SOME ASPECTS OF THE GRAAL LEGEND
BY ARTHUR EDWARD WAITE
I.
THE INTIMATIONS AND SUGGESTIONS OF SUBSURFACE MEANING.
THE study of a great literature should begin like the preparation for
a royal banquet, not without some solicitude for right conduct in the
King's palace- which is the consecration of motive- and not without
recollection of that source from which the most excellent gifts derive
in their season to us all. Surely the things of earth are profitable
only in so far as they assist us towards the things which are eternal.
In this respect there are many helpers, even as the sands of the sea.
The old books help us, perhaps above most things, and among them the
old chronicles and the great antique legends. If the hand of God is in
history it is also in folklore. We can scarcely fail of our term,
since lights, both close at hand and in the unlooked-for places,
kindle everywhere about us. It is difficult to say any longer that we
walk in the Shadow of Death when the darkness is sown with stars.
Now, there are a few legends which may be said to stand forth
among the innumerable traditions of humanity, wearing upon them the
external signs and characters of some secret or mystery within them
which belongs, as it would seem, rather to eternity than to time. They
are in no sense connected with one another- unless indeed by certain
roots which are scarcely in time and place- and yet, by a suggestion
which is deeper than any suggestion of the senses, it would appear as
if each were appealing to each, one bearing testimony to another, and
all recalling all. They might be broken fragments of some primitive
revelation which, except in these legends, has passed out of written
records and far from the memory of man. The fullness of their original
design may be, and sometimes is, reconstructed from age to age, but
the result bears always, and that of necessity, the tincture of its
particular period, reflecting the first intention sometimes in a glass
darkly and sometimes in a crystal brightly, so that it is less or
more, according to the mind of the age. To the class of which I am
speaking belongs the Graal Legend, which in all its higher aspects may
be included among the legends of the soul. Perhaps I should say rather
that, when it is properly understood, the Graal is not a legend but a
personal history.
It will be intelligible from this one statement that I am not
putting forward a thesis for the instruction of scholarship, which is
otherwise and fully equipped, and it may be desirable to make it plain
from the beginning that my offering to the consideration of the
literature is intended for those who have either found their place
within the sanctuary of the mystic life or are at least in the outer
circles. I take up the subject where it has been left by the students
of folklore and by all that which might term itself authorized
scholarship. Ut adeptis appareat me illis parem et fratrem, I
have made myself acquainted with the criticism of the cycle and I am
familiar with the cycle itself. It is with the texts, however, that we
shall be concerned, or at least more especially, and I approach them
from a new standpoint. As to thls, it win be better to specify from
the outset its various particulars as follows: (I) the appropriation
of certain myths and legends which are held to be pre-Christian in the
root-matter, and their penetration by an advanced form of Christian
Symbolism carried to a particular term; (2) the evidence of three
fairly distinct sections or schools, the diversity of which is less,
however, in the fundamental part of their subject than in the extent
and mode of its development; (3) the connexion of this mode and of
that form with other schools of symbolism, the evolution of which was
going on at the same period as that of the Graal literature; (4) the
close analogy in respect of the root-matter between the catholic
literature of the Holy Graal and that which is connoted by the term
Mysticism; (5) the traces through Graal romance and other coincident
literatures of a hidden school in Christianity which, because it is an
expression that has been used for over a century, I shall continue to
call the Secret Church, though it predicates an instituted office
that, I think, scarcely belongs to the unmanifested company with which
it will be seen that I am concerned. Perhaps, within the admitted
forms of expression, the idea corresponds more closely with that which
is understood by the school of the prophets, though the term only
describes a certain highly advanced state by one of the gifts which
may be taken to belong thereto. This, I should add, is on an express
assumption that the gift has little connexion with the external
meaning of prophecy; it is not the power of seeing forward, but rather
of sight within. In subjects of this kind, as in other subjects, the
greater naturally includes the lesser, it being of minor importance to
discern, for example, the coming of Christ in a glass of vision than
to understand, either before or after, the vital significance of that
coming. I mention this instance because it enables me to say, on the
authority of my precursors, that it was out of the secret school, or
company which had secured its election, that the Christ came at His
season. The Graal romances are not documents of this school put
forward by the external way, but are its rumours at a distance. They
are not authorized; nor are they stolen; they have arisen, or the
consideration of the Hidden Church follows from their consideration as
something in the intellectual order connected therewith. From this
point of view it is possible to collect out of the general body of the
literature what I should term its intimations of subsurface meaning
into a brief schedule, as follows: (a) The existence of a clouded
sanctuary; (b) a great mystery; (c) a desirable communication which,
except under certain circumstances, cannot take place; (d) suffering
within and sorcery without; (e) supernatural grace which does not
possess efficacy on the external side; (f) healing which comes from
without, carrying in most cases all the signs of insufficiency and
even of inhibition; (g) in fine, that which is without enters within
and takes over the charge of the mystery, but it is either removed
altogether or goes into deeper concealment- the outer world profits
only by the removal of a vague enchantment. The unversed reader may
not at the moment follow the specifics of this schedule, but if the
allusions awaken his interest I can promise that they shall be made
plain as we proceed.
