Studies on the Legend of the Holy Grail Part 12

(12 & 13) DIDOT-PERCEVAL: (Inc. 11-16). Two visits of Perceval to Grail Castle. Question omitted at first, put at second, and crowned with success.

In a German romance, which presents many a.n.a.logies with that portion of the Conte du Graal which goes under Gautier's name:

(14) HEINRICH VON DEM TuRLIN: Gawain's first visit to Grail Castle.

Question put. Success. Allusion to previous unsuccessful visit of Perceval.

Finally in the QUESTE versions we have four variants of the incident--

(15) QUESTE: (Inc. 12). Lancelot at the cross-road, omission to ask concerning the Grail.

(15) QUESTE: (Inc. 15). Perceval heals Mordrains.

" (Inc. 43). Lancelot comes to Grail Castle. Partial fulfilment of his Quest.

" (Inc. 48). The three questers come to the Grail Castle.

On looking at the list we notice that the Conte du Graal knows of three visits on the part of the princ.i.p.al hero to the Castle of Talismans: 1, 2, 3, or 1, 2-4, 5, and of one visit (or two) of the secondary hero; whilst Wolfram, the Mabinogi, and the Didot-Perceval know of two only. Heinrich von dem Turlin gives only one visit to _his_ chief hero, though he mentions a former one by the secondary hero. In Wolfram, and the Didot-Perceval, the incident may be compared in the Conte du Graal with 1 and 2; in the Mabinogi with 1 and 5; in Heinrich with 6. The Queste forms of the incident are obviously dependent upon those of the Conte du Graal, although they have been strongly modified. As for 7, it would seem to be a form of the incident which has been entirely unaffected by the Christian symbolism which has influenced all the others.

It will be advisable to recapitulate the leading features of the incident as found in the different versions. Where the summaries in Chapter II afford detailed information about it, the recapitulation will be brief, but it will be necessary to give at least one version at much greater length than heretofore.

In the Conte du Graal (1) the hero finds a King fis.h.i.+ng, who directs him to his castle. Just as he deems the fisher has deceived him the castle bursts upon his sight. He enters, is led into a square room wherein is a bed sitting on which is an old man wrapped in sables; before him is a great fire of dry wood; 400 men might sit in the hall. The King rises to greet him; as they sit, a squire enters with a sword which had but two fellows, sent by the King's niece for the hero to whom it was destined.

The hall is light as it may be. A squire enters holding a lance by the middle; all can behold the drop of blood which flows from the point upon the holder's hand. There follow him two squires with candlesticks, each with ten candles, in either hand; a damsel holding a Grail, which gives out a light as greater than that of the candles as the sun outs.h.i.+nes the stars; and another damsel with a plate of fine gold. The procession pa.s.ses from one into the other room. The hero refrains from asking who is served by the Grail. After playing at chess with the King they dine, and again the Grail pa.s.ses, uncovered, at each dish. The hero would fain ask what was done with it, and is about to do so, but puts off the question. On the morrow he sees no one in the castle, the doors of the rooms he had been in the eve before are shut, no one answers; and, mounting his horse, which he finds ready saddled, he sets forth over the drawbridge, which closes of itself behind him, without learning why lance bleeds or whither the Grail is borne. (2) At the second visit the hero comes into a magnificent room, ornamented with fine gold and stars of silver, wherein on a vermeil couch the rich King is sitting. The hero is fain forthwith to ask about Grail and bleeding lance, but must sit him down by the rich King and tell of his adventures, about the chapel in which lay the dead Knight, and the black hand, the child in the tree and the tree full of candles. The King makes him eat before answering his questions. Whilst at meat a damsel, fairer than flowers in April, enters with the Holy Grail, another with the lance, a squire with the broken sword. The hero asks about these talismans. But first the King answers the questions about the earlier wonders; the talismans he will tell of after meat. The hero insists to know about the sword. The King bids him put it together--can he do so he will learn about the Knight in the Chapel, and after that about the talismans. Save for one flaw the hero succeeds, whereupon the King says he knows no one in the world better than he, embraces him, and yields him up all in his house.

The squire who brought the sword returns, wraps it in a cendal, and carries it off.

