Alfred Trübner Nutt

“ They pass away and others succeed them, but she remains ever young and fair. So long as the thirst of man for the ideal endures, her spell will not be weakened, her charm will not be lessened. But each generation works out this Quest in its own spirit. This much may be predicted with some confidence: henceforth, whosoever would do full justice to the legend must take pattern by Wolfram von Eschenbach rather than by any of his rivals; he must deal with human needs and human longings; his ideal must be the widening of human good and human joy. ”

“ And on the hillside and along the valley, traversed twice daily, he drank in a love for and knowledge of nature in all her manifestations that remained to him as a priceless possession throughout life. ”

“ In the tone of their feelings towards her, in the character of their intercourse with her, they were closer akin to Oisin and Neave, to Cuchullain and Fand, than to Siegfried and Brunhild, or to Roland and Aude. Even where the love-story passes wholly among mortals, the woman’s rôle is more accentuated than in the Teutonic sagas. She is no mere lay-figure upon a fire-bound rock like Brunhild or Menglad, ready, when the destined hero appears, to fall straightway into his arms. ”

“ And no race has done this more unmistakably than the Celtic. Stories which go back to the first century, stories taken down from the lips of living peasants, have a kinship of tone and style, a common ring which no one who has studied this literature can fail to recognise. What stamps the whole of it is the prevailing and abiding spirit of romance. To rightly urge the Celtic character of the Arthurian romances would require the minute analysis of many hundred passages, and it would only be proving a case admitted by everyone who knows all the facts. ”

“ Brons questions him before they sit down to meat. The mystic procession is formed by squire with lance bleeding, damsel with silver dish, squire with the vessel holding our Lord’s blood. On the morrow the hero sees no one, and finds all the doors open. At his second visit there is no mention of difficulty in finding the castle. This time the King rises to greet him; they talk of many things and then sit down to meat. Grail and worthy relics pass, and the hero asks who is served by the vessel which the squire holds in his hands. ”

“ Full of anger he prepares to throw the chessmen into the castle moat—suddenly a damsel shows herself and reproaches him. He will abstain if she comes to him. She consents, and after her squires and maidens have disarmed Perceval he joins her. Overcome by her beauty he requests her love. She will grant it him if he capture the white stag of the wood. She lends him her hound, and recommends him to take the utmost care of it. Perceval chases the stag, captures it, and, having cut off its head, starts back. But meanwhile an old woman has carried off the hound. ”

“ Nothing seemed impossible to a generation which knew of toils and quests greater than any minstrel had sung, which had beheld in the East sights as wondrous and fearful as any the jongleur could tell of. Moreover, the age was that of Knight Errantry, and of that phase of love in which every Knight must qualify himself for the reception of his lady’s favours by the performance of some feat of skill and daring. Such an age and such men demanded a special literature, and they found it in adaptations of Celtic tales. ”

“ But Perceval will tell of this, so I must say no more; it is a great shame to tell beforehand what is in a good tale. When the good knight shall come who found the court three times you shall hear me tell of Grail and lance, and of him who lay in the bier, of the sword, of the grief and swooning of all beholders. ”

“ Fionn and his comrades follow a giant, on his shoulders an iron fork with a pig screeching between the prongs, behind him a damsel scourging him. They follow them to a house wherein is an aged hoary-headed man and a beautiful maid, a rough giant cooking the hog, and an old man having twelve eyes in his head, a white-haired ram, and a hag clad in dark ash coloured garment. ”

“ The artist’s instinct, rather than the scholar’s respect for the oldest form of the story, led him to practically restore Perceval to his rightful place as hero of the quest. His fortunes we can follow with an interest that passing shadow, Galahad, wholly fails to evoke. Nor, as may easily be seen, is the fundamental conception of the twelfth century romance to the Laureate’s taste. Arthur is his ideal of manhood, and Arthur’s energies are practical and human in aim and in execution. ”

“ Heart-wounded by the shaft of passion, he feels Amfortas’ torture thrill through him. The pain of the physical wound is his, but far more, the agony of the sinner who has been unworthy his high trust, and who, soiled by carnal sin, must yet daily come in contact with the Grail, symbol of the highest purity and holiness. The strength which comes of the new-born knowledge enables him to resist sensual longing, and thereby to release both Kundry and Amfortas.
In the latest version of the Perceval Quest, as in the Galahad Quest, the ideal of chastity is thus paramount. ”