II.
THE LITERATURE WHICH EMBODIES THE LEGEND.
The mystery of the Graal is a word which came forth out of
Galilee. The literature which enshrines this mystery, setting forth
the several quests which were instituted on account of it, the
circumstances under which it was from time to time discovered and, in
fine, its imputed removal, with all involved thereby, is one of such
considerable dimensions that it may be properly described as large.
This notwithstanding, there is no difficulty in presenting its broad
outlines so briefly that if there be any one who is new to the
subject, he can be instructed sufficiently for my purpose even from
the beginning. It is to be understood, therefore, that the Holy Graal
is, excepting in the German version of the legend, represented
invariably as that vessel in which Christ celebrated the Last Supper
and consecrated for the first time the elements of the Eucharist.
According to the legend, its next use was to receive the blood from
the wounds of Christ when His body was taken down from the Cross, or
alternatively, from the side which was pierced by the spear of Longas.
Under circumstances which are variously recounted, this vessel, its
content included, was carried westward under safe guardianship, coming
in fine to Britain and there remaining in the hands of successive
keepers. In the days of King Arthur, the prophet and magician Merlin
assumed the responsibility of carrying the legend to its term, with
which object he brought about the institution of the Round Table, and
the flower of Arthurian chivalry set out to find the sacred vessel. In
the quests which followed, the knighthood depicted in the greater
romances has become a mystery of ideality, and nothing save its feeble
reflection could have been found on earth. The quests were to some
extent preconceived in the mind of legend, and although a few of them
were successful, that which followed was the removal of the Holy
Graal. The companions of the quest asked, as one may say, for bread,
and to those who were unworthy there was given the stone of their
proper offence, but to others the spiritual meat which passes all
understanding.
That this account instructs the uninitiated person most
imperfectly will be obvious to any one who is acquainted with the
great body of the literature, but, within the limits to which I have
restricted it intentionally, I do not know that if it were put
differently, it would be put better or more in harmony with the
general sense of the romances.
The places of the legend, its reflections and its rumours, are
France, England, Germany, Holland, Italy, Spain and Wales. France and
England were united in respect of their literature during the Anglo-
Norman period, and when this period was over England contributed
nothing to the Graal cycle except renderings of French texts and one
compilation therefrom. It should be further remembered that, according
to the mind of scholarship, several of the Anglo-Norman texts are not
extant in their original form, but have been edited and harmonised.
