The Author
_Provenance_ and authorship of Grail romantic tradition. Evidence
points to Wales, probably Pembrokeshire. Earliest form contained in
group of _Gawain_ poems assigned to Bleheris. Of Welsh origin. Master
Blihis, Blihos, Bliheris, Bréri, Bledhericus. Probably all references
to same person. Conditions of identity. Mr E. Owen, and Bledri ap
Cadivor. Evidence not complete but fulfils conditions of problem
Professor Singer and possible character of Bleheris’ text. Mr Alfred
Nutt. Irish and Welsh parallels. Recapitulation of evolutionary
process. Summary and conclusion.
CHAPTER I
Introductory
In view of the extensive literature to which the Grail legend has
already given birth it may seem that the addition of another volume to
the already existing _corpus_ calls for some words of apology and
explanation. When the student of the subject contemplates the countless
essays and brochures, the volumes of studies and criticism, which have
been devoted to this fascinating subject, the conflicting character of
their aims, their hopelessly contradictory results, he, or she, may
well hesitate before adding another element to such a veritable
witches’ cauldron of apparently profitless study. And indeed, were I
not convinced that the theory advocated in the following pages contains
in itself the element that will resolve these conflicting ingredients
into one harmonious compound I should hardly feel justified in offering
a further contribution to the subject.
But it is precisely because upwards of thirty years’ steady and
persevering study of the Grail texts has brought me gradually and
inevitably to certain very definite conclusions, has placed me in
possession of evidence hitherto ignored, or unsuspected, that I venture
to offer the result in these studies, trusting that they may be
accepted as, what I believe them to be, a genuine _Elucidation_ of the
Grail problem.
My fellow-workers in this field know all too well the essential
elements of that problem; I do not need here to go over already
well-trodden ground; it will be sufficient to point out certain salient
features of the position.
The main difficulty of our research lies in the fact that the Grail
legend consists of a congeries of widely differing elements—elements
which at first sight appear hopelessly incongruous, if not completely
contradictory, yet at the same time are present to an extent, and in a
form, which no honest critic can afford to ignore.
Thus it has been perfectly possible for one group of scholars, relying
upon the undeniably Christian-Legendary elements, preponderant in
certain versions, to maintain the thesis that the Grail legend is _ab
initio_ a Christian, and ecclesiastical, legend, and to analyse the
literature on that basis alone.
Another group, with equal reason, have pointed to the strongly marked
Folk-lore features preserved in the tale, to its kinship with other
themes, mainly of Celtic _provenance_, and have argued that, while the
later versions of the cycle have been worked over by ecclesiastical
writers in the interests of edification, the story itself is
non-Christian, and Folk-lore in origin.
Both groups have a basis of truth for their arguments: the features
upon which they rely are, in each case, undeniably present, yet at the
same time each line of argument is faced with certain insuperable
difficulties, fatal to the claims advanced.
Thus, the theory of Christian origin breaks down when faced with the
awkward fact that there is no Christian legend concerning Joseph of
Arimathea and the Grail. Neither in Legendary, nor in Art, is there any
trace of the story; it has no existence outside the Grail literature,
it is the creation of romance, and no genuine tradition.
On this very ground it was severely criticized by the Dutch writer
Jacob van Maerlant, in 1260. In his _Merlin_ he denounces the whole
Grail history as lies, asserting that the Church knows nothing of
it—which is true.
In the same way the advocate of a Folk-lore origin is met with the
objection that the section of the cycle for which such a source can be
definitely proved, _i.e._, the _Perceval_ story, has originally nothing
whatever to do with the Grail; and that, while parallels can be found
for this or that feature of the legend, such parallels are isolated in
character and involve the breaking up of the tale into a composite of
mutually independent themes. A prototype, containing the main features
of the Grail story—the Waste Land, the Fisher King, the Hidden Castle
with its solemn Feast, and mysterious Feeding Vessel, the Bleeding
Lance and Cup—does not, so far as we know, exist. None of the great
collections of Folk-tales, due to the industry of a Cosquin, a
Hartland, or a Campbell, has preserved specimens of such a type; it is
not such a story as, _e.g._, _The Three Days Tournament_, examples of
which are found all over the world. Yet neither the advocate of a
Christian origin, nor the Folk-lorist, can afford to ignore the
arguments, and evidence of the opposing school, and while the result of
half a century of patient investigation has been to show that the
origin of the Grail story must be sought elsewhere than in
ecclesiastical legend, or popular tale, I hold that the result has
equally been to demonstrate that neither of these solutions should be
ignored, but that the ultimate source must be sought for in a direction
which shall do justice to what is sound in the claims of both.
Some years ago, when fresh from the study of Sir J. G. Frazer’s
epoch-making work, _The Golden Bough_, I was struck by the resemblance
existing between certain features of the Grail story, and
characteristic details of the Nature Cults described. The more closely
I analysed the tale, the more striking became the resemblance, and I
finally asked myself whether it were not possible that in this
mysterious legend—mysterious alike in its character, its sudden
appearance, the importance apparently assigned to it, followed by as
sudden and complete a disappearance—we might not have the confused
record of a ritual, once popular, later surviving under conditions of
strict secrecy? This would fully account for the atmosphere of awe and
reverence which even under distinctly non-Christian conditions never
fails to surround the Grail, It may act simply as a feeding vessel, It
is none the less _toute sainte cose;_ and also for the presence in the
tale of distinctly popular, and Folk-lore, elements. Such an
interpretation would also explain features irreconcilable with orthodox
Christianity, which had caused some scholars to postulate a heterodox
origin for the legend, and thus explain its curiously complete
disappearance as a literary theme. In the first volume of my _Perceval_
studies, published in 1906, I hinted at this possible solution of the
problem, a solution worked out more fully in a paper read before the
Folk-lore Society in December of the same year, and published in Volume
XVIII. of the Journal of the Society. By the time my second volume of
studies was ready for publication in 1909, further evidence had come
into my hands; I was then certain that I was upon the right path, and I
felt justified in laying before the public the outlines of a theory of
evolution, alike of the legend, and of the literature, to the main
principles of which I adhere to-day.
But certain links were missing in the chain of evidence, and the work
was not complete. No inconsiderable part of the information at my
disposal depended upon personal testimony, the testimony of those who
knew of the continued existence of such a ritual, and had actually been
initiated into its mysteries—and for such evidence the student of the
letter has little respect. He worships the written word; for the oral,
living, tradition from which the word derives force and vitality he has
little use. Therefore the written word had to be found. It has taken me
some nine or ten years longer to complete the evidence, but the chain
is at last linked up, and we can now prove by printed texts the
parallels existing between each and every feature of the Grail story
and the recorded symbolism of the Mystery cults. Further, we can show
that between these Mystery cults and Christianity there existed at one
time a close and intimate union, such a union as of itself involved the
practical assimilation of the central rite, in each case a
‘Eucharisticc’ Feast, in which the worshippers partook of the Food of
Life from the sacred vessels.
In face of the proofs which will be found in these pages I do not think
any fair-minded critic will be inclined to dispute any longer the
origin of the ‘Holy’ Grail; after all it is as august and ancient an
origin as the most tenacious upholder of Its Christian character could
desire.
But I should wish it clearly to be understood that the aim of these
studies is, as indicated in the title, to determine the _origin_ of the
Grail, not to discuss the _provenance_ and interrelation of the
different versions. I do not believe this latter task can be
satisfactorily achieved unless and until we are of one accord as to the
character of the subject matter. When we have made up our minds as to
what the Grail really was, and what it stood for, we shall be able to
analyse the romances; to decide which of them contains more, which
less, of the original matter, and to group them accordingly. On this
point I believe that the table of descent, printed in Volume II. of my
_Perceval_ studies is in the main correct, but there is still much
analytical work to be done, in particular the establishment of the
original form of the _Perlesvaus_ is highly desirable. But apart from
the primary object of these studies, and the results therein obtained,
I would draw attention to the manner in which the evidence set forth in
the chapters on the Mystery cults, and especially that on _The Naassene
Document_, a text of extraordinary value from more than one point of
view, supports and complements the researches of Sir J. G. Frazer. I
am, of course, familiar with the attacks directed against the
‘Vegetation’ theory, the sarcasms of which it has been the object, and
the criticisms of what is held in some quarters to be the exaggerated
importance attached to these Nature cults. But in view of the use made
of these cults as the medium of imparting high spiritual teaching, a
use which, in face of the document above referred to, can no longer be
ignored or evaded, are we not rather justified in asking if the true
importance of the rites has as yet been recognized? Can we possibly
exaggerate their value as a factor in the evolution of religious
consciousness?
Such a development of his researches naturally lay outside the range of
Sir J. G. Frazer’s work, but posterity will probably decide that, like
many another patient and honest worker, he ‘builded better than he
knew.’
I have carefully read Sir W. Ridgeway’s attack on the school in his
_Dramas and Dramatic Dances_, and while the above remarks explain my
position with regard to the question as a whole, I would here take the
opportunity of stating specifically my grounds for dissenting from
certain of the conclusions at which the learned author arrives. I do
not wish it to be said: “This is all very well, but Miss Weston ignores
the arguments on the other side.” I do not ignore, but I do not admit
their validity. It is perfectly obvious that Sir W. Ridgeway’s theory,
reduced to abstract terms, would result in the conclusion that all
religion is based upon the cult of the Dead, and that men originally
knew no gods but their grandfathers, a theory from which as a student
of religion I absolutely and entirely dissent. I can understand that
such Dead Ancestors can be looked upon as Protectors, or as
Benefactors, but I see no ground for supposing that they have ever been
regarded as Creators, yet it is precisely as vehicle for the most lofty
teaching as to the Cosmic relations existing between God and Man, that
these Vegetation cults were employed. The more closely one studies
pre-Christian Theology, the more strongly one is impressed with the
deeply, and daringly, spiritual character of its speculations, and the
more doubtful it appears that such teaching can depend upon the unaided
processes of human thought, or can have been evolved from such germs as
we find among the supposedly ‘primitive’ peoples, such as _e.g._ the
Australian tribes. Are they really primitive? Or are we dealing, not
with the primary elements of religion, but with the _disjecta membra_
of a vanished civilization? Certain it is that so far as historical
evidence goes our earliest records point to the recognition of a
spiritual, not of a material, origin of the human race; the Sumerian
and Babylonian Psalms were not composed by men who believed themselves
the descendants of ‘witchetty grubs.’ The Folk practices and ceremonies
studied in these pages, the Dances, the rough Dramas, the local and
seasonal celebrations, do not represent the material out of which the
Attis-Adonis cult was formed, but surviving fragments of a worship from
which the higher significance has vanished.
