of the reasons bywhich Wülcker seeks to account for the early knowledge of the Evangelium Nicodemi in England, that Joseph enjoyed particular favour among the British Christians, and that it was from them the tidings of him spread among their Saxon conquerors.
The legendary popularity of Joseph in these islands, though not in any special capacity of Apostle of Britain, is thus attested. Let us admit for argument’s sake that the conversion legend did first take shape in the twelfth century, is it not more likely to have done so here, where the apocryphal writings about him were widely spread, than in France, where they were practically unknown? And why if Borron, or any other French poet, wanted to connect the Holy Vessel legend which he had imagined with Arthur, should he go out of his way to invent the personages of Brons and Alain? The story as found in the Queste would surely have been a far more natural one for him. And why the insistence upon Avalon? We have plain proof that Borron did not understand the word, as he explains it by a ridiculous pun (supra,p. 78).[142]
These difficulties are met in a large measure if we look uponBran (Brons) as the starting point of the Christian transformation of the legend. In any case we may say that a conversion legend, whether associated with Joseph or anyone else, would almost inevitably have gravitated towards Glastonbury, but there are special reasons why this should be the case with a Bran legend. Avalon is certainly the Welsh equivalent of the Irish Tír na n-Og, the land of youth, the land beyond the waves, the Celtic paradise. When or how this Cymric myth was localised at Glastonbury we know not.[143]We only know that Glastonbury was one of the first places in the island to be devoted to Christian worship. Is it too rash a conjecture that the Christian church may have taken the place of some Celtic temple or holy spot specially dedicated to the cult of the dead, and of that Lord of the Shades from which the Celts feigned their descent? The position of Glastonbury, not far from that western sea beyond which lie the happy isles of the dead, would favour such an hypothesis. Although direct proof is wanting, I believe that the localisation is old and genuine: Bran, ruler of the otherworld, of Avalon, would thus come into natural contact with Glastonbury; and if, as I assume, Joseph took his place in the conversion legend the association would extend to him. The after development of the legend would then be almost a matter of course. Bran, the ruler in Avalon, would pass on his magic gear (cauldron, spear, and sword, as in the case of the Tuatha de Dannan) to Bran the Blessed, who would in his turn transfer them to Joseph. And once the latter had entered into the legend, he would not fail to recall that last scene of the Lord’s life with which he was so closely associated, not by any pseudo-gospel but by the canonicalwritings themselves, and thus the gear of the old Celtic gods became transformed into such objects as were most prominent in the story of the Passion and of the scene that immediately preceded it. The spear became that one wherewith Christ’s side was pierced. As for the vessel, the sacramental nature is the last stage of its Christian development; its original object was merely to explain the sustenance of Joseph in prison, and to provide a miraculous refreshment for the Grail host, as is shown by the Early History portion of the Conte du Graal and by the Queste. In a dim and confused way the circumstances of the Resurrection helped to effect the change of the pagan resuscitation-cauldron into a symbol of the risen Lord. And some now lost feature of the original legend—some insistence upon thecontentsof the vessel, some assimilation of them to blood—may have suggested the use to which the vessel was first put.
This hypothesis assumes many things. It assumes a Bran conversion legend, of which the only evidence of anything like the same date as the romances is a single epithet; it assumes that the hero of this legend was originally an old Celtic divinity; it assumes a Joseph conversion legend, for which there is really no other evidence than that of the romances; it assumes the amalgamation of the two legends, and that Joseph took over in a large measure therôleand characteristics of Brons. And when it is recollected that the primary assumption, the identification of the two Brans, rests in a large measure upon the appearance of the fish in the Brons legend, that this fish is nowhere in Celtic tradition associated with Bran, that it is associated on the other hand with a being, Fionn, whom we have compared with Peredur, but that it is absent from the Peredur-saga, the hypothesis must be admitted to be of a tentative nature. I fully appreciate the force of the objections that can be urged against it; at the same time it has the merit of accounting for many puzzling features in the legend. When in the same story two personages can be distinguished whoserôleis more or less of the same nature, when the one personage is subordinated in one version and has disappeared altogether from the other, it is quite legitimate to conclude that two originally independent accounts have become blended, and that one has absorbed theother. The hypothesis is on safe ground so far. It thus explains the presence of Brons in the legend, as well as his absence from some versions of it; it has something to say in explanation of the connection with Glastonbury; it explains in what way the Celtic traditions were started on their path of transformation; and it provides for that transformation taking the very course it did. There is nothing to be urged against it ona priorigrounds; once admit the premisses, and the rest follows easily and naturally. Its conjectural character (the main objection to it) is shared in an even higher degree by the other hypotheses, which have essayed to account for the growth and origin of the legend, andtheyhave the disadvantage of being inherently impossible.