Germany had an indigenous version of the legend, combined, by its own
evidence, with a French source which is now unknown. The Dutch version
is comparatively an old compilation, also from French sources; Italy
is represented only by translations from the French, and these were
the work of Rusticien de Pise; the inclusion of Spain is really a
question of liberality, for there is no Spanish version of the Graal
legend as such, or it exists only in the rare allusions of a certain
romance of Merlin, which again was originally in French. As regards
Wales, there is also no indigenous literature of the Graal legend, as
it was understood by the French romancers, but there are certain
primeval traditions and bardic remanents which are held to be the
root-matter of the whole cycle, and two at least of the questing
knights are found among the Mabinogion heroes. In the thirteenth
century and later, the legend, as we now have it, was carried across
the Marches, but it is represented by translations only. It follows
that the Graal literature, as I understand the term, belongs solely to
France and Germany. To these restrictions of place may be added a
restriction of time, for nothing which is now extant can be dated
prior to 1175, and after circa 1230 we have only translations
and digests. The allocation of individual texts to particular dates
within this period is, in certain cases, inferential and in some
entirely speculative. It will be understood, therefore, that in
presenting the subjoined tabulation I am not concerned with rigid
priority in time but rather with affinities of intention, by which
certain texts fall into defined groups. The literature may in this
manner be classified into sections as follows:--
(A) The Lesser Histories or Chronicles of the Holy Graal,
otherwise, the Cycle of Robert de Borron, in which is comprised: (I)
The Metrical Romance of Joseph of Arimathea; (2) the Lesser Holy
Graal, which is a prose version of the metrical romance as above; (3)
the Early Prose Merlin, which represents a lost metrical romance, or
more accurately a poem of which 500 lines alone remain extant; (4) the
Didot Perceval, so called after the designation of the only manuscript
by which it is known; it presents one version of the search after the
Holy Graal, as distinguished from its legendary history and the
connexions thereof.
The characteristics in common of these four romances, by which
they are grouped into a cycle, are: (I) The idea that certain secret
words were transmitted from Apostolic times and were carried from East
to West; (2) the succession of Brons as Keeper of the Holy Graal
immediately after Joseph of Arimathea.
(B) The Greater Chronicles of the Holy Graal, comprising:(I) The
Saint Graal, or Joseph of Arimathea, called also the first branch of
the Romances of the Round Table and the Grand or Greater Holy Graal;
(2) the later prose romances of Merlin, being that which, because it
is more widely diffused, has been sometimes termed the Vulgate, and
that which is known as the Huth Merlin, following the designation of
the only extant manuscript; (3) the great prose Lancelot; (4) the
great prose Perceval le Gallois, an alternative version of the quest,
known also in English as the High History of the Holy Graal; (5) the
Quest of the Holy Graal, called also the last book of the Round Table,
containing the search and achievement of Galahad. From my standpoint
this is the quest par excellence.
It should be understood that the great prose Perceval and the
great quest of Galahad exclude one another, so that they stand as
alternatives in the tabulation. The characteristics of this cycle are:
(I) The succession of a second Joseph as Keeper of the Holy Graal
immediately after his father, Joseph of Arimathea, and during the
latter's lifetime, this dignity not being conferred upon Brons, either
then or later; (2) the substitution of a claim in respect of
apostolical succession for that of a secret verbal formula.
(C) The Conte del Graal, otherwise, the Perceval le Gallois of
Chretien de Trotes, being the metrical romance which comprises the
quests of Perceval and Gawain. It was successively continued by
several later poets, some of whose versions are alternative and
exclusive of one another. The Conte del Graal is the largest document
of the Anglo-Norman cycle.
(D) The German cycle, comprising: (I) The Parsifal of Wolfram von
Eschenbach; (2) the Titurel of Albrecht von Schaffenberg; (3) Diu
Crone ly Henrich von dem Turlin; (4) the Lancelot of Ulrich du
Zazikhoven.
The dominant text of the German cycle is that of Wolfram, which is
almost generically distinct from the histories and quests offered by
the Anglo-Norman versions. At the moment it will be sufficient to say
that it represents the Holy Graal as in the custody of a knightly
company which, both expressly and by inference, recalls the order of
the Knights Templar. As a final consideration in respect of all the
cycles, it may be added that the romantic literature of chivalry
diminishes in consequence and interest in proportion as it is removed
from the Arthurian motive and period. It does not matter how remote
the connexion may be, there is still the particular atmosphere. The
Carlovingian cycle in comparison is mere indiscrimination and
violence. There are no books in the manner of chivalry to compare with
The Morte d'Athur, The High History of Perceval and The
Quest of the Haut Prince Galahad after the Holy Graal.