Sir W. Ridgeway is confident that Osiris, Attis, Adonis, were all at
one time human beings, whose tragic fate gripped hold of popular
imagination, and led to their ultimate deification. The first-named
cult stands on a somewhat different basis from the others, the
beneficent activities of Osiris being more widely diffused, more
universal in their operation. I should be inclined to regard the
Egyptian deity primarily as a Culture Hero, rather than a Vegetation
God.
With regard to Attis and Adonis, whatever their original character (and
it seems to me highly improbable that there should have been two youths
each beloved by a goddess, each victim of a similar untimely fate),
long before we have any trace of them both have become so intimately
identified with the processes of Nature that they have ceased to be men
and become gods, and as such alone can we deal with them. It is also
permissible to point out that in the case of Tammuz, Esmun, and Adonis,
the title is not a proper name, but a vague appellative, denoting an
abstract rather than a concrete origin. Proof of this will be found
later. Sir W. Ridgeway overlooks the fact that it is not the tragic
death of Attis-Adonis which is of importance for these cults, but their
subsequent restoration to life, a feature which cannot be postulated of
any ordinary mortal.
And how are we to regard Tammuz, the prototype of all these deities? Is
there any possible ground for maintaining that he was ever a man? Prove
it we cannot, as the records of his cult go back thousands of years
before our era. Here, again, we have the same dominant feature; it is
not merely the untimely death which is lamented, but the restoration to
life which is celebrated.
Throughout the whole study the author fails to discriminate between the
activities of the living, and the dead, king. The Dead king may, as I
have said above, be regarded as the Benefactor, as the Protector, of
his people, but it is the Living king upon whom their actual and
continued prosperity depends. The detail that the ruling sovereign is
sometimes regarded as the re-incarnation of the original founder of the
race strengthens this point—the king never dies—_Le Roi est mort, Vive
le Roi_ is very emphatically the motto of this Faith. It is the
insistence on Life, Life continuous, and ever-renewing, which is the
abiding characteristic of these cults, a characteristic which
differentiates them utterly and entirely from the ancestral worship
with which Sir W. Ridgeway would fain connect them.
Nor are the arguments based upon the memorial rites of definitely
historical heroes, of comparatively late date, such as Hussein and
Hossein, of any value here. It is precisely the death, and not the
resurrection, of the martyr which is of the essence of the Muharram. No
one contends that Hussein rose from the dead, but it is precisely this
point which is of primary importance in the Nature cults; and Sir W.
Ridgeway must surely be aware that Folk-lorists find in this very
Muharram distinct traces of borrowing from the earlier Vegetation
rites.
The author triumphantly asserts that the fact that certain Burmese
heroes and heroines are after death reverenced as tree spirits ‘sets at
rest for ever’ the belief in abstract deities. But how can he be sure
that the process was not the reverse of that which he postulates,
_i.e._, that certain natural objects, trees, rivers, etc., were not
regarded as sacred _before_ the Nats became connected with them? That
the deified human beings were not after death assigned to places
already held in reverence? Such a possibility is obvious to any
Folk-lore student, and local traditions should in each case be
carefully examined before the contrary is definitely asserted.
So far as the origins of Drama are concerned the Ode quoted later from
the Naassene Document is absolute and definite proof of the close
connection existing between the Attis Mystery ritual, and dramatic
performances, _i.e._, Attis regarded in his deified, Creative, ‘Logos,’
aspect, not Attis, the dead youth.
Nor do I think that the idea of ‘Mana’ can be lightly dismissed as ‘an
ordinary case of relics.’ The influence may well be something entirely
apart from the continued existence of the ancestor, an independent
force, assisting him in life, and transferring itself after death to
his successor. A ‘Magic’ Sword or Staff is not necessarily a relic;
Medieval romance supplies numerous instances of self-acting weapons
whose virtue in no wise depends upon their previous owner, as _e.g._
the Sword in _Le Chevalier à l’Épée_, or the Flaming Lance of the
_Chevalier de la Charrette_. Doubtless the cult of Ancestors plays a
large _rôle_ in the beliefs of certain peoples, but it is not a
sufficiently solid foundation to bear the weight of the super-structure
Sir W. Ridgeway would fain rear upon it, while it differs too radically
from the cults he attacks to be used as an argument against them; the
one is based upon Death, the other on Life.
Wherefore, in spite of all the learning and ingenuity brought to bear
against it, I avow myself an impenitent believer in Sir J. G. Frazer’s
main theory, and as I have said above, I hold that theory to be of
greater and more far-reaching importance than has been hitherto
suspected.
I would add a few words as to the form of these studies—they may be
found disconnected. They have been written at intervals of time
extending over several years, and my aim has been to prove the
essentially archaic character of _all_ the elements composing the Grail
story rather than to analyse the story as a connected whole. With this
aim in view I have devoted chapters to features which have now either
dropped out of the existing versions, or only survive in a subordinate
form, e.g. the chapters on _The Medicine Man_, and _The Freeing of the
Waters_. The studies will, I hope, and believe, be accepted as offering
a definite contribution towards establishing the fundamental character
of our material; as stated above, when we are all at one as to what the
Holy Grail really was, and is, we can then proceed with some hope of
success to criticize the manner in which different writers have handled
the inspiring theme, but such success seems to be hopeless so long as
we all start from different, and often utterly irreconcilable,
standpoints and proceed along widely diverging roads. One or another
may, indeed, arrive at the goal, but such unanimity of opinion as will
lend to our criticism authoritative weight is, on such lines,
impossible of achievement.
CHAPTER II
The Task of the Hero
As a first step towards the successful prosecution of an investigation
into the true nature and character of the mysterious object we know as
the Grail it will be well to ask ourselves whether any light may be
thrown upon the subject by examining more closely the details of the
Quest in its varying forms; _i.e._, what was the precise character of
the task undertaken by, or imposed upon, the Grail hero, whether that
hero were Gawain, Perceval, or Galahad, and what the results to be
expected from a successful achievement of the task. We shall find at
once a uniformity which assures us of the essential identity of the
tradition underlying the varying forms, and a diversity indicating that
the tradition has undergone a gradual, but radical, modification in the
process of literary evolution. Taken in their relative order the
versions give the following result.
GAWAIN (_Bleheris_). Here the hero sets out on his journey with no
clear idea of the task before him. He is taking the place of a knight
mysteriously slain in his company, but whither he rides, and why, he
does not know, only that the business is important and pressing. From
the records of his partial success we gather that he ought to have
enquired concerning the nature of the Grail, and that this enquiry
would have resulted in the restoration to fruitfulness of a Waste Land,
the desolation of which is, in some manner, not clearly explained,
connected with the death of a knight whose name and identity are never
disclosed. “Great is the loss that ye lie thus, ’tis even the
destruction of kingdoms, God grant that ye be avenged, so that the folk
be once more joyful and the land repeopled which by ye and this sword
are wasted and made void.”[1] The fact that Gawain does ask concerning
the Lance assures the partial restoration of the land; I would draw
attention to the special terms in which this is described: “for so soon
as Sir Gawain asked of the Lance...the waters flowed again thro’ their
channel, and all the woods were turned to verdure.”[2]
_Diû Crône_. Here the question is more general in character; it affects
the marvels beheld, not the Grail alone; but now the Quester is
prepared, and knows what is expected of him. The result is to break the
spell which retains the Grail King in a semblance of life, and we
learn, by implication, that the land is restored to fruitfulness: “yet
had the land been waste, but by his coming had folk and land alike been
delivered.”[3] Thus in the earliest preserved, the GAWAIN form, the
effect upon the land appears to be the primary result of the Quest.
PERCEVAL. The _Perceval_ versions, which form the bulk of the existing
Grail texts, differ considerably the one from the other, alike in the
task to be achieved, and the effects resulting from the hero’s success,
or failure. The distinctive feature of the _Perceval_ version is the
insistence upon the sickness, and disability of the ruler of the land,
the Fisher King. Regarded first as the direct cause of the wasting of
the land, it gradually assumes overwhelming importance, the task of the
Quester becomes that of healing the King, the restoration of the land
not only falls into the background but the operating cause of its
desolation is changed, and finally it disappears from the story
altogether. One version, alone, the source of which is, at present,
undetermined, links the PERCEVAL with the GAWAIN form; this is the
version preserved in the Gerbert continuation of the _Perceval_ of
Chrétien de Troyes. Here the hero having, like Gawain, partially
achieved the task, but again like Gawain, having failed satisfactorily
to resolder the broken sword, wakes, like the earlier hero, to find
that the Grail Castle has disappeared, and he is alone in a flowery
meadow. He pursues his way through a land fertile, and well-peopled and
marvels much, for the day before it had been a waste desert. Coming to
a castle he is received by a solemn procession, with great rejoicing;
through him the folk have regained the land and goods which they had
lost. The mistress of the castle is more explicit. Perceval had asked
concerning the Grail:
“par coi amendé
Somes, en si faite maniére
Qu’en ceste regne n’avoit riviére
Qui ne fust gaste, ne fontaine.
E la terre gaste et soutaine.”
Like Gawain he has ‘freed the waters’ and thus restored the land.[4]
In the prose _Perceval_ the _motif_ of the Waste Land has disappeared,
the task of the hero consists in asking concerning the Grail, and by so
doing, to restore the Fisher King, who is suffering from extreme old
age, to health, and youth.[5]
“Se tu eusses demandé quel’en on faisoit, que li rois ton aiol fust
gariz de l’enfermetez qu’il a, et fust revenu en sa juventé.”
