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The Hidden Church of the Holy Graal: Book I: I. Some Aspects of the Graal Legend

THE ROOTS OF THE HOUSE OF MEANING

I

SOME ASPECTS OF THE GRAAL LEGEND

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. We may, therefore, in approaching it say: Benedic, Domine, nos et hæc tua dona, quæ de tua largitate sumus sumpturi.

But in respect of the subject which concerns us we may demand even more appropriately: Mensæ cœlestis participes faciat nos, Rex æternæ gloriæ. In this way we shall understand not only the higher meaning of the Feeding-Dish, but the gift of the discernment of spirits, the place and office of the supersubstantial bread, and other curious things of the worlds within and without of which we shall hear in their order. Surely the things of earth are profitable to us 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 all things, and among them the old chronicles and the great antique legends. If the hand of God is in history, it is also in folk-lore. 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.

The mystery of the Graal is a word which came forth out of Galilee. The literature which enshrines this mystery, setting forth the circumstances of its origin, the several quests which were instituted on account of it, the circumstances under which it was

"What is it?
The phantom of a cup which comes and goes?--
Nay, monk! What phantom? answered Perceval.
The cup, the cup itself, from which our Lord
Drank at the last sad supper with his own.
This, from the blessed land of Aromat . . .
Arimathæan Joseph, journeying brought
To Glastonbury. . . .
And there awhile it bode; and if a man
Could touch or see it, he was heal’d at once,
By faith, of all his ills. But then the times
Grew to such evil that the holy cup
Was caught away to Heaven and disappear’d."

haut prince. A touch of it is found later in Tennyson's own poem, when Perceval's sister, the nun of " utter whiteness," describes her vision:--

"I heard a sound
As of a silver horn from o'er the hills. . . .
The slender sound
As from a distance beyond distance grew
Coming upon me. . . .
And then
Stream’d thro’ my cell a cold and silver beam,
And down the long beam stole the Holy Grail,
Rose-red with beatings in it."

I saw the spiritual city and all her spires
And gateways in a glory like one pearl. . . .
Strike from the sea; and from the star there shot
A rose-red sparkle to the city, and there
Dwelt, and I knew it was the Holy Grail."

But there is ample evidence no further afield than Sir Thomas Malory's own book, the Morte d’Arthur, that the Graal legend was derived into his glorious codification from various sources, and that some elements entered into it which are quite excluded by the description of Sir Perceval in the Idylls or by the colophon of Malory's own twelfth book, which reads: "And here foloweth the noble tale of the Sancgreal, that called is the hooly vessel, and the sygnefycacyon of the blessid blood of our Lord Jhesu Cryste, blessid mote it be, the whiche was brought in to this land by Joseph of Armathye, therefor, on al synful souls blessid Lord haue thou mercy."

As an equipoise to the religious or sentimental side of the legend, it is known, and we shall see in its place, that the Graal cycle took over something from Irish and Welsh folk-lore of the pagan period concerning a mysterious magical vessel full of miraculous food. This is illustrated by the Morte d’Arthur, in the memorable episode of the high festival held by King Arthur at Pentecost: in the midst of the supper "there entred in to the halle the Holy Graal couered with whyte samyte, but ther was none mighte see hit nor who bare hit. And

We shall make acquaintance successively with the various entanglements which render the Graal legend perhaps the most embedded of all cycles. I have said that the Sacred Vessel is sacramental in a high degree; it connects intimately with the Eucharist; it is the most precious of all relics for all Christendom indifferently, for, supposing that it were manifested at this day, I doubt whether the most rigid of the Protestant sects could do otherwise than bow down before it. And yet, at the same time, the roots of it lie deep in folklore of the pre-Christian period, and in this sense it is a dish of plenty, with abundance for an eternal festival. So also, from another point of view, it is not a cup but a stone, and it would have come never to this earth if it had not been for the fall of the angels. It is brought to the West; it is carried to the East again; it is assumed into heaven; it is given to a company of hermits; for all that we know to the contrary, it is at this day in Northumbria; it is in the secret temple of a knightly company among the high Pyrenees; and it is in the land of Presbyter Johannes. It is like the cup of the elixir and the stone of transmutation in alchemy--described in numberless ways and seldom after the same manner; but it seems to be one thing under its