III.
THE IMPLICITS OF THE MYSTERY.
There are several literatures which exhibit with various degrees
of plainness the presence of that subsurface meaning to which I have
referred in respect of the Graal legends; but there as here, so far as
the outward text is concerued, it is suggested rather than affirmed.
This additional sense may underlie the entire body of a literature, or
it may be merely some concealed intention or a claim put forward
evasively. The subsurface significance of the Graal legends belongs
mainly to the second class. It is from this point of view that my
departure is here made, and if it is a warrantable assumption, some at
least of the literature will, expressly or otherwise, be found to
contain these elements in no uncertain manner. As a matter of fact, we
shall find them, though it is rather by the way of things which are
implied, or which follow as inferences, but they are not for this
reason less clear or less demonstrable. The implicits of the Graal
literature are indeed more numerous than we should expect to meet with
at the period in books of the western world. I believe them to exceed,
for example, those which are discoverable in the alchemical writings
of the late twelfth or early thirteenth century, though antecedently
we might have been prepared to find them more numerous in the avowedly
secret books of Hermetic adepts. In a single section of a paper which
is short of necessity I can deal only with those which are most
important, leaving to a later period any additional examples which may
transpire as the inquiry proceeds.
The explicit in chief of that cycle which I have termed the Lesser
Histories or Chronicles of the Holy Graal is that certain secret words
were communicated to Joseph of Arimathea by Christ Himself, and that
these must remain in reserve, being committed from Keeper to Keeper by
the oral method only. On the other hand, the implicit of Robert de
Borron's poem resides in the question as to what he understood by
their office. In the Lesser Holy Graal the implicit of the metrical
romance passes into actual expression, and it becomes more clear in
this manner that the secret words were those used by the custodians of
the Holy Graal in the consecration of the elements of the Eucharist.
When the Greater Holy Graal was produced as an imputed branch of
Arthurian literature, there is no need to say that the Roman Pontiff
was then as now, at least in respect of his claim, the first bishop of
Christendom, and, by the evidence of tradition at least, he derived
from St. Peter, who was episcopus primus et pontifex
primordialis. This notwithstanding, the romance attributes the
same title to a son of Joseph of Arimathea, who is called the Second
Joseph, and here is the first suggestion of a concealed motive
therein. The Greater Holy Graal and the metrical romance of De Borron
are the texts in chief of their particular cycles, and it does not
follow, or at least in all cases, that their several continuations or
derivatives are extensions of the implicits which I have mentioned. In
the first case, the early prose Merlin has an implied motive of its
own which need not at the moment detain us, and the Didot Perceval is
manifestly unauthentic as a sequel, by which I mean that it does not
represent the mind of the earlier texts, though it has an importance
of its own and also its own implicits. On the other hand, in what I
have termed the Greater Chronicles of the Holy Graal there is, if
possible, a more complete divergence in respect of the final document,
and I can best explain it by saying that if we can suppose for a
moment that the Grand Saint Graal was produced in the interests of a
Pan-Britannic Church, or alternatively of some secret school of
religion, then the Great Prose Quest, or Chronicle of Galahad, would
represent an interpretation on the part of the orthodox church to take
over the literture. At thesame time, the several parts of each cycle
under consideration belong thereto and cannot be located otherwise.
The further divisions under which I have scheduled the body-
general of the literature, and especially the German cycle, will be
considered at some length in their proper place, when their explicit
and implied motives will be specified; for the present it will be
sufficient to say that they do not put forward the claims with which I
am now dealing, namely, the secret formula in respect of the De Borron
cycle and a super-apostolical succession in respect of the Greater
Holy Graal, with that which derives therefrom. As regards both claims,
we must remember that although we are dealing with a department of
romantic literature, their content does not belong to romance; the
faculty of invention in stories is one thing, and I think that modem
criticism has made insufficient allowance for its spontaneity, yet
through all the tales of chivalry it worked within certain lines. It
would not devise secret Eucharistic words or put forward strange
claims which almost make void the Christian apostolate in favour of
some unheard of succession communicated directly from Christ after
Pentecost. We know absolutely that this kind of machinery belongs to
another order. If it does not, then the apocryphal gospels were imbued
with the romantic spirit, and the explanation of Manichean heresy may
be sought in a flight of verse.