When the question has been asked: “Le rois péschéor estoit gariz et tot
muez de sa nature.” “Li rois peschiére estoit mués de se nature et
estoit garis de se maladie, et estoit sains comme pissons.”[6] Here we
have the introduction of a new element, the restoration to youth of the
sick King.
In the _Perceval_ of Chrétien de Troyes we find ourselves in presence
of certain definite changes, neither slight, nor unimportant, upon
which it seems to me insufficient stress has hitherto been laid. The
question is changed; the hero no longer asks what the Grail is, but (as
in the prose _Perceval_) whom it serves? a departure from an essential
and primitive simplicity—the motive for which is apparent in Chrétien,
but not in the prose form, where there is no enigmatic personality to
be served apart. A far more important change is that, while the malady
of the Fisher King is antecedent to the hero’s visit, and capable of
cure if the question be asked, the failure to fulfil the prescribed
conditions of itself entails disaster upon the land. Thus the sickness
of the King, and the desolation of the land, are not necessarily
connected as cause and effect, but, a point which seems hitherto
unaccountably to have been overlooked, the latter is directly
attributable to the Quester himself.[7]
“Car se tu demandé l’eusses
Li rice roi qui moult s’esmaie
Fust or tost garis de sa plaie
Et si tenist sa tière en pais
Dont il n’en tenra point jamais,”
but by Perceval’s failure to ask the question he has entailed dire
misfortune upon the land:
“Dames en perdront lor maris,
Tiéres en seront essiliés,
Et pucielles desconselliés
Orfenes, veves, en remanront
Et maint chevalier en morront.”[8]
This idea, that the misfortunes of the land are not antecedent to, but
dependent upon, the hero’s abortive visit to the Grail Castle, is
carried still further by the compiler of the _Perlesvaus_, where the
failure of the predestined hero to ask concerning the office of the
Grail is alone responsible for the illness of the King and the
misfortunes of the country. “Une grans dolors est avenue an terre
novelement par un jeune chevalier qui fu herbergiez an l’ostel au riche
roi Peschéor, si aparut à lui li saintimes Graaus, et la lance de quoi
li fiers seigne par la poignte; ne demanda de quoi ce servoit, ou dont
ce venoit, et por ce qu’il ne demanda sont toutes les terres comméues
an guerre, ne chevalier n’ancontre autre au forest qu’il ne li core
sus, et ocie s’il peut.”[9]
“Li Roi Pecheors de qui est grant dolors, quar il est cheüz en une
douleureuse langour—ceste langour li est venue par celui qui se heberga
an son ostel, à qui li seintimes Graaus s’aparut, por ce que cil ne
vost demander de qu’il an servoit, toutes les terres an furent comméues
en gerre.”[10]
“Je suis cheüz an langour dès cele oure que li chevaliers se herberga
çoianz dont vous avez oï parler; par un soule parole que il déloia a
dire me vint ceste langour.”[11]
From this cause the Fisher King dies before the hero has achieved the
task, and can take his place. “Li bons Rois Peschiéres est morz.”[12]
There is here no cure of the King or restoration of the land, the
specific task of the Grail hero is never accomplished, he comes into
his kingdom as the result of a number of knightly adventures, neither
more nor less significant than those found in non-Grail romances.
The _Perlesvaus_, in its present form, appears to be a later, and more
fully developed, treatment of the _motif_ noted in Chrétien, _i.e._,
that the misfortunes of King and country are directly due to the
Quester himself, and had no antecedent existence; this, I would submit,
alters the whole character of the story, and we are at a loss to know
what, had the hero put the question on the occasion of his first visit,
could possibly have been the result achieved. It would not have been
the cure of the King: he was, apparently, in perfect health; it would
not have been the restoration to verdure of the Land: the Land was not
Waste; where, as in the case of Gawain, there is a Dead Knight, whose
death is to be avenged, _something_ might have been achieved, in the
case of the overwhelming majority of the _Perceval_ versions, which do
not contain this feature, the dependence of the Curse upon the Quester
reduces the story to incoherence. In one _Perceval_ version alone do we
find a _motif_ analogous to the earlier _Gawain Bleheris_ form. In
Manessier the hero’s task is not restricted to the simple asking of a
question, but he must also slay the enemy whose treachery has caused
the death of the Fisher King’s brother; thereby healing the wound of
the King himself, and removing the woes of the land. What these may be
we are not told, but, apparently, the country is not ‘Waste.’[13]
In _Peredur_ we have a version closely agreeing with that of Chrétien;
the hero fails to enquire the meaning of what he sees in the Castle of
Wonders, and is told in consequence: “Hadst thou done so the King would
have been restored to health, and his dominions to peace, whereas from
henceforth he will have to endure battles and conflicts, and his
knights will perish, and wives will be widowed, and maidens will be
left portionless, and all this because of thee.”[14] This certainly
seems to imply that, while the illness of the Fisher King may be
antecedent to, and independent of, the visit and failure of the hero,
the misfortunes which fall on the land have been directly caused
thereby.
The conclusion which states that the Bleeding Head seen by the hero
“was thy cousin’s, and he was killed by the Sorceresses of Gloucester,
who also lamed thine uncle—and there is a prediction that thou art to
avenge these things—” would seem to indicate the presence in the
original of a ‘Vengeance’ theme, such as that referred to above.[15]
In _Parzival_ the stress is laid entirely on the sufferings of the
King; the question has been modified in the interests of this theme,
and here assumes the form “What aileth thee, mine uncle?” The blame
bestowed upon the hero is solely on account of the prolonged sorrow his
silence has inflicted on King and people; of a Land laid Waste, either
through drought, or war, there is no mention.
“Iuch solt’ iur wirt erbarmet hân,
An dem Got wunder hât getân,
Und het gevrâget sîner nôt,
Ir lebet, und sît an saelden tôt.”[16]
“Dô der trûrege vischaere
Saz âne fröude und âne trôst
War umb’ iren niht siufzens hât erlôst.”[17]
The punishment falls on the hero who has failed to put the question,
rather than on the land, which, indeed, appears to be in no way
affected, either by the wound of the King, or the silence of the hero.
The divergence from Chrétien’s version is here very marked, and, so
far, seems to have been neglected by critics. The point is also of
importance in view of the curious parallels which are otherwise to be
found between this version and _Perlesvaus;_ here the two are in marked
contradiction with one another.
The question finally asked, the result is, as indicated in the prose
version, the restoration of the King not merely to health, but also to
youth—
“Swaz der Frânzoys heizet flô’rî’
Der glast kom sinem velle bî,
Parzival’s schoen’ was nu ein wint;
Und Absalôn Dâvîdes kint,
Von Askalûn Vergulaht
Und al den schoene was geslaht,
Und des man Gahmurete jach
Dô man’n in zogen sach
Ze Kanvoleis sô wünneclîch,
Ir dechéines schoen’ was der gelîch,
Die Anfortas ûz siecheit truoc.
Got noch künste kan genuoc.”[18]
GALAHAD. In the final form assumed by the story, that preserved in the
_Queste_, the achievement of the task is not preceded by any failure on
the part of the hero, and the advantages derived therefrom are personal
and spiritual, though we are incidentally told that he heals the Fisher
King’s father, and also the old King, Mordrains, whose life has been
preternaturally prolonged. In the case of this latter it is to be noted
that the mere fact of Galahad’s being the predestined winner suffices,
and the healing takes place _before_ the Quest is definitely achieved.
There is no Waste Land, and the wounding of the two Kings is entirely
unconnected with Galahad. We find hints, in the story of Lambar, of a
knowledge of the earlier form, but for all practical purposes it has
disappeared from the story.[19]
Analysing the above statements we find that the results may be grouped
under certain definite headings:
(_a_) There is a general consensus of evidence to the effect that the
main object of the Quest is the restoration to health and vigour of a
King suffering from infirmity caused by wounds, sickness, or old age;
(_b_) and whose infirmity, for some mysterious and unexplained reason,
reacts disastrously upon his kingdom, either depriving it of
vegetation, or exposing it to the ravages of war.
(_c_) In two cases it is definitely stated that the King will be
restored to youthful vigour and beauty.
(_d_) In both cases where we find Gawain as the hero of the story, and
in one connected with Perceval, the misfortune which has fallen upon
the country is that of a prolonged drought, which has destroyed
vegetation, and left the land Waste; the effect of the hero’s question
is to restore the waters to their channel, and render the land once
more fertile.
(_e_) In three cases the misfortunes and wasting of the land are the
result of war, and directly caused by the hero’s failure to ask the
question; we are not dealing with an antecedent condition. This, in my
opinion, constitutes a marked difference between the two groups, which
has not hitherto received the attention it deserves. One aim of our
present investigation will be to determine which of these two forms
should be considered the elder.
But this much seems certain, the aim of the Grail Quest is two-fold; it
is to benefit (_a_) the King, (_b_) the land. The first of these two is
the more important, as it is the infirmity of the King which entails
misfortune on his land, the condition of the one reacts, for good or
ill, upon the other; how, or why, we are left to discover for
ourselves.
Before proceeding further in our investigation it may be well to
determine the precise nature of the King’s illness, and see whether any
light upon the problem can be thus obtained.
In both the _Gawain_ forms the person upon whom the fertility of the
land depends is dead, though, in the version of _Diû Crône_ he is, to
all appearance, still in life. It should be noted that in the
_Bleheris_ form the king of the castle, who is not referred to as the
Fisher King, is himself hale and sound; the wasting of the land was
brought about by the blow which slew the knight whose body Gawain sees
on the bier.
In both the _Perlesvaus_, and the prose _Perceval_ the King has simply
‘fallen into languishment,’ in the first instance, as noted above, on
account of the failure of the Quester, in the second as the result of
extreme old age.