2A. The King bids the hero eat. 4. The hero would hold it sin if Lance and Grail, and a fair silver he did not ask concerning the dish pa.s.s before them, the latter Grail. The King first submits him held by a damsel. The hero sighs to the sword test.[86] The and begs to learn about these existence of the flaw is three. He is told about lance, apparently held to const.i.tute Grail, Grail-bearing damsel, failure, due to the hero's sin in dish-bearing damsel, and in quitting his mother so abruptly.

answer to further questions, In the night the hero has a learns the history of the broken vision, which warns him to hasten sword, and of the chapel haunted to his sister's aid. On the morrow by the black hand. After sleeping the Grail Castle has vanished.

in a splendid bed[87] he sets Mounting his horse, which stands forth on the morrow on the sword ready saddled, he rides forth.

quest (the slaying of Partinal). After a vain essay to gain entrance to a magnificent castle, 3. Having accomplished which, and in which he breaks his sword, and lighted chancewise upon the Grail thereby loads upon himself seven Castle, the King, apprised by a further years of adventure, but squire and forthwith healed, meets learns how the sword may be made the hero who shows him head and whole again, he finds the land s.h.i.+eld. At table lance and Grail which the day before was waste pa.s.s, borne by two maidens; fertile and peopled. The peasants delectable meats fill the dishes-- hail him: the townsmen come forth all are filled and satisfied who in his honour--for through him the behold the Holy Grail and the lance folk have won back lands and that bleeds. Thereafter enters a riches. A damsel tells him how: at squire holding a silver dish the Court of the Fisher King he covered with red samite; the had asked about the Grail. At her talismans pa.s.s thrice; the King castle he has his sword mended.

thanks the hero for having slain (Later the hero learns that his his enemy and thereby rid him of failure to win the Grail comes great torment. Asks his name, from his not having wedded his learns that he is his nephew, and lady-love).

offers him his kingdom.

5. Hero is directed by a cross to the Court of the Fisher King. The latter makes him sit by his side and tell his adventures, when he would fain learn about the Grail.

The same procession then pa.s.ses as in (2), save that sword instead of being broken is simply described as not resoldered. The hero says he has been twice before with the King, and reproaches him for not having answered his questions, although he had resoldered the sword to the King's great joy. The King then bids him shake the sword, which he does, and the flaw disappears. The King is overjoyed, and the hero is now worthy of knowing everything.[88]

In comparing with these versions of the incident that found in the Didot-Perceval, we find that the hero at his first visit is welcomed by the squires of the castle, clad in a scarlet cloak, and placed upon a rich bed, whilst four sergeants apprise Brons of his arrival, and the latter is carried into the hall where sits the hero, who rises to greet him. Brons questions him before they sit down to meat. The mystic procession is formed by squire with lance bleeding, damsel with silver dish, squire with the vessel holding our Lord's blood. On the morrow the hero sees no one, and finds all the doors open. At his second visit there is no mention of difficulty in finding the castle. This time the King rises to greet him; they talk of many things and then sit down to meat.

Grail and worthy relics pa.s.s, and the hero asks who is served by the vessel which the squire holds in his hands. Straightway the King is healed and changed; overjoyed he first asks the hero who he is, and, on learning it, tells him concerning lance and Grail, and afterwards, at the bidding of a heavenly voice, the secret words which Joseph taught him, Brons.

In the Mabinogi the castle lies on the other side of a meadow. At his first visit the hero finds the gates open, and in the hall a h.o.a.ry-headed man sits, around whom are pages who rise to receive the hero. Host and guest discourse and eat, seated beside one another. The sword trial follows, and the hero is declared to have arrived at two-thirds of his strength. The two youths with the dripping spear enter, amid the lamentation of the company, are followed by the two maidens with the salver wherein is a man's head, and the outcry redoubles. On the morrow the hero rides forth unmolested.

At the second visit the castle is described as being in a valley through which runs a river. The grey-headed man found sitting in the hall with Gwalchmai is described as lame.

So far we have recapitulated the leading features of Perceval's dealings at the Talismans Castle in the Conte du Graal and in the most closely allied versions. But Perceval, the chief hero, has, as we have already seen, an under-study in Gauvain. And the Gauvain form of the incident deserves as close examination as the Perceval form.