“ All night Perceval thinks of the lance and of the Grail, and in the morning, on waking, finds neither man nor woman. He sets forth to seek some one, but in vain, and is greatly distressed. (12) He finds a damsel weeping bitterly, who, seeing him, cries out: “Percevaux le Gallois, be accursed, unhappier art thou than ever, having been in the house of the rich Fisher King, and not having asked concerning the Grail. Thy Lord hates thee; and ’tis wonder the earth do not open beneath thee.” Had he not seen Grail and lance pass? ”

“ Strife against Him, doubt of Him, is the highest sin. But humility and repentance may expiate it, and he who thus repents may be chosen by God for the Grail Kingship, the summit of earthly holiness. Peace of soul and all earthly power are the chosen one’s; alone, unlawful desire and the company of sinners are denied him by the Grail.
How is this leading conception worked out? The framework and the march of incidents are the same as in the Conte du Graal. ”

“ But a story, to live, must appeal to moral as well as to æsthetic emotions. In the folk-mind this story sets forth, dimly though it may be, that search for the highest human felicity which is likewise a theme of the Grail romances. What better picture of this quest could be found than the old mythic symbol of the awakening of life and increase beneath the kiss of the sun-god. The hero of the folk-tale makes his way through the briars and tangle of the forest that he may restore to the deserted castle life and plenty ”

“ In Heinrich’s version, as elsewhere in these romances, different story types can be distinguished, different conceptions are harmonised. Many, indeed, are both the early conceptions and the varying shapes in which they embodied themselves, to be traced in the complex mass of the romances. That a kinsman is bound to avenge a blood feud, and that until he does so his kin may suffer from ailment or enchantment and their land be under a curse; that the otherworld is a land of feasting and joyousness and all fair things; that it contains magic treasures which he who is bold may win ”

“ Could not framework and incidents of the Celtic tales be retained, and yet, raised to a loftier, wider level, become a fit vehicle for philosophic thought and moral exhortation? One side of popular tradition figured the hero as wresting the talismans from the otherworld powers for the benefit of his fellow men. Could not this form of the myth be made to yield a human, practical conception of the Quest and Winning of the Holy Grail?
We are luckily not reduced to conjecture in this matter. A work largely fulfilling these hypothetical requirements exists in the Parzival of Wolfram von Eschenbach. ”

“ What influence Wolfram’s poem, with its practical, human enthusiasm, its true and noble sexual morality, might have had on English literature is an interesting speculation. It would have appealed, one would think, to our race with its utilitarian ethical instinct, with its lofty ideal of wedded love. The true man, Parzival, should, in the fitness of things, be the English hero of the Quest, rather than the visionary ascetic Galahad. ”

“ All such literature derives ultimately from an early, wholly animistic stage of culture. Small marvel, then, if in the hero-tales of every race there figure wonder-working talismans and bespelled weapons, if almost every great saga has, as part of its dramatis personæ, objects belonging to what we should now call the inanimate world. Upon these a species of life is conferred, most often by power of magic, but at times, it would seem, in virtue of the older conception which held all things to be endowed with like life. ”

“ It may, or may not, be considered to the advantage of the folk-tale that, unlike the mediæval romance, it deals neither in mysticism nor in asceticism. The sin and atonement of the Great Fool are such as the popular mind can grasp; he is an example of human weakness and human strength. The woman he loves is no temptress, no representative of the evil principle—on the contrary, she is ever by his side to counsel and to cheer him. ”

“ The character of the principal hero is in consonancy with this aim, wholly remote from the life of man on earth. A shadowy perfection at the outset, he remains a shadowy perfection throughout, a bloodless and unreal creature, as fit when he first appears upon the scene as when he quits it, to accomplish a quest, purposeless, inasmuch as it only removes him from a world in which he has neither part nor share. Such human interest as there is in the [Pg 240] story is supplied by Lancelot, who takes over many of the adventures of Perceval or Gawain in the Conte du Graal. ”

“ Whether it be regarded as a day or as a year myth, as the rescue of the dawn from night, or of the incarnate spring from the