In Chrétien, Manessier, _Peredur_, and the _Parzival_, the King is
suffering from a wound the nature of which, euphemistically disguised
in the French texts, is quite clearly explained in the German.[20]
But the whole position is made absolutely clear by a passage preserved
in _Sone de Nansai_ and obviously taken over from an earlier poem. This
romance contains a lengthy section dealing with the history of Joseph
‘d’Abarimathie,’ who is represented as the patron Saint of the kingdom
of Norway; his bones, with the sacred relics of which he had the
charge, the Grail and the Lance, are preserved in a monastery on an
island in the interior of that country. In this version Joseph himself
is the Fisher King; ensnared by the beauty of the daughter of the Pagan
King of Norway, whom he has slain, he baptizes her, though she is still
an unbeliever at heart, and makes her his wife, thus drawing the wrath
of Heaven upon himself. God punishes him for his sin:
“Es rains et desous l’afola
De coi grant dolor endura.”[21]
Then, in a remarkable passage, we are told of the direful result
entailed by this punishment upon his land:
“Sa tierre ert a ce jour nommée
Lorgres, ch’est verités prouvée,
Lorgres est uns nons de dolour
Nommés en larmes et en plours,
Bien doit iestre en dolour nommés
Car on n’i seme pois ne blés
Ne enfes d’omme n’i nasqui
Ne puchielle n’i ot mari,
Ne arbres fueille n’i porta
Ne nus prés n’i raverdïa,
Ne nus oysiaus n’i ot naon
Ne se n’i ot beste faon,
Tant que li rois fu mehaigniés
Et qu’il fu fors de ses pechiés,
Car Jesu-Crist fourment pesa
Qu’à la mescréant habita.”[22]
Now there can be no possible doubt here, the condition of the King is
sympathetically reflected on the land, the loss of virility in the one
brings about a suspension of the reproductive processes of Nature on
the other. The same effect would naturally be the result of the death
of the sovereign upon whose vitality these processes depended.
To sum up the result of the analysis, I hold that we have solid grounds
for the belief that the story postulates a close connection between the
vitality of a certain King, and the prosperity of his kingdom; the
forces of the ruler being weakened or destroyed, by wound, sickness,
old age, or death, the land becomes Waste, and the task of the hero is
that of restoration.[23]
It seems to me, then, that, if we desire to elucidate the perplexing
mystery of the Grail romances, and to place the criticism of this
important and singularly fascinating body of literature upon an assured
basis, we shall do so most effectually by pursuing a line of
investigation which will concentrate upon the persistent elements of
the story, the character and significance of the achievement proposed,
rather than upon the varying details, such as Grail and Lance, however
important may be their _rôle_. If we can ascertain, accurately, and
unmistakably, the meaning of the whole, we shall, I think, find less
difficulty in determining the character and office of the parts, in
fact, the question _solvitur ambulando_, the ‘complex’ of the problem
being solved, the constituent elements will reveal their significance.
As a first step I propose to ask whether this ‘Quest of the Grail’
represents an isolated, and unique achievement, or whether the task
allotted to the hero, Gawain, Perceval, or Galahad, is one that has
been undertaken, and carried out by heroes of other ages, and other
lands. In the process of our investigation we must retrace our steps
and turn back to the early traditions of our Aryan forefathers, and see
whether we cannot, even in that remote antiquity, lay our hand upon a
clue, which, like the fabled thread of Ariadne, shall serve as guide
through the mazes of a varying, yet curiously persistent, tradition.
CHAPTER III
The Freeing of the Waters
‘To begin at the beginning,’ was the old story-telling formula, and it
was a very sound one, if ‘the beginning’ could only be definitely
ascertained! As our nearest possible approach to it I would draw
attention to certain curious parallels in the earliest literary
monuments of our race. I would at the same time beg those scholars who
may think it ‘a far cry’ from the romances of the twelfth century of
our era to some 1000 years B.C. to suspend their judgment till they
have fairly examined the evidence for a tradition common to the Aryan
race in general, and persisting with extraordinary vitality, and a
marked correspondence of characteristic detail, through all migrations
and modifications of that race, down to the present day.
Turning back to the earliest existing literary evidence, the
_Rig-Veda_, we become aware that, in this vast collection of over 1000
poems (it is commonly known as _The Thousand and One Hymns_ but the
poems contained in it are more than that in number) are certain
parallels with our Grail stories which, if taken by themselves, are
perhaps interesting and suggestive rather than in any way conclusive,
yet which, when they are considered in relation to the entire body of
evidence, assume a curious significance and importance. We must first
note that a very considerable number of the _Rig-Veda_ hymns depend for
their initial inspiration on the actual bodily needs and requirements
of a mainly agricultural population, _i.e._, of a people that depend
upon the fruits of the earth for their subsistence, and to whom the
regular and ordered sequence of the processes of Nature was a vital
necessity.
Their hymns and prayers, and, as we have strong reason to suppose,
their dramatic ritual, were devised for the main purpose of obtaining
from the gods of their worship that which was essential to ensure their
well-being and the fertility of their land—warmth, sunshine, above all,
sufficient water. That this last should, in an Eastern land, under a
tropical sun, become a point of supreme importance, is easily to be
understood. There is consequently small cause for surprise when we
find, throughout the collection, the god who bestows upon them this
much desired boon to be the one to whom by far the greater proportion
of the hymns are addressed. It is not necessary here to enter into a
discussion as to the original conception of Indra, and the place
occupied by him in the early Aryan Pantheon, whether he was originally
regarded as a god of war, or a god of weather; what is important for
our purpose is the fact that it is Indra to whom a disproportionate
number of the hymns of the _Rig-Veda_ are addressed, that it is from
him the much desired boon of rain and abundant water is besought, and
that the feat which above all others redounded to his praise, and is
ceaselessly glorified both by the god himself, and his grateful
worshippers, is precisely the feat by which the Grail heroes, Gawain
and Perceval, rejoiced the hearts of a suffering folk, _i.e._, the
restoration of the rivers to their channels, the ‘Freeing of the
Waters.’ Tradition relates that the seven great rivers of India had
been imprisoned by the evil giant, Vritra, or Ahi, whom Indra slew,
thereby releasing the streams from their captivity.
The _Rig-Veda_ hymns abound in references to this feat; it will only be
necessary to cite a few from among the numerous passages I have noted.
‘Thou hast set loose the seven rivers to flow.’
‘Thou causest water to flow on every side.’
‘Indra set free the waters.’
‘Thou, Indra, hast slain Vritra by thy vigour, thou hast set free the
rivers.’
‘Thou hast slain the slumbering Ahi for the release of the waters, and
hast marked out the channels of the all-delighting rivers.’
‘Indra has filled the rivers, he has inundated the dry land.’
‘Indra has released the imprisoned waters to flow upon the earth.’[1]
It would be easy to fill pages with similar quotations, but these are
sufficient for our purpose.
Among the _Rig-Veda_ hymns are certain poems in Dialogue form, which
from their curious and elliptic character have been the subject of much
discussion among scholars. Professor Oldenberg, in drawing attention to
their peculiarities, had expressed his opinion that these poems were
the remains of a distinct type of early Indian literature, where verses
forming the central, and illuminating, point of a formal ceremonial
recital had been ‘farced’ with illustrative and explanatory prose
passages; the form of the verses being fixed, that of the prose being
varied at the will of the reciter.[2]
This theory, which is technically known as the ‘Âkhyâna’ theory (as it
derived its starting point from the discussion of the Suparnâkhyâna
text), won considerable support, but was contested by M. Sylvain Lévi,
who asserted that, in these hymns, we had the remains of the earliest,
and oldest, Indian dramatic creations, the beginning of the Indian
Drama; and that the fragments could only be satisfactorily interpreted
from the point of view that they were intended to be spoken, not by a
solitary reciter, but by two or more _dramatis personae_.[3]
J. Hertel (_Der Ursprung des Indischen Dramas und Epos_) went still
further, and while accepting, and demonstrating, the justice of this
interpretation of the ‘Dialogue’ poems, suggested a similar origin for
certain ‘Monologues’ found in the same collection.[4]
Professor Leopold von Schroeder, in his extremely interesting volume,
_Mysterium und Mimus im Rig-Veda_,[5] has given a popular and practical
form to the results of these researches, by translating and publishing,
with an explanatory study, a selection of these early ‘Culture’ Dramas,
explaining the speeches, and placing them in the mouth of the
respective actors to whom they were, presumably, assigned. Professor
von Schroeder holds the entire group to be linked together by one
common intention, _viz_., the purpose of stimulating the processes of
Nature, and of obtaining, as a result of what may be called a Ritual
Culture Drama, an abundant return of the fruits of the earth. The whole
book is rich in parallels drawn from ancient and modern sources, and is
of extraordinary interest to the Folk-lore student.
In the light thrown by Professor von Schroeder’s researches, following
as they do upon the illuminating studies of Mannhardt, and Frazer, we
become strikingly aware of the curious vitality and persistence of
certain popular customs and beliefs; and while the two last-named
writers have rendered inestimable service to the study of Comparative
Religion by linking the practices of Classical and Medieval times with
the Folk-customs of to-day, we recognize, through von Schroeder’s work,
that the root of such belief and custom is imbedded in a deeper stratum
of Folk-tradition than we had hitherto realized, that it is, in fact, a
heritage from the far-off past of the Aryan peoples.
For the purposes of our especial line of research _Mysterium und Mimus_
offers much of value and interest. As noted above, the main object of
these primitive Dramas was that of encouraging, we may say, ensuring,
the fertility of the Earth; thus it is not surprising that more than
one deals with the theme of which we are treating, the Freeing of the
Waters, only that whereas, in the quotations given above, the
worshippers praise Indra for his beneficent action, here Indra himself,
_in propria persona_ appears, and vaunts his feat.
“Ich schlug den Vritra mit der Kraft des Indra!
Durch eignen Grimm war ich so stark geworden!
Ich machte für die Menschen frei die Wasser”[6]
And the impersonated rivers speak for themselves.
“Indra, den Blitz im Arm, brach uns die Bahnen,
Er schlug den Vritra, die Ströme einschloss.”[7]
There is no need to insist further on the point that the task of the
Grail hero is in this special respect no mere literary invention, but a
heritage from the achievements of the prehistoric heroes of the Aryan
race.