(6) Gauvain has met a knight, stranger to him, with whom he travels to Caerleon. Whilst in his company the stranger is slain by a dart cast by whom no one knows. Before dying he bids Gauvain take his arms and his horse; he knows not why he has been slain, he never harmed anyone. Gauvain suspects and accuses Kex, upon whom he vows to prove the murder, and sets forth to learn the unknown's name. After affronting the adventure of the black hand[89] in the chapel and long wanderings, he finds himself one evening at the opening of a dark, tree-covered road at whose further end he spies a light. Tired and fasting he lets his horse go at its will, and is led to a castle where he is received with great honour as though he were expected. But when he has changed his dress the castle folk see it is not he whom they thought. In the hall is a bier whereupon lie cross and sword and a dead knight. Canons and priests raise a great lamentation over the body. A crowned knight enters and bids Gauvain sit by his side. Then the Grail goes through the room, serving out meats in plenty, and acting the part of a steward, whereat Gauvain is astounded. He next sees a lance which drips blood into a silver cup. From out the same room whence come the talismans, the King issues, a sword in his hand, the sword of the dead knight, over whom he laments--on his account the land languishes. He bids Gauvain essay to make the sword whole, but Gauvain cannot, and is told his quest may not be accomplished. After his toils and wanderings Gauvain is sleepy, but he struggles against sleep, and asks about bleeding lance and sword and bier. Whilst the King is answering him he goes to sleep. On awakening he is on the sea sh.o.r.e, arms and steed by his side.[90] He then meets with the peasantry, and is told of the changed condition of the land in a pa.s.sage already quoted (p. 87). Had he asked about the Grail "por coi il servoit," the land had been wholly freed.

Heinrich von dem Turlin's account of Gauvain's visit to the Grail Castle differs, as will be seen by the Summary, p. 27, which it is unnecessary to repeat, more from that of Gautier than from the Perceval visit of the Conte de Graal, with which it has the common feature, that the person benefitted by the transaction is the Lord of the Magic Castle. As will already have been noticed it stands alone in the conception that the inmates of the castle are under the enchantment of death-in-life from which the question frees them.

There still remains to be noticed (7) the incident of Perceval's visit to the Castle of Maidens, so closely a.n.a.logous in certain details to the Grail Castle visit, and yet wholly disa.s.sociated from it in the conduct of the story. Perceval, wandering, sees across a river in fair meadow land a rich castle built of marble, yellow and vermeil. Crossing a bridge he enters, and the door at once closes behind him. No one is in the hall, in the centre of which is a table, and hanging to it by a steel chain a hammer. Searching the castle he still finds no one, and no one answers to his call. At length he strikes upon the table three blows with the hammer.

A maiden appears, reproaches him, and disappears. Again he waits, and again he strikes three blows. A second damsel appears, and tells him if he strike afresh the tower will fall, and he be slain in its fall. But as he threatens to go on, the damsel offers to open the door and let him forth.

He declares he will stay till morning, whereupon the damsel says she will call her mistress. The hero bids her haste as he is not minded to wait long, and warns her that he still holds the hammer. Other damsels then show themselves, disarm and tend the hero, and lead him through a splendid hall into a still more splendid one, wherein a hundred fair and courteous maidens, all of like age and mien, and richly dressed, rise at his approach and hail him as lord. The hero deems himself in paradise, and "sooth 'tis to be in paradise to be with dames and maids; so sweet they are, the devil can make naught of them, and 'tis better to follow them than to hearken to sermons preached in church for money." The dame of the castle bids the hero sit him down by her. "White she is as a lily, rosier than on a May morn a fresh blown rose when the dew has washed it." She asks him his name, and on hearing how he had wandered lonely three days ere meeting with the castle, tells him he might have wandered seven ere finding where to partake of bread and meat. He is well feasted. In reply to his questions about the castle, and how is it no man may be seen in it, he learns he is in the Maidens' Castle, all the inmates of one kin and land, of gentle birth; no mason put his hand to the castle, no serf toiled at it. Four maids built it, and in this wise: Whatever knight pa.s.sed, and entering, beheld the door closed, and no man meeting him--if craven he struck no blow with the hammer, and on the morrow he went forth unheeded; but if wise and courteous he struck the table, and was richly entertained.

As the lady tells this tale the hero, overcome with much journeying, falls asleep and is laid to bed by the maidens. On the morrow he wakes beneath a leafy oak, and never a house in sight.

It is surely superfluous to point out that the foregoing recapitulation of the various forms under which this incident has come down to us gives the last blow to the theory which makes Christian symbolism the starting point, and the Didot-Perceval the purest representative of the legend. We should have to admit not only that the later romance writers entirely misunderstood the sense of their model, but that, whilst anxiously casting about in every direction for details with which to overlay it, they neglected one of its most fertile hints--that of the secret words handed down through Joseph from Christ Himself to the successful Grail quester.