I suppose that what follows from the claims has not entered into
the consciousness of official scholarship, because it is otherwise
concerned, but it may have entered already into the thought of those
among my readers whose preoccupations are similar to my own, and I
will now state it in a summary manner. As the secret words of
consecration, the true words which have to be pronounced over the
sacramental elements so that they may be converted into the true
Eucharist, have, by the hypothesis, never been expressed in writing,
it follows that since the Graal was withdrawn from the world, together
with its custodians, the Christian Church has had to be content with
what it has, namely, a substituted sacrament. And as the super-
apostolical succession, also by the hypothesis, must have ceased from
the world when the last Keeper of the Graal followed his vessel into
heaven, the Christian Church has again been reduced to the
ministration of some other and apparently lesser succession.
If I were asked to adjudicate on the value of such claims, I
should say that the doctrine is the body of the Lord and its right
understanding is the spirit. Whosoever therefore puts forward a claim
on behalf of secret formula in connexion with the Eucharistic rite has
forgotten the one thing needful- that there are valid consecrations
everywhere. The question of apostolical succession is in the same
position, because the truly valid transmissions are those of grace
itself, which communicates from the source of grace direct to the
soul; and the essence of the sacerdotal office is that those who have
received supernatural life should assist others so to prepare their
ground that they may also in due season, but always from the same
source, become spiritually alive. It remains, however, that the
implicits with which I have been dealing are actually the implicits in
chief of the Graal books, and that they do not make for harmony with
the teaching of the orthodox churches does not need stating. From
whence therefore and with what intention were they imported into the
body of romance? Before this question can be answered we shall have to
proceed much further in the consideration of the literature, but my
next section can deal only with a preliminary clearance of the ground.
As a conclusion to the present part, let me add that any scheme of
interpretation which fails to account for the claim to a super-
efficacious Eucharistic consecration and a super-apostolical
succession accounts for very little that is important in the last
resource. It is in this sense that I take up the subject at the point
where it has been left by scholarship, considering these problems in
the light of all that can be gathered from the texts themselves, from
certain coincident literatures, and from the theological and
historical position of the Celtic Church, as a preliminary to the
consideration in fine which I have already indicated by my reference
to a secret school existing within the Church, or at least to be
approached intellectually more readily from this direction.
IV.
SOME ANTECEDENTS IN FOLKLORE.
The beginnings of literature are like the beginnings of life-
questions of antecedents which are past finding out, and perhaps they
do not signify vitally on either side, because the keys of all
mysteries are to be sought in the comprehension of their term, rather
than in their initial stages. Modem scholarship lays great and indeed
exclusive stress on the old Celtic antecedents of the Graal
literature, and on certain Welsh and other prototypes of the Perseval
Quest in which the saced vesse1 does not appear at all. As regards
these affiliations, whether Welsh, English, or Irish, I do not think
that sufficient allowance has been made for the following facts: (a)
That every fiction and legend depends, as already suggested, from
prior legend and fiction; (b) that the antecedents are both explicit
and implicit, intentional or unconscious, just as in these days we
have wilful and undesigned imitation; (c) that the persistence of
legends is by the way of their transfiguration. We have done nothing
to explain the ascension of the Graal to heaven and the assumption of
Galahad when we have ascertained that some centuries before there were
myths about the Cauldron of Ceridwen or that of the Dagda, any more
than we have accounted for Christianity if we have ascertained, and
this even indubitably, that some ecclesiastical ceremonial is an
adaptation of pre-Christian rites. Here, as in so many other
instances, the essence of everything resides in the intention. If I
possess the true apostolical succession, then, ex hypothesi at
least, I do not the less consecrate the Eucharist if I use the Latin
rite, which expresses the act of Christ in the past tense, or some
archaic oriental rite, which expressed it in the present.