But the poems selected by Professor von Schroeder for discussion offer
us a further, and more curious, parallel with the Grail romances.
In Section VIII. of the work referred to the author discusses the story
of Ṛishyaçṛiñga, as the _Mahâbhârata_ names the hero; here we find a
young Brahmin brought up by his father, Vibhândaka, in a lonely forest
hermitage[8] absolutely ignorant of the outside world, and even of the
very existence of beings other than his father and himself. He has
never seen a woman, and does not know that such a creature exists.
A drought falls upon a neighbouring kingdom, and the inhabitants are
reduced to great straits for lack of food. The King, seeking to know by
what means the sufferings of his people may be relieved, learns that so
long as Ṛishyaçṛiñga continues chaste so long will the drought endure.
An old woman, who has a fair daughter of irregular life, undertakes the
seduction of the hero. The King has a ship, or raft (both versions are
given), fitted out with all possible luxury, and an apparent Hermit’s
cell erected upon it. The old woman, her daughter and companions,
embark; and the river carries them to a point not far from the young
Brahmin’s hermitage.
Taking advantage of the absence of his father, the girl visits
Ṛishyaçṛiñga in his forest cell, giving him to understand that she is a
Hermit, like himself, which the boy, in his innocence, believes. He is
so fascinated by her appearance and caresses that, on her leaving him,
he, deep in thought of the lovely visitor, forgets, for the first time,
his religious duties.
On his father’s return he innocently relates what has happened, and the
father warns him that fiends in this fair disguise strive to tempt
hermits to their undoing. The next time the father is absent the
temptress, watching her opportunity, returns, and persuades the boy to
accompany her to her ‘Hermitage’ which she assures him, is far more
beautiful than his own. So soon as Ṛishyaçṛiñga is safely on board the
ship sails, the lad is carried to the capital of the rainless land, the
King gives him his daughter as wife, and so soon as the marriage is
consummated the spell is broken, and rain falls in abundance.
Professor von Schroeder points out that there is little doubt that, in
certain earlier versions of the tale, the King’s daughter herself
played the _rôle_ of temptress.
There is no doubt that a ceremonial ‘marriage’ very frequently formed a
part of the ‘Fertility’ ritual, and was supposed to be specially
efficacious in bringing about the effect desired.[9] The practice
subsists in Indian ritual to this hour, and the surviving traces in
European Folk-custom have been noted in full by Mannhardt in his
exhaustive work on _Wald und Feld-Kulte;_ its existence in Classic
times is well known, and it is certainly one of the living Folk-customs
for which a well-attested chain of descent can be cited. Professor von
Schroeder remarks that the efficacy of the rite appears to be enhanced
by the previous strict observance of the rule of chastity by the
officiant.[10]
What, however, is of more immediate interest for our purpose is the
fact that the Ṛishyaçṛiñga story does, in effect, possess certain
curious points of contact with the Grail tradition.
Thus, the lonely upbringing of the youth in a forest, far from the
haunts of men, his absolute ignorance of the existence of human beings
other than his parent and himself, present a close parallel to the
accounts of Perceval’s youth and woodland life, as related in the Grail
romances.[11]
In Gerbert’s continuation we are told that the marriage of the hero is
an indispensable condition of achieving the Quest, a detail which must
have been taken over from an earlier version, as Gerbert proceeds to
stultify himself by describing the solemnities of the marriage, and the
ceremonial blessing of the nuptial couch, after which hero and heroine
simultaneously agree to live a life of strict chastity, and are
rewarded by the promise that the Swan Knight shall be their
descendant—a tissue of contradictions which can only be explained by
the _mal-à-droit_ blending of two versions, one of which knew the hero
as wedded, the other, as celibate. There can be no doubt that the
original _Perceval_ story included the marriage of the hero.[12]
The circumstances under which Ṛishyaçṛiñga is lured from his Hermitage
are curiously paralleled by the account, found in the _Queste_ and
Manessier, of Perceval’s temptation by a fiend, in the form of a fair
maiden, who comes to him by water in a vessel hung with black silk, and
with great riches on board.[13]
In pointing out these parallels I wish to make my position perfectly
clear; I do not claim that either in the _Rig-Veda_, or in any other
early Aryan literary monument, we can hope to discover the direct
sources of the Grail legend, but what I would urge upon scholars is the
fact that, in adopting the hypothesis of a Nature Cult as a possible
origin, and examining the history of these Cults, their evolution, and
their variant forms, we do, in effect, find at every period and stage
of development undoubted points of contact, which, though taken
separately, might be regarded as accidental, in their _ensemble_ can
hardly be thus considered. When every parallel to our Grail story is
found within the circle of a well-defined, and carefully studied,
sequence of belief and practice, when each and all form part of a
well-recognized body of tradition the descent of which has been
abundantly demonstrated, then I submit such parallels stand on a sound
basis, and it is not unreasonable to conclude that the body of
tradition containing them belongs to the same family and is to be
interpreted on the same principles as the closely analogous rites and
ceremonies.
I suspend the notice and discussion of other poems contained in Prof.
von Schroeder’s collection till we have reached a later stage of the
tradition, when their correspondence will be recognized as even more
striking and suggestive.
CHAPTER IV
Tammuz and Adonis
PART I. TAMMUZ
In the previous chapter we considered certain aspects of the attitude
assumed by our Aryan forefathers towards the great processes of Nature
in their ordered sequence of Birth, Growth, and Decay. We saw that
while on one hand they, by prayer and supplication, threw themselves
upon the mercy of the Divinity, who, in their belief, was responsible
for the granting, or withholding, of the water, whether of rain, or
river, the constant supply of which was an essential condition of such
ordered sequence, they, on the other hand, believed that, by their own
actions, they could stimulate and assist the Divine activity. Hence the
dramatic representations to which I have referred, the performance, for
instance, of such a drama as the _Ṛishyaçṛiñga_, the ceremonial
‘marriages,’ and other exercises of what we now call sympathetic magic.
To quote a well-known passage from Sir J. G. Frazer: “They commonly
believed that the tie between the animal and vegetable world was even
closer than it really is—to them the principle of life and fertility,
whether animal or vegetable, was one and indivisible. Hence actions
that induced fertility in the animal world were held to be equally
efficacious in stimulating the reproductive energies of the
vegetable.”[1] How deeply this idea was rooted in the minds of our
ancestors we, their descendants, may learn from its survival to our own
day.
The ultimate, and what we may in a general sense term the classical,
form in which this sense of the community of the Life principle found
expression was that which endowed the vivifying force of Nature with a
distinct personality, divine, or semi-divine, whose experiences, in
virtue of his close kinship with humanity, might be expressed in terms
of ordinary life.
At this stage the progress of the seasons, the birth of vegetation in
spring, or its revival after the autumn rains, its glorious fruition in
early summer, its decline and death under the maleficent influence
either of the scorching sun, or the bitter winter cold, symbolically
represented the corresponding stages in the life of this
anthropomorphically conceived Being, whose annual progress from birth
to death, from death to a renewed life, was celebrated with a solemn
ritual of corresponding alternations of rejoicing and lamentation.
Recent research has provided us with abundant material for the study of
the varying forms of this Nature Cult, the extraordinary importance of
which as an evolutionary factor in what we may term the concrete
expression of human thought and feeling is only gradually becoming
realized.[2]
Before turning our attention to this, the most important, section of
our investigation, it may be well to consider one characteristic
difference between the Nature ritual of the _Rig-Veda_, and that
preserved to us in the later monuments of Greek antiquity.
In the _Rig-Veda_, early as it is, we find the process of religious
evolution already far advanced; the god has separated himself from his
worshippers, and assumed an anthropomorphic form. Indra, while still
retaining traces of his ‘weather’ origin, is no longer, to borrow Miss
Harrison’s descriptive phrase, ‘an automatic explosive thunder-storm,’
he wields the thunderbolt certainly, but he appears in heroic form to
receive the offerings made to him, and to celebrate his victory in a
solemn ritual dance. In Greek art and literature, on the other hand,
where we might expect to find an even more advanced conception, we are
faced with one seemingly more primitive and inchoate, _i.e._, the idea
of a constantly recurring cycle of Birth, Death, and Resurrection, or
Re-Birth, of all things in Nature, this cycle depending upon the
activities of an entity at first vaguely conceived of as the ‘Luck of
the Year,’ the _Eniautos Daimon_. This Being, at one stage of evolution
theriomorphic—he might assume the form of a bull, a goat, or a snake
(the latter, probably from the close connection of the reptile with the
earth, being the more general form)—only gradually, and by distinctly
traceable stages, assumed an anthropomorphic shape.[3] This gives to
the study of Greek antiquity a special and peculiar value, since in
regard to the body of religious belief and observance with which we are
here immediately concerned, neither in what we may not improperly term
its ultimate (early Aryan), nor in what has been generally considered
its proximate (Syro-Phoenician), source, have these intermediate stages
been preserved; in each case the ritual remains are illustrative of a
highly developed cult, distinctly anthropomorphic in conception. I
offer no opinion as to the critical significance of this fact, but I
would draw the attention of scholars to its existence.
That the process of evolution was complete at a very early date has
been proved by recent researches into the Sumerian-Babylonian
civilization. We know now that the cult of the god Tammuz, who, if not
the direct original of the Phoenician-Greek Adonis, is at least
representative of a common parent deity, may be traced back to 3000
B.C., while it persisted among the Sabeans at Harran into the Middle
Ages.[4]
While much relating to the god and his precise position in the
Sumerian-Babylonian Pantheon still remains obscure, fragmentary
cuneiform texts connected with the religious services of the period
have been discovered, and to a considerable extent deciphered, and we
are thus in a position to judge, from the prayers and invocations
addressed to the deity, what were the powers attributed to, and the
benefits besought from, him. These texts are of a uniform character;
they are all ‘Lamentations,’ or ‘Wailings,’ having for their exciting
cause the disappearance of Tammuz from this upper earth, and the
disastrous effects produced upon animal and vegetable life by his
absence. The woes of the land and the folk are set forth in poignant
detail, and Tammuz is passionately invoked to have pity upon his
worshippers, and to end their sufferings by a speedy return. This
return, we find from other texts, was effected by the action of a
goddess, the mother, sister, or paramour, of Tammuz, who, descending
into the nether world, induced the youthful deity to return with her to
earth. It is perfectly clear from the texts which have been deciphered
that Tammuz is not to be regarded merely as representing the Spirit of
Vegetation; his influence is operative, not only in the vernal
processes of Nature, as a Spring god, but in all its reproductive
energies, without distinction or limitation, he may be considered as an
embodiment of the Life principle, and his cult as a Life Cult.