What a mine of adventures would not Gautier, Gerbert, and all the other unknown versifiers, who added each his quota to the Conte, have found in those "secret words?" Nay, more, we must admit that so much in love were they with this incident they misunderstood, that they repeated it in half-a-dozen varying forms, and finally eliminated from it every trace of its original element. There are theories which ask too much and which must be set on one side, even if one has nothing equally ingenious and symmetrical to set in their place.

Three things strike one in considering this incident apart from the other adventures with which it is a.s.sociated; the want of consistency in those versions which, formally, are closely related, an inconsistency which we have already noted in dealing with the legend as a whole; the repet.i.tion of the same incident with almost similar details, but with a different animating conception; and the fact that some of the secondary forms testify to that same thread of story which we have already extracted from the comparison of the Mabinogi and the Conte du Graal in their entirety.

Not only is the conception of the Quest different in Chrestien and Manessier or Chrestien-Gerbert, but the details are different, the centre of interest being s.h.i.+fted from the omitted question to the broken sword.

In Manessier the _denoment_ is brought about without any reference to the question, in Gerbert the reference is of the most perfunctory kind. Again we find the same machinery of Grail, lance, and other talismans, which in Chrestien-Manessier serves to bring about the hero's vengeance on his uncle's murderer, in Chrestien-Gerbert the re-union of the lovers and the winning of the Grail Kings.h.i.+p, used in the Gawain quest with the evident object of compa.s.sing vengeance upon the slayer of the unknown knight. And, thirdly, this secondary form is in close agreement with the Mabinogi--here, as there, the sword test takes place at the Fisher King's; here, as there, it immediately precedes the pa.s.sing of the talismans; here, as there, it is only partially successful; here, as there, is a tangible reminder of the object of the quest, in the dead body of the unknown knight in the one case, in the head swimming in blood in the other. And here we may note that of the two forms in which the _Queste_ reproduces this incident, the one which holds the more prominent position in the narrative, the one of which Lancelot is the hero, closely resembles that secondary form in the Conte du Graal which is connected with Gawain.

The wounded knight whom Lancelot beholds at the crossways borne into the chapel upon a bier, and clamouring for the succour of the Grail, recalls forcibly the dead knight of the Gawain quest. It is, perhaps, still more significant that when the Queste does reproduce the Perceval form, it is only in its externals, and the mystic vessel, which in the older version is obviously a means of achieving the quest, has, in the later one, become the end of that quest.

It seems impossible to resist the following conclusions:--The many forms of the incident found in the Grail romances are not variants of one, and that an orderly and logical original; they testify to the fact that in the body of popular tradition which forms the basis of these romances the incident of the visit to a magic castle was a common one, that it entered into the thread of stories, somewhat similar in outline and frequently centered in the same hero, but differing essentially in conception, and that the forms in the romances which are most likely to keep close to the traditional model are those secondary ones with which the innovating spirit, whether due to the genius of the individual artist, or to intruding Christian symbolism, has least concerned itself. There is apparently but one case in the Conte du Graal, that of Perceval's visit to the Castle of Maidens, which has been modified by neither of these influences.

To accept these conclusions is to clear the ground. If we rid our minds of the idea that there is _a Grail legend_, a definite fixed sequence of incidents, we need not be discouraged if we fail to find a prototype for it in Celtic tradition or elsewhere. We shall be prepared to examine every incident of which the Grail is a feature upon its own merits, and satisfied if we can find a.n.a.logies to this or that one. And by so doing we are more likely to discover the how and why of the development of the legends as we find them in the romances.

Leaving subsidiary details out of account, we may bring all the instances in which the Grail appears under two formulas: that of the kinsman avenging a blood feud by the means of the three magic talismans, sword and lance and vessel; and that of the visit to the Bespelled Castle, the inmates of which enjoy, thanks to the magic vessel, a supernaturally prolonged life, from which they are released by the hero's question concerning that vessel. The one we may call the feud quest, the other the unspelling quest. The Proto-Mabinogi belonged, as we have already seen (_supra_, p. 139), to the first cla.s.s, and accordingly we find that all relating to the question is obviously interpolated from Chrestien.