In the light of the foregoing investigations and hypotheses we may now amplify the sketch history of the whole cycle given inChapter III.The Peredur-saga probably came into existence in much its later form at an early date in the Middle Ages. A number of older mythical tales centered in a, perhaps, historical personage. The circumstances of his life and adventures may have given them not only cohesion, but may also have coloured and distorted them; nevertheless they remained, in the main, mythical tales of the same kind as those found all over the world. One of these tales was undoubtedly a Cymric variant of the Celtic form of the Expulsion and Return formula; another dealt with the hero’s journey to the Land of Shades; traces of many others are to be found in the Mabinogi. Another Celtic worthy, Gwalchmai, was early associated with Peredur, and the two stood in some such relation to each other as the twin brethren of a widely spread folk-tale group. Curiously enough, whilst comparatively few incidents in the Peredur-saga were worked up into the version which served as immediate model to the North French romances, that version contained many adventures of Gwalchmai’s which have not been preserved in Welsh. We can trace three main crystallizations of the original saga-mass; one represented by the Proto-Mabinogi contained the feud quest, and, probably, some only of the other adventures found in the present Mabinogi; the second, based more on the lines of the Expulsion and Return formula, is represented by the Thornton MS. romance; in thethird the feud quest was mixed up with the hero’s visit to the Bespelled Castle, and those portions of the Gwalchmai-saga which told of his visit to Castle Perillous as well as to the Bespelled Castle. Whilst the Proto-Mabinogi was probably in prose, the Proto-Conte du Graal was probably in verse, a collection of shortlaislike those of Marie de France. Meanwhile, one of the chief personages of the older mythic world which appear in the Peredur-saga, Bran, the Lord of the Land of Shades, of the Bespelled Castle, of the cauldron of healing, increase and wisdom, and of the knowledge-giving salmon, had become the Apostle of Britain, his pagan attributes thus suffering a Christian change, which was perfected when Joseph took the place of Brons, bringing with him his gospel associations and the apocryphal legends that had clustered round his name. Thus a portion of the saga was Christianised, whilst the other portion lost its old, fixed popular character, owing to the fusion of originally distinct elements, and the consequent unsettling both of the outlines and of the details of the story. Incidents and features which in the earlier folk-tale stage were sharply defined and intelligible became vague and mysterious. In this state, and bearing upon it the peculiarly weird and fantastic impress of Celtic mythic tradition, the story, or story-mass rather, lay ready to the hand of courtly poet or of clerical mystic. At first Christian symbolism was introduced in a slight and meagre way—the Brons-Joseph legend supplied the Christian meaning of the talismans, and that was all. But the Joseph legend was soon vigorously developed by the author of the work which underlies the Queste and the Grand St. Graal. He may either not have known or have deliberately discarded Brons, the old Celtic hero of the conversion, as he certainly deliberately thrust down from his place of pre-eminence Perceval, the Celtic hero of the Quest, substituting for him a new hero, Galahad, and for the adventures of the Conte du Graal, based as they were upon no guiding conceptions, fresh adventures intended to glorify physical chastity. With all his mystic fervour he failed to see the full capacities of the theme, his presentment of the Grail itself being in especial either over-material or over-spiritual. But his work exercised a profound influence, as is seen in the case of Chrestien’scontinuators. Robert de Borron, on the other hand, if to him the merit must be assigned, if he was not simply transcribing an older, forgotten version, was a more original thinker, if a less gifted writer. Although he was not able to entirely harmonise the conflicting accounts of which he made use, he yet succeeded in keeping close to the old lines of the legend whilst giving a consistent symbolical meaning to all its details. His work came too late, however, to exercise the influence it should have done upon the development of the legend; the writers who knew it were mere heapers together of adventures, and the very man who composed a sequel to it abandoned Robert’s main conception.
The history of the Legend of the Holy Grail is, thus, the history of the gradual transformation of old Celtic folk-tales into a poem charged with Christian symbolism and mysticism. This transformation, at first the inevitable outcome of its pre-Christian development, was hastened later by the perception that it was a fitting vehicle for certain moral and spiritual ideas. These have been touched upon incidentally in the course of these studies, but they and their manifestation in modern as well as in mediæval literature deserve fuller notice.