Mr Stephen Langdon inclines to believe that the original Tammuz
typified the vivifying waters; he writes: “Since, in Babylonia as in
Egypt, the fertility of the soil depended upon irrigation, it is but
natural to expect that the youthful god who represents the birth and
death of nature, would represent the beneficent waters which flooded
the valleys of the Tigris and Euphrates in the late winter, and which
ebbed away, and nearly disappeared, in the canals and rivers in the
period of Summer drought. We find therefore that the theologians
regarded this youthful divinity as belonging to the cult of Eridu,
centre of the worship of Ea, lord of the nether sea.”[5] In a note to
this passage Mr Langdon adds: “He appears in the great theological list
as _Dami-zi, ab-zu_, ‘Tammuz of the nether sea,’ _i.e._, ‘the faithful
son of the fresh waters which come from the earth.’”[6]
This presents us with an interesting analogy to the citations given in
the previous chapter from the _Rig-Veda;_ the Tammuz cult is specially
valuable as providing us with evidence of the gradual evolution of the
Life Cult from the early conception of the vivifying power of the
waters, to the wider recognition of a common principle underlying all
manifestations of Life.
This is very clearly brought out in the beautiful Lament for Tammuz,
published by Mr Langdon in _Tammuz and Ishtar_, and also in _Sumerian
and Babylonian Psalms_.[7]
“In Eanna, high and low, there is weeping,
Wailing for the house of the lord they raise.
The wailing is for the plants; the first lament is ‘they grow not.’
The wailing is for the barley; the ears grow not.
For the habitations and flocks it is; they produce not.
For the perishing wedded ones, for perishing children it is; the
dark-headed people create not.
The wailing is for the great river; it brings the flood no more.
The wailing is for the fields of men; the gunu grows no more.
The wailing is for the fish-ponds; the dasuhur fish spawn not.
The wailing is for the cane-brake; the fallen stalks grow not.
The wailing is for the forests; the tamarisks grow not.
The wailing is for the highlands; the masgam trees grow not.
The wailing is for the garden store-house; honey and wine are produced
not.
The wailing is for the meadows; the bounty of the garden, the sihtu
plants grow not.
The wailing is for the palace; life unto distant days is not.”
Can anything be more expressive of the community of life animating the
whole of Nature than this poignantly worded lament?
A point which differentiates the worship of Tammuz from the kindred,
and better known, cult of Adonis, is the fact that we have no
liturgical record of the celebration of the resurrection of the deity;
it certainly took place, for the effects are referred to:
“Where grass was not, there grass is eaten,
Where water was not, water is drunk,
Where the cattle sheds were not, cattle sheds are built.”[8]
While this distinctly implies the revival of vegetable and animal life,
those features (_i.e._, resurrection and sacred marriage), which made
the Adonis ritual one of rejoicing as much as of lamentation, are
absent from liturgical remains of the Tammuz cult.[9]
A detail which has attracted the attention of scholars is the lack of
any artistic representation of this ritual, a lack which is the more
striking in view of the important position which these ‘Wailings for
Tammuz’ occupy in the extant remains of Babylonian liturgies. On this
point Mr Langdon makes an interesting suggestion: “It is probable that
the service of wailing for the dying god, the descent of the mother,
and the resurrection, were attended by mysterious rituals. The actual
mysteries may have been performed in a secret chamber, and consequently
the scenes were forbidden in Art. This would account for the surprising
dearth of archaeological evidence concerning a cult upon which the very
life of mankind was supposed to depend.”[10]
In view of the fact that my suggestion as to the possible later
development of these Life Cults as Mysteries has aroused considerable
opposition, it is well to bear in mind that such development is held by
those best acquainted with the earliest forms of the ritual to have
been not merely possible, but to have actually taken place, and that at
a very remote date. Mr Langdon quotes a passage referring to “Kings who
in their day played the _rôle_ of Tammuz in the mystery of this cult”;
he considers that here we have to do with kings who, by a symbolic act,
escaped the final penalty of sacrifice as representative of the Dying
God.[11]
The full importance of the evidence above set forth will become more
clearly apparent as we proceed with our investigation; here I would
simply draw attention to the fact that we now possess definite proof
that, at a period of some 3000 years B.C., the idea of a Being upon
whose life and reproductive activities the very existence of Nature and
its corresponding energies was held to depend, yet who was himself
subject to the vicissitudes of declining powers and death, like an
ordinary mortal, had already assumed a fixed, and practically final,
form; further, that this form was specially crystallized in ritual
observances. In our study of the later manifestations of this cult we
shall find that this central idea is always, and unalterably, the same,
and is, moreover, frequently accompanied by a remarkable correspondence
of detail. The chain of evidence is already strong, and we may justly
claim that the links added by further research strengthen, while they
lengthen, that chain.
PART II. ADONIS
While it is only of comparatively recent date that information as to
the exact character of the worship directed to Tammuz has been
available and the material we at present possess is but fragmentary in
character, the corresponding cult of the Phoenician-Greek divinity we
know as Adonis has for some years been the subject of scholarly
research. Not only have the details of the ritual been examined and
discussed, and the surviving artistic evidence described and
illustrated, but from the anthropological side attention has been
forcibly directed to its importance as a factor in the elucidation of
certain widespread Folk-beliefs and practices.[12]
We know now that the worship of Adonis, which enjoyed among the Greeks
a popularity extending to our own day, was originally of Phoenician
origin, its principal centres being the cities of Byblos, and Aphaka.
From Phoenicia it spread to the Greek islands, the earliest evidence of
the worship being found in Cyprus, and from thence to the mainland,
where it established itself firmly. The records of the cult go back to
700 B.C., but it may quite possibly be of much earlier date. Mr Langdon
suggests that the worship of the divinity we know as Adonis, may, under
another name, reach back to an antiquity equal with that we can now
ascribe to the cult of Tammuz. In its fully evolved classical form the
cult of Adonis offers, as it were, a halfway house, between the
fragmentary relics of Aryan and Babylonian antiquity, and the wealth of
Medieval and Modern survivals to which the ingenuity and patience of
contemporary scholars have directed our attention.
We all know the mythological tale popularly attached to the name of
Adonis; that he was a fair youth, beloved of Aphrodite, who, wounded in
the thigh by a wild boar, died of his wound. The goddess, in despair at
his death, by her prayers won from Zeus the boon that Adonis be allowed
to return to earth for a portion of each year, and henceforward the
youthful god divides his time between the goddess of Hades, Persephone,
and Aphrodite. But the importance assumed by the story, the elaborate
ceremonial with which the death of Adonis was mourned, and his
restoration to life fêted, the date and character of the celebrations,
all leave no doubt that the personage with whom we are dealing was no
mere favourite of a goddess, but one with whose life and well-being the
ordinary processes of Nature, whether animal or vegetable, were closely
and intimately concerned. In fact the central figure of these rites, by
whatever name he may be called, is the somewhat elusive and impersonal
entity, who represents in anthropomorphic form the principle of animate
Nature, upon whose preservation, and unimpaired energies, the life of
man, directly, and indirectly, depends.[13]
Before proceeding to examine these rites there is one point, to which I
have alluded earlier, in another connection, upon which our minds must
be quite clear, _i.e._, the nature of the injury suffered. Writers upon
the subject are of one accord in considering the usual account to be
but a euphemistic veiling of the truth, while the close relation
between the stories of Adonis and Attis, and the practices associated
with the cult, place beyond any shadow of a doubt the fact that the
true reason for this universal mourning was the cessation, or
suspension, by injury or death, of the reproductive energy of the god
upon whose virile activity vegetable life directly, and human life
indirectly, depended.[14] What we have need to seize and to insist upon
is the overpowering influence which the sense of Life, the need for
Life, the essential Sanctity of the Life-giving faculty, exercised upon
primitive religions. Vellay puts this well when he says: “En réalité
c’est sur la conception de la vie physique, considérée dans son
origine, et dans son action, et dans le double principe qui l’anime,
que repose tout le cycle religieux des peuples Orientaux de
l’Antiquité.”[15]
Professor von Schroeder says even more precisely and emphatically: “In
der Religion der Arischen Urzeit ist Alles auf Lebensbejahung
gerichtet, Mann kann den Phallus als ihr Beherrschendes Symbol
betrachten.”[16] And in spite of the strong opposition to this cult
manifested in Indian literature, beginning with the _Rig-Veda_, and
ripening to fruition in the _Upanishads_, in spite of the rise of
Buddhism, with its opposing dictum of renunciation, the ‘Life-Cult’
asserted its essential vitality against all opposition, and under
modified forms represents the ‘popular’ religion of India to this day.
Each and all of the ritual dramas, reconstructed in the pages of
_Mysterium und Mimus_ bear, more or less distinctly, the stamp of their
‘Fertility’ origin,[17] while outside India the pages of Frazer and
Mannhardt, and numerous other writers on Folk-lore and Ethnology,
record the widespread, and persistent, survival of these rites, and
their successful defiance of the spread of civilization.
It is to this special group of belief and practice that the Adonis (and
more especially its Phrygian counterpart the Attis) worship belong, and
even when transplanted to the more restrained and cultured environment
of the Greek mainland, they still retained their primitive character.