Chrestien's model belonged, in all probability if not wholly, chiefly to the first cla.s.s, and accordingly we find that Manessier, certainly more faithful than Chrestien to that original, lays no stress upon the question. But in Chrestien himself there is a mixture of the two formulas; the question and the food-producing qualities of the magic vessel have been incorporated in the feud formula. Once started upon this track the legend continues to mingle the formulas. The mystic procession, which probably owes its form to Chrestien, is repeated with monotonous sameness by his continuators; the machinery of the feud quest almost invariably doubles that of the visit to the Bespelled Castle, and _vice versa_. Thus Heinrich von dem Turlin, along with the most archaic presentment of the unspelling quest, has that procession of the talismans which properly belongs to the feud quest; and, to complete his conception, we must turn to incidents at present set in the framework of the other formula. For the effect upon the land produced by the hero's action at the Castle of Talismans is obviously a.n.a.lagous to, though of directly contrary nature to, that produced upon the inmates of the Bespelled Castle. They are dead though they seem quick, the land is full of life though it seems waste.

The question which frees the one from the spell of life-in-death, frees the other from the spell of death-in-life.[91] The Didot-Perceval has the complete conception. Perceval's question not only releases Brons, who may not die until then, but it also ends the enchantment of Britain.

The ident.i.ty of hero in stories originally dissimilar was one reason for the confusion between the two formulas; the nature of the Grail was another. Its attributes were in all probability not very clearly defined in the immediate models of the French romance writers; these found it enveloped in mysterious haze, which simple story-tellers, such as Gautier, did not try to clear up, and which gave free play to the mystic imaginings of those writers who used romance as a vehicle for edification.

The one tangible thing about it in stories of the one cla.s.s, its food producing-power, has left its trace upon every one of the romances. But we shall also find in our survey of Celtic literature that this attribute, as well as that of healing or restoring to life, is found indifferently in stories of both the cla.s.ses, to the fusion of which we refer the Grail legends in their present form. Another link between the two formulas is formed by the sword. It is almost invariably found a.s.sociated with the healing vessel of balsam in task stories connected with the feud quest of the Mabinogi and the Conte du Graal; it is also a frequent feature in the legend of the unsuccessful visit to the Bespelled Castle.[92] Finally, the most important reason for running into one the stories derived from these two formulas, and the one which could hardly fail to lead to the fusion, is to be found in the ident.i.ty of the myth which underlies both conceptions. The castle to which the avenger must penetrate to win the talismans, and that to which the hero comes with the intent of freeing its lord, are both symbols of the otherworld.

Bearing in mind this double origin of the Grail, and reviewing once more the entire cycle, we note that, whilst it is that presentment of the magic vessel due to the second formula which is most prominent in the romances, the feud quest has furnished more and more varied sequences of incident, and is the staple of the oldest literary Celtic form (the Proto-Mabinogi) and of those North French forms which are most closely akin to it. Here the magic vessel is at best one of three equally potent treasures; as a matter of fact its _role_ in this section of the romances is, as we have seen, inferior to that of the sword. Obviously intended to be the immediate cause of restoration to life or health of the hero's kinsman, its functions have been minimised until they have been forgotten. If this is so already in the Proto-Mabinogi and in the model of the Conte du Graal, we may expect to find that elsewhere in Celtic tradition the magic vessel is of less account than sword or lance.

We should likewise misconceive the character of popular tradition if we expected to find certain attributes rigidly ascribed to the mystic vessel in this or that set of stories. The confusion we have noted in the romances may be itself derived from older traditions. Certain it is that in what maybe looked upon as the oldest account of the vessel[93] in Celtic literature (although the form in which it has reached us is comparatively modern), there is a vessel of abundance a.s.sociated with three other talismans, two of them being sword and lance. The Tuatha de Danann (the race of fairies and wizards which plays a part in Irish tradition a.n.a.logous to that of Gwydion ap Don, Gwynn ap Nudd, and their kin in Welsh) so runs the tradition preserved by Keating in his History of Ireland (Book I, ed. by Joyce, Dublin, 1880, p. 117), had four treasures: The Lia Fail, the stone of Fate or Virtue ("now in the throne upon which is proclaimed the King of the Saxons," _i.e._, the stone brought by Edward I., from Scone); the sword that Lug[94] Lamhfhada (Lug the Longhanded) was wont to use; the spear the same Lug used in battle; the cauldron of the Dagda, "_a company used not ever go away from it unsatisfied_." Keating followed old and good sources, and although the pa.s.sage I have underlined is not to be found in all MSS. of his work (_e.g._, it is missing in that translated by Halliday), and although the verse which he quotes, and which probably goes back to the eleventh century, whilst the traditions which it embodies may be regarded as a couple of centuries older, does not mention this property of the Dagda's[95] Cauldron, it may, I think, be a.s.sumed that the tradition here noticed is genuine, and that a vessel akin to the Grail, as well as talismans akin to those that accompany the Grail, formed part of the gear of the oldest Celtic divinities.[96]

