The Hidden Church of the Holy Graal: XII. The Removal of the Hallows

XII

THE REMOVAL OF THE HALLOWS

We have now seen that the Rich Fisherman, King and Warden of the Graal, was healed as the consequence of the Quest, or that, this failing, a provision was made for his successor after some other manner. Now, this is the penultimate stage of the mystery regarded as a whole, and the one question which still remains to be answered is--what became of the Graal? Subject to characteristic variations which are particular to each text, it will be found--as I have said--that the several romances follow or forecast one general process, suggesting a prevailing secret intention, and it is for this intention that my study will have to account. At the moment the external answer to the problem above propounded, resting on the evidence of the documents, is an example of variation--which tends, however, to one term; this term is that either the Holy Graal and the other Hallows of the Passion were removed altogether or they were taken into

Great Prose Quest the most holy companions--Galahad, Perceval and Bors--are conveyed in the ship mystic of Solomon to a place in the East, named Sarras; the Hallows with which they are charged are the Sacred Vessel and the Lance, together with the Sword of David, wherewith Galahad is girded. For a certain allotted period of days that are sad, consecrated and strange, the companions watch over the Hallows in the city of Sarras;

Parsifal of Wolfram leaves the Graal where it was always since its first manifestation, but the Titurel of Albrecht von Scharfenberg--a text which is so late that it is excluded generally from the canon of the literature--narrates the rise and growth of an evil time, wherein, for its better protection, Parsifal and the chivalry of the Graal, bearing the Blessed Palladium, go forth from Mont Salvatch into the far East, where is the kingdom of Prester John, and there it may remain to this day--most surely in another kingdom which is not of this world. After these high memorials it is almost unnecessary to speak of the Quest in Heinrich, at the term of which the Graal and the ghostly company dissolve before the eyes of the Questing Knight, and thenceforth the tongue of man cannot show forth the mysteries.

Seeing now that the great sacraments do not pass away, it must follow that in the removal of the Holy Graal, as it is narrated in the texts, we are in the presence of another mystery of intention which appears the most obscure of all. The cloud that dwelt on the sanctuary, the inhibition which was on the world without, the hurt almost past healing which overtook the hereditary keeper, are ample evidence in themselves that evil had entered into the holy place, despite all the warrants which it held and all the Graces and Hallows which dwelt therein. With one curious exception, the Keeper was, in fine, healed; the enchantment was also removed; and the achievement of the last Warden, at least in some