Farnell, in his _Cults of the Greek States_, refers to the worship of
Adonis as “a ritual that the more austere State religion of Greece
probably failed to purify, the saner minds, bred in a religious
atmosphere that was, on the whole, genial, and temperate, revolted from
the din of cymbals and drums, the meaningless ecstasies of sorrow and
joy, that marked the new religion.”[18]
It is, I submit, indispensable for the purposes of our investigation
that the essential character and significance of the cults with which
we are dealing should not be evaded or ignored, but faced, frankly
admitted and held in mind during the progress of our enquiry.
Having now determined the general character of the ritual, what were
the specific details?
The date of the feast seems to have varied in different countries; thus
in Greece it was celebrated in the Spring, the moment of the birth of
Vegetation; according to Saint Jerome, in Palestine the celebration
fell in June, when plant life was in its first full luxuriance. In
Cyprus, at the autumnal equinox, _i.e._, the beginning of the year in
the Syro-Macedonian calendar, the death of Adonis falling on the 23rd
of September, his resurrection on the 1st of October, the beginning of
a New Year. This would seem to indicate that here Adonis was
considered, as Vellay suggests, less as the god of Vegetation than as
the superior and nameless Lord of Life (Adonis=Syriac _Adôn_, Lord),
under whose protection the year was placed.[19] He is the _Eniautos
Daimon_.
In the same way as the dates varied, so, also, did the order of the
ritual; generally speaking the elaborate ceremonies of mourning for the
dead god, and committing his effigy to the waves, preceded the joyous
celebration of his resurrection, but in Alexandria the sequence was
otherwise; the feast began with the solemn and joyous celebration of
the nuptials of Adonis and Aphrodite, at the conclusion of which a
Head, of papyrus, representing the god, was, with every show of
mourning, committed to the waves, and borne within seven days by a
current (always to be counted upon at that season of the year) to
Byblos, where it was received and welcomed with popular rejoicing.[20]
The duration of the feast varied from two days, as at Alexandria, to
seven or eight.
Connected with the longer period of the feast were the so-called
‘Gardens of Adonis,’ baskets, or pans, planted with quick growing
seeds, which speedily come to fruition, and as speedily wither. In the
modern survivals of the cult three days form the general term for the
flowering of these gardens.[21]
The most noticeable feature of the ritual was the prominence assigned
to women; “ce sont les femmes qui le pleurent, et qui l’accompagnent à
sa tombe. Elles sanglotent éperdument pendant les nuits,—c’est leur
dieu plus que tout autre, et seules elles veulent pleurer sa mort, et
chanter sa résurrection.”[22]
Thus in the tenth century the festival received the Arabic name of
_El-Bûgat_, or ‘The Festival of the Weeping Women.’[23]
One very curious practice during these celebrations was that of cutting
off the hair in honour of the god; women who hesitated to make this
sacrifice must offer themselves to strangers, either in the temple, or
on the market-place, the gold received as the price of their favours
being offered to the goddess. This obligation only lasted for one
day.[24] It was also customary for the priests of Adonis to mutilate
themselves in imitation of the god, a distinct proof, if one were
needed, of the traditional cause of his death.[25]
Turning from a consideration of the Adonis ritual, its details, and
significance, to an examination of the Grail romances, we find that
their _mise-en-scène_ provides a striking series of parallels with the
Classical celebrations, parallels, which instead of vanishing, as
parallels have occasionally an awkward habit of doing, before closer
investigation, rather gain in force the more closely they are studied.
Thus the central figure is either a dead knight on a bier (as in the
_Gawain_ versions), or a wounded king on a litter; when wounded the
injury corresponds with that suffered by Adonis and Attis.[26]
Closely connected with the wounding of the king is the destruction
which has fallen on the land, which will be removed when the king is
healed. The version of _Sone de Nansai_ is here of extreme interest;
the position is stated with so much clearness and precision that the
conclusion cannot be evaded—we are face to face with the dreaded
calamity which it was the aim of the Adonis ritual to avert, the
temporary suspension of all the reproductive energies of Nature.[27]
While the condition of the king is the cause of general and vociferous
lamentation, a special feature, never satisfactorily accounted for, is
the presence of a weeping woman, or several weeping women. Thus in the
interpolated visit of Gawain to the Grail castle, found in the C group
of _Perceval_ MSS., the Grail-bearer weeps piteously, as she does also
in _Diû Crône_.[28]
In the version of the prose _Lancelot_ Gawain, during the night, sees
twelve maidens come to the door of the chamber where the Grail is kept,
kneel down, and weep bitterly, in fact behave precisely as did the
classical mourners for Adonis—“Elles sanglotent éperdument pendant la
nuit.”[29]—behaviour for which the text, as it now stands, provides no
shadow of explanation or excuse. The Grail is here the most revered of
Christian relics, the dwellers in the castle of Corbenic have all that
heart can desire, with the additional prestige of being the guardians
of the Grail; if the feature be not a belated survival, which has lost
its meaning, it defies any explanation whatsoever.
In _Diû Crône_ alone, where the Grail-bearer and her maidens are the
sole living beings in an abode of the Dead, is any explanation of the
‘Weeping Women’ attempted, but an interpolated passage in the Heralds’
College MS. of the _Perceval_ states that when the Quest is achieved,
the hero shall learn the cause of the maiden’s grief, and also the
explanation of the Dead Knight upon the bier:
“del graal q’vient aprés
E purquei plure tut adés
La pucele qui le sustient
De la biere qu’aprés vient
Savera la vérité adonques
Ceo que nul ne pot saveir onques
Pur nule rien qui avenist.”
fo. 180vo-181.
Of course in the _Perceval_ there is neither a Weeping Maiden, nor a
Bier, and the passage must therefore be either an unintelligent
addition by a scribe familiar with the _Gawain_ versions, or an
interpolation from a source which did contain the features in question.
So far as the texts at our disposal are concerned, both features belong
exclusively to the _Gawain_, and not to the _Perceval_ Quest. The
interpolation is significant as it indicates a surviving sense of the
importance of this feature.
In the _Perlesvaus_ we have the curious detail of a maiden who has lost
her hair as a result of the hero’s failure to ask the question, and the
consequent sickness of the Fisher King. The occurrence of this detail
may be purely fortuitous, but at the same time it is admissible to
point out that the Adonis cults do provide us with a parallel in the
enforced loss of hair by the women taking part in these rites, while no
explanation of this curious feature has so far as I am aware been
suggested by critics of the text.[30]
We may also note the fact that the Grail castle is always situated in
the close vicinity of water, either on or near the sea, or on the banks
of an important river. In two cases the final home of the Grail is in a
monastery situated upon an island. The presence of water, either sea,
or river, is an important feature in the Adonis cult, the effigy of the
dead god being, not buried in the earth, but thrown into the water.[31]
It will thus be seen that, in suggesting a form of Nature worship,
analogous to this well-known cult, as the possible ultimate source from
which the incidents and _mise-en-scène_ of the Grail stories were
derived, we are relying not upon an isolated parallel, but upon a group
of parallels, which alike in incident and intention offer, not merely a
resemblance to, but also an explanation of, the perplexing problems of
the Grail literature. We must now consider the question whether
incidents so remote in time may fairly and justly be utilized in this
manner.
CHAPTER V
Medieval and Modern Forms of Nature Ritual
Readers of the foregoing pages may, not improbably, object that, while
we have instanced certain curious and isolated parallels from early
Aryan literature and tradition, and, what, from the point of view of
declared intention, appears to be a kindred group of religious belief
and practice in pre-Historic and Classical times, the two, so far, show
no direct signs of affiliation, while both may be held to be far
removed, in point of date, alike from one another, and from the
romantic literature of the twelfth century.
This objection is sound in itself, but if we can show by modern
parallels that the ideas which took form and shape in early Aryan
Drama, and Babylonian and Classic Ritual, not only survive to our day,
but are found in combination with features corresponding minutely with
details recorded in early Aryan literature, we may hold the gulf to be
bridged, and the common origin, and close relationship, of the
different stages to be an ascertained fact. At the outset, and before
examining the evidence collected by scholars, I would remind my readers
that the modern Greeks have retained, in many instances under changed
names, no inconsiderable portion of their ancient mythological beliefs,
among them the ‘Adonis’ celebrations; the ‘Gardens of Adonis’ blossom
and fade to-day, as they did many centuries ago, and I have myself
spoken with a scholar who has seen ‘women, at the door of their houses,
weeping for Adonis.’[1]
For evidence of the widespread character of Medieval and Modern
survivals we have only to consult the epoch-making works of Mannhardt,
_Wald und Feld-Kulte_, and Frazer, _The Golden Bough;_[2] in the pages
of these volumes we shall find more than sufficient for our purpose.
From the wealth of illustration with which these works abound I have
selected merely such instances as seem to apply more directly to the
subject of our investigation.[3]
Thus, in many places, it is still the custom to carry a figure
representing the Vegetation Spirit on a bier, attended by mourning
women, and either bury the figure, throw it into water (as a rain
charm), or, after a mock death, carry the revivified Deity, with
rejoicing, back to the town. Thus in the Lechrain a man in black
women’s clothes is borne on a bier, followed by men dressed as
professional women mourners making lamentation, thrown on the village
dung-heap, drenched with water, and buried in straw.[4]
In Russia the Vegetation or Year Spirit is known as Yarilo,[5] and is
represented by a doll with phallic attributes, which is enclosed in a
coffin, and carried through the streets to the accompaniment of
lamentation by women whose emotions have been excited by drink.