There is in any case no question as to the Graal antecedents in
folklore; and I should be the last to minimize their importance after
their own kind, just as I should not abandon the official Church
because I had been received into the greater Church which is within. I
believe personally that the importance has been unduly magnified
because it has been taken by scholarship for the all in all of its
research. But there is plenty of room for every one of the interests,
and as that which I represent does not interfere with anything, which
has become so far vested, I ask for tolerance regarding it. My
position is that the old myths were taken over for the purposes of
Christian symbolism, under the influence of a particular but not an
expressed motive, and it was subsequently to this appropriation that
they assumed importance. It is, therefore, as I may say, simply to
clear the issues that I place those of my readers who may feel
concerned with the subject in possession of the bare elements which
were carried from pre-Christian time into the Graal mythos, as
follows:--
I. We hear Qf an Irish legend concerning the Cauldron of the
Dagda, from which no company ever went away unsatisfied. It was one of
the four talismans which a certain godlike race brought with them when
they first came into Ireland. As the particular talisman in question,
though magical, was not spiritual, it is useless to our purpose; but
it connects with the palmary hallow of the Graal mystery, because that
also was food-giving, though this property was the least of its great
virtues, just as the stone of transmutation by alchemy was classed
among the least possessions of the Rosicrucian Fraternity.
2. There is the Cauldron of Bendigeid Vran, the son of Llyr, in
one of the old Welsh Mabinogion, the property of which, says one
story, is that if a man be slain to-day and cast therein, tomorrow he
will be as well as he ever was at the best, except that he will not
regain his speech. He remains, therefore, in the condition of Perceval
when that hero of the Graal stood in the presence of the mystery with
a spell of silence upon him. Except in so far as the Cup of the Graal
legend concerns a mystery of speech and its suppression, it is
difficult to trace its correspondence with this cauldron, which I
should mention, however, came into Wales from Ireland. It so happens
that institutions of analogy are made sometimes by scholarship on
warrants which they would be the first to repudiate if the object, let
us say, were to establish some point advanced by a mystic. I do not
reject them, and I do not intend to use similar comparisons on
evidence which appears so slight; but I must place on record that the
derivation, if true, is unimportant, even as it is also unimportant
that Adam, who received the breath of life from the Divine Spirit, had
elements of red earth which entered into his material composition. The
lights which shine upon the altar are not less sacramental lights
because they are also earthly wax; and though the externals are bread
and wine, the Eucharist is still the Eucharist.
In addition to analogies like those which I have just cited, there
are two versions of the quest or mission of Perceval into which the
mystery of the Graal does not enter as a part. In their extant forms
they are much later than any of the Graal literature. One is the story
of Peredur the son of Evrawc in the Welsh Mabinogion, and the other is
the English metrical romance of Syr Percyvelle. The Welsh Mabinogi is
like the wild world before the institution of the sacraments, and from
any literary standpoint it is confused and disconcerting. Scholars
have compared it to the Lay of the Great Fool, and I think that the
analogy obtains, not only in the Welsh fable, but also in such
masterpieces of nature-born poetry as that of Chretien de Troyes. On
the other hand, the English poem is a thing of no importance except in
respect of its connections, and as to these it will be sufficient to
say that even scholarship values it only for its doubtful traces of
some early prototype which is lost.
The anticedents of the Graal legend in folklore have been a wide
field for patient research, nor is that field exhausted; it has also
offered an opportunity for great speculations which go to show that
the worlds of enchantment are not worlds which have past like the
Edomite kings; but as I know that there was a king afterwards in
Israel, I have concluded at this point to abandon those quests, which
for myself and those whom I represent are without term or effect, and
to hold only to the matter in hand, which is the development of a
sacramental and mystical cosmos in literature out of the wild elements
which strove one with another, as in the time of chaos so also in
pre-Christian Celtic folklore.
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Scanned from the periodical "The Occult Review", Vol. V, No. 3; March,
1907. Corrected and formatted by hand.