This conclusion appears no rash one when we consider the further references to the cauldron in Middle Irish Literature. The Battle of Magh Rath, a semi-historical romance relating to events which took place in the seventh century, is ascribed by its editor, Dr. J. O'Donovan, to the latter half of the twelfth century. It relates (pp. 51, _et seq._) how the sons of the King of Alba sought to obtain from their father the "Caire Ainsicen" so called, because "it was the caire or cauldron which was used to return his own proper share to each, and no party ever went away from it unsatisfied, for whatever quant.i.ty was put into it there was never boiled of it but what was sufficient for the company according to their grade or rank." The mediaeval story-teller then goes on to instance similar cauldrons to be met with in the older history of Ireland. These may nearly all be referred to the oldest heroic Irish cycle, the Ultonian, of which Cuchulainn is the most prominent figure. This cycle, in its origin almost if not wholly mythic, was at an early date (probably as early as the eighth century) euhemerised, and its G.o.ds and demi-G.o.ds made to do duty as historical personages living at the beginning of the Christian era. It is, indeed, not improbable that actual historical events and personages of that period may have coloured and distorted the presentment of the myth; and it is highly probable that the substance of these stories does go back to that age, as they are almost entirely free from any admixture of Christian elements, and such admixture as there is can be readily detected as the handiwork of the tenth and eleventh century monks by whom these tales were written in MSS. which have for the most part come down to us.

The cauldron is found with the same properties as those set forth in the Battle of Magh Rath, in two of the most celebrated tales of this cycle, the Toghail Bruighne da Derga, and the Tale of Mac Datho's pig.

Turning from Irish to Welsh literature we may note that the Grail has frequently been compared with the cauldron of Bran in the Mabinogi of Branwen, the daughter of Llyr. I have dealt with this tale fully (Folk-Lore Record, Vol. V.), and see no reason to depart from the conclusion I then arrived at; namely, that it goes back in the main to the eleventh or tenth century. Here, the revivifying power of the vessel is dwelt upon, "The property of it is that if one of thy men be slain to-day, and be cast therein, the morrow he will be as well as ever he was at his best, except that he will not regain his speech." We cannot fail to recall that in the Queste which, as far as the Grail itself is concerned, must be referred on the whole to the feud quest formula, when the sacred vessel appears the a.s.sembled company is struck dumb.[97]

Later Celtic folk-literature has followed the Mabinogi rather than the older Irish legend in its account of the mystic vessel. Where it appears in the folk-tale its function is to heal or to bring back to life. We may leave out of account for the present the references in the Welsh "bardic"

literature to the cauldron of Ceridwen, chief among which is that in the Mabinogi of Taliesin. I am far from thinking that this literature deserves the wholesale condemnation that has been pa.s.sed upon it, but it has been too little and too uncritically studied to afford, as yet, a firm basis for investigation. We are on surer ground in dealing with the living folk-tale. Thus the tale of Fionn's Enchantment, although belonging more properly to the other formula, may be noticed here as containing a cup of balsam, the was.h.i.+ngs of which restore the maimed Fionn to complete health.

Mr. Campbell, who has noted the tale, remarks that the cup of healing is common in all the Fenian stories, which is what we should naturally expect, seeing the close connection between Fionn and Peredur (Rev. Celt.