Mannhardt gives the lament as follows: “Wessen war Er schuldig? Er war
so gut! Er wird nicht mehr aufstehen! O! Wie sollen wir uns von Dir
trennen? Was ist das Leben wenn Du nicht mehr da bist? Erhebe Dich,
wenn auch nur auf ein Stündchen! Aber Er steht nicht auf, Er steht
nicht auf!”[6]
In other forms of the ritual, we find distinct traces of the
resuscitation of the Vegetation Deity, occasionally accompanied by
evidence of rejuvenation. Thus, in Lausitz, on Laetare Sunday (the 4th
Sunday in Lent), women with mourning veils carry a straw figure,
dressed in a man’s shirt, to the bounds of the next village, where they
tear the effigy to pieces, hang the shirt on a young and flourishing
tree, “schöne Wald-Baum,” which they proceed to cut down, and carry
home with every sign of rejoicing. Here evidently the young tree is
regarded as a rejuvenation of the person represented in the first
instance by the straw figure.[7]
In many parts of Europe to-day the corresponding ceremonies, very
generally held at Whitsuntide, include the mock execution of the
individual representing the Vegetation Spirit, frequently known as the
King of the May. In Bohemia the person playing the _rôle_ of the King
is, with his attendants, dressed in bark, and decked with garlands of
flowers; at the conclusion of the ceremonies the King is allowed a
short start, and is then pursued by the armed attendants. If he is not
overtaken he holds office for a year, but if overtaken, he suffers a
mock decapitation, head-dress, or crown, being struck off, and the
pretended corpse is then borne on a bier to the next village.[8]
Mannhardt, discussing this point, remarks that in the mock execution we
must recognize “Ein verbreiteter und jedenfalls uralter Gebrauch.” He
enumerates the various modes of death, shooting, stabbing (in the
latter case a bladder filled with blood, and concealed under the
clothes, is pierced); in Bohemia, decapitation, occasionally drowning
(which primarily represents a rain charm), is the form adopted.[9] He
then goes on to remark that this ceremonial death must have been
generally followed by resuscitation, as in Thuringia, where the ‘Wild
Man,’ as the central figure is there named, is brought to life again by
the Doctor, while the survival, in the more elaborate Spring
processions of this latter character, even where he plays no special
_rôle_, points to the fact that his part in the proceedings was
originally a more important one.
That Mannhardt was not mistaken is proved by the evidence of the
kindred Dances, a subject we shall consider later; there we shall find
the Doctor playing his old-time _rôle_, and restoring to life the slain
representative of the Vegetation Spirit.[10] The character of the
Doctor, or Medicine Man, formed, as I believe, at one time, no
unimportant link in the chain which connects these practices with the
Grail tradition.
The signification of the resuscitation ceremony is obscured in cases
where the same figure undergoes death and revival without any
corresponding change of form. This point did not escape Mannhardt’s
acute critical eye; he remarks that, in cases where, _e.g._, in Swabia,
the ‘King’ is described as “ein armer alter Mann,” who has lived seven
years in the woods (the seven winter months), a scene of rejuvenation
should follow—“diese scheint meistenteils verloren gegangen; doch
vielleicht _scheint_ es nur so.” He goes on to draw attention to the
practice in Reideberg, bei Halle, where, after burying a straw figure,
called the Old Man, the villagers dance round the May-Pole, and he
suggests that the ‘Old Man’ represents the defunct Vegetation Spirit,
the May Tree, that Spirit resuscitated, and refers in this connection
to the “durchaus verwandten Asiatischen Gebrauchen des Attis, und
Adonis-Kultus.”[11]
The foregoing evidence offers, I think, sufficient proof of the, now
generally admitted, relationship between Classical, Medieval, and
Modern forms of Nature ritual.
But what of the relation to early Aryan practice? Can that, also, be
proved?
In this connection I would draw attention to Chapter 17 of _Mysterium
und Mimus_, entitled, _Ein Volkstümlicher Umzug beim Soma-Fest_. Here
Professor von Schroeder discusses the real meaning and significance of
a very curious little poem (Rig-Veda, 9. 112); the title by which it is
generally known, _Alles lauft nach Geld_, does not, at first sight, fit
the content of the verse, and the suggestion of scholars who have seen
in it a humorous enumeration of different trades and handicrafts does
not explain the fact that the Frog and the Horse appear in it.
To Professor von Schroeder belongs the credit of having discovered that
the _personnel_ of the poem corresponds with extraordinary exactitude
to the Figures of the Spring and Summer ‘Fertility-exciting’
processions, described with such fulness of detail by Mannhardt.
Especially is this the case with the Whitsuntide procession at
Värdegötzen, in Hanover, where we find the group of phallic and
fertility demons, who, on Prof. von Schroeder’s hypothesis, figure in
the song, in concrete, and actual form.[12] The Vegetation Spirit
appears in the song as an Old Man, while his female counterpart, an Old
Woman, is described as ‘filling the hand-mill.’ Prof. von Schroeder
points out that in some parts of Russia the ‘Baba-jaga’ as the Corn
Mother is called, is an Old Woman, who flies through the air in a
hand-mill. The Doctor, to whom we have referred above, is mentioned
twice in the four verses composing the song; he was evidently regarded
as an important figure; while the whole is put into the mouth of a
‘Singer’ evidently the Spokesman of the party, who proclaims their
object, “Verschiednes könnend suchen wir Gute Dinge,” _i.e._, gifts in
money and kind, as such folk processions do to-day.
The whole study is of extraordinary interest for Folk-lore students,
and so far as our especial investigation is concerned it seems to me to
supply the necessary proof of the identity, and persistence, of Aryan
folk-custom and tradition.
A very important modification of the root idea, and one which appears
to have a direct bearing on the sources of the Grail tradition, was
that by which, among certain peoples, the _rôle_ of the god, his
responsibility for providing the requisite rain upon which the
fertility of the land, and the life of the folk, depended, was combined
with that of the King.
This was the case among the Celts; McCulloch, in _The Religion of the
Celts_, discussing the question of the early Irish _geasa_ or taboo,
explains the _geasa_ of the Irish kings as designed to promote the
welfare of the tribe, the making of rain and sunshine on which their
prosperity depended. “Their observance made the earth fruitful,
produced abundance and prosperity, and kept both the king and his land
from misfortune. The Kings were divinities on whom depended
fruitfulness and plenty, and who must therefore submit to obey their
‘_geasa_.’[13]
The same idea seems to have prevailed in early Greece; Mr A. B. Cook,
in his studies on _The European Sky-God_, remarks that the king in
early Greece was regarded as the representative of Zeus: his duties
could be satisfactorily discharged only by a man who was perfect, and
without blemish, _i.e._, by a man in the prime of life, suffering from
no defect of body, or mind; he quotes in illustration the speech of
Odysseus (_Od_. 19. 109 ff.). “‘Even as a king without blemish, who
ruleth god-fearing over many mighty men, and maintaineth justice, while
the black earth beareth wheat and barley, and the trees are laden with
fruit, and the flocks bring forth without fail, and the sea yieldeth
fish by reason of his good rule, and the folk prosper beneath him.’ The
king who is without blemish has a flourishing kingdom, the king who is
maimed has a kingdom diseased like himself, thus the Spartans were
warned by an oracle to beware of a ‘lame reign.’”[14]
A most remarkable modern survival of this idea is recorded by Dr Frazer
in the latest edition of _The Golden Bough_,[15] and is so complete and
suggestive that I make no apology for transcribing it at some length.
The Shilluk, an African tribe, inhabit the banks of the White Nile,
their territory extending on the west bank from Kaka in the north, to
Lake No in the south, on the east bank from Fashoda to Taufikia, and
some 35 miles up the Sohat river. Numbering some 40,000 in all, they
are a pastoral people, their wealth consisting in flocks and herds,
grain and millet. The King resides at Fashoda, and is regarded with
extreme reverence, as being a re-incarnation of Nyakang, the
semi-divine hero who settled the tribe in their present territory.
Nyakang is the rain-giver, on whom their life and prosperity depend;
there are several shrines in which sacred Spears, now kept for
sacrificial purposes, are preserved, the originals, which were the
property of Nyakang, having disappeared.
The King, though regarded with reverence, must not be allowed to become
old or feeble, lest, with the diminishing vigour of the ruler, the
cattle should sicken, and fail to bear increase, the crops should rot
in the field and men die in ever growing numbers. One of the signs of
failing energy is the King’s inability to fulfil the desires of his
wives, of whom he has a large number. When this occurs the wives report
the fact to the chiefs, who condemn the King to death forthwith,
communicating the sentence to him by spreading a white cloth over his
face and knees during his mid-day slumber. Formerly the King was
starved to death in a hut, in company with a young maiden but (in
consequence, it is said, of the great vitality and protracted suffering
of one King) this is no longer done; the precise manner of death is
difficult to ascertain; Dr Seligmann, who was Sir J. G. Frazer’s
authority, thinks that he is now strangled in a hut, especially erected
for that purpose.
At one time he might be attacked and slain by a rival, either of his
own family, or of that of one of the previous Kings, of whom there are
many, but this has long been superseded by the ceremonial slaying of
the monarch who after his death is revered as Nyakang.[16]
This survival is of extraordinary interest; it presents us with a
curiously close parallel to the situation which, on the evidence of the
texts, we have postulated as forming the basic idea of the Grail
tradition—the position of a people whose prosperity, and the fertility
of their land, are closely bound up with the life and virility of their
King, who is not a mere man, but a Divine re-incarnation. If he ‘falls
into languishment,’ as does the Fisher King in _Perlesvaus_, the land
and its inhabitants will suffer correspondingly; not only will the
country suffer from drought, “_Nus près n’i raverdia_,” but the men
will die in numbers:
“Dames en perdront lor maris”
we may say; the cattle will cease to bear increase:
“Ne se n’i ot beste faon,”
and the people take drastic steps to bring about a rejuvenation; the
old King dies, to be replaced by a young and vigorous successor, even
as Brons was replaced by Perceval.
Let us now turn back to the preceding chapter, and compare the position
of the people of the Shilluk tribe, and the subjects of the Grail King,
with that of the ancient Babylonians, as set forth in their
Lamentations for Tammuz.
There we find that the absence of the Life-giving deity was followed by
precisely the same disastrous consequences;
Vegetation fails—
“The wailing is for the plants; the first lament is they grow not.
The wailing is for the barley; the ears grow not.”
The reproductive energies of the animal kingdom are suspended—
“For the habitation of flocks it is; they produce not.
For the perishing wedded ones, for perishing children it is; the
dark-headed people create not.”
Nor can we evade the full force of the parallel by objecting that we
are here dealing with a god, not with a man; we possess the recorded
names of ‘kings who played the _rôle_ of Tammuz,’ thus even for that
early period the commingling of the two conceptions, god and king, is
definitely established.