I., p. 194). Other instances have already been given in Chapter VI. of the appearance of the vessel of balsam in connection with the glaive of light, and of its use in bringing back to life the hero's enemies. And here it maybe noted that almost the very mode in which it is introduced in the folk-tales may be paralleled from the romances. The Grail appears to Perceval and Hector, lying well nigh dead upon the field of battle, and makes them whole, even as the vessel of balsam revivifies the dead warriors whom Conall Gulban has just slain, and heals the latter. It is, perhaps, only a coincidence that the angel in the one, the Carlin in the other case, appear in a great flas.h.i.+ng of light. But, as a rule, in those task-stories which otherwise present such close similarities to the feud quest of the Proto-Mabinogi and the Conte du Graal, the mystic vessel has dropped out altogether, and the sword is the chief if not the only talisman. This is the case in Campbell, I., the young King of Easaidh Ruadh, and in XLVI. Mac Iain Direach. In one instance the glaive of light is met with outside the task group, in Campbell XLI., the Widow and her Daughters, variant ii (a Bluebeard story), and here it is found a.s.sociated with the vessel of balsam. In the folk-tales, then, as in one section of the Conte du Graal, the healing vessel is decidedly of less account than the avenging or destroying weapon. This, as the sword, plays such an important part in the French romances that an examination of its _role_ in Celtic literature will repay examination.

Besides the already quoted instances in which the sword of light accompanies the vessel of balsam as one of the treasures which reward the hero's quest, but in which it does not otherwise affect the march of the story, we find others in which the sword is either that weapon which causes the woe, the subject of the story, or else is the one means of testing the hero's fitness for his quest. In either case it is parallel to the sword of the Grail romances. Apart from these special instances there are general references in the oldest Irish literature to the quasi-supernatural nature attributed to the sword. Thus the Leabhar Gabhala, or Book of Invasions, the tenth and eleventh century tract in which Irish mythology was euphemerised into an historical relation of the pre-Christian invasion of Ireland, has a pa.s.sage relating to the sword of Tethra, King of the Fomori,[98] which spake, and, adds the Christian scribe, the ancient Irish adored swords.[99] This is borne out by a pa.s.sage in the Seirglige Conculainn, a story belonging to the Ultonian cycle, which Mr. Whitley Stokes has translated (Rev. Celt. I., 260). The men of Ulster, when showing their trophies, had their swords upon their thighs, "for their swords used to turn against them where they made a false trophy."

The Christian transcriber notes that it was reasonable for the pagan Irish to trust their swords "because demons used to speak from out them." To return to the sword of Tethra. The most famous battle of Irish mystic history is that of Mag-Tured, in which the Tuatha de Danann, the G.o.ds of light and life, overcome their enemies the Fomori. Ogma, the champion of the Tuatha de Danann, wins the sword of Tethra, and as he cleans it it tells him the many and great feats it had wrought.

It is, however, in the second of the great heroic cycles of the ancient Irish, the Fenian or Ossianic, that we find the sword put to a use which strongly recalls that of the romances. Not until the hero is able to wield the weapon so that it break not in his hand, or to weld it together so that no flaw appears,[100] is he fit to set forth on the quest. In Campbell's LXXVII., "How the Een was set up," Fionn applies for his sword to Ullamh Lamhfhada[101] (Ullamh the Longhanded), who gives him the most likely sword and the best he found. The hero takes it, shakes it, casts it out of the wooden handle and discards it. Thrice is this repeated, and when the right weapon is in Fionn's hand, he quells utterly all he sees.[102] Now how had Fionn obtained this sword originally? By slaying black Arcan, his father's slayer. It may, I think, be looked upon as certain that in an earlier form of the story, the weapon in question would turn out to be the one with which the treacherous deed was done, and Fionn, a counterpart of Peredur in his bringing up, would also be his counterpart in this incident.[103] For the sword with which Partinal slew Goon Desert is treasured up for the use of Perceval, but only after a repeated essay is he held worthy of it.[104]

The sword incident reappears in a tale of Campbell's, Ma.n.u.s (Vol. III.), which presents some very remarkable a.n.a.logies with the romances. Ma.n.u.s is driven into various adventures by his aunt; an armourer of his grandfather offers to get him a sword; but all given to him he breaks save the armourer's old sword, and it beat him to break that. The armourer then gives him a cloth, "When thou spreadest it to seek food or drink, thou wilt get as thou usest." Subsequently, helped by a lion, he achieves many feats. He comes to the help of the White Gruagach by fetching the blood of a venemous horned creature belonging to the King over the Great World, by which alone the White Gruagach could be restored to life when the magic trout with which his life was bound up had been slain. Afterwards he accompanies him against his enemy the Red Gruagach, who is slain, and his head stuck on a stake. This Red Gruagach is apparently the father of the aunt who so persecutes Ma.n.u.s.[105]

This examination of the sword incident shows that the Mabinogi has preserved the original form of the story, and links afresh this portion of the Conte du Graal with the other Celtic stories belonging to the Expulsion and Return formula group, with which it has so much else in common. In all the formula-stories, except those of the Conte du Graal and the Proto-Mabinogi, the hero has to avenge his father, not his uncle; and it is highly suggestive that at least one version of the Perceval cycle (the Thornton romance) follows suit. With this remark we may take leave of the feud quest.

Many and interesting as have been the parallels from the older Celtic literature to the feud quest, they are far outweighed by those which that literature affords to the second formula--the visit to the Bespelled Castle--which we have noted in the romances.

From the recapitulation (_supra_, pp. 173, _et. seq._) we may learn several things. The castle lies, as a rule, on the other side of a river; the visitor to it is under a definite obligation; he must either do a certain thing, as, _e.g._, in Perceval's visit to the Castle of Maidens, strike on the table three blows with the hammer, or he must put a certain question, or again he must abstain from certain acts, as that of falling asleep (Perceval and Gawain) or drinking[106] (Gawain, in Heinrich von dem Turlin). Disregard of the obligation is punished in various ways. In the case of the Castle of Maidens the craven visitor is allowed to fare forth unheeded without beholding the marvels of the castle; but, as a rule, the hero of the adventure finds himself on the morrow far away from the castle, which has vanished completely. The inmates of this castle fall into two cla.s.ses--they are supernatural beings like the maidens, who have apparently no object to gain from their mortal visitor, but who love heroism for its own sake, and are as kindly disposed towards the mortal hero in the folk-lore and mythology of the Celts as G.o.ds, and especially G.o.ddesses, are in the mythic lore of all other races; or they suffer from an over-lengthened life, from which the hero alone can release them. This latter feature, seen to perfection only in Heinrich von dem Turlin, is apparent in the Didot-Perceval, and has, in the Conte du Graal, supplied the figure of the old man, father to the Fisher King, nourished by the Grail.

These features sufficiently indicate that the Magic Castle is the realm of the other world. The dividing water is that across which lies Tir-na n-Og, the Irish Avalon, or that Engelland dwelt in by the shades which the inhabitants of the Belgian coast figured in the west.[107] In Celtic lore the earliest trace of this realm is found, as is the earliest trace of Grail and sword, in connection with the Tuatha de Danann, that race of dispossessed immortals which lives on in the hollow hill sides, and is ever ready to aid and cherish the Irish mythic heroes. The most famous embodiment of this conception in Irish myth is the Brug na Boine, the dwelling place of Oengus,[108] son of the Dagda, and the earliest account of it is that contained in the Book of Leinster, the second of the two great Irish vellums written down in the twelfth century. It is a land of c.o.c.kayne; in it are fruit trees ever loaded with fruit, on the board a pig ready roasted which may not be eaten up, vessels of beer which may not be emptied, and therein no man dies.[109] But Oengus is not the only one of the Tuatha de Danann who has such a fairy palace. The dwelling place of Lug is of the same kind, and in the story of the Conception of Cuchulainn,[110] which tells how the G.o.d carried off Dechtire, sister of Conchobor, and re-incarnated himself in her as the great Ulster hero, we learn that when Conchobor and his men go in search of Dechtire and her fifty maidens, they first come to a small house wherein are a man and woman; the house suddenly becomes a splendid mansion,[111] therein are the vanished maidens in the shape of birds (and all sorts of goods, and dishes of divers sorts, known and unknown; never did they have a better night, in the morning they found themselves houseless, birdless in the east of the land, and they went back to Emain Macha).[112] Although no prohibition is mentioned the similarity in parts of this story, which, it must be repeated, is older than the introduction of Christianity in Ireland, to the romances is evident. Another famous Brug of the Tuatha de Danann is that of Manannan Mac Lir. Among the visitors was Bran, the son of Febal, whose story may be found in the Leabhar na h' Uidhre, the oldest of the great Irish vellums.[113] One day as he was alone in his palace there came to him soft, sweet music, and he fell asleep. When he awoke a silver branch, covered with flowers, was at his side. A short while after, as he was in the midst of his kinsfolk, his chiefs, and his n.o.bles, an unknown damsel appeared, and bid him to her in the land of _Sidhe_, and then vanished, and with her the branch. Bran set sail, and with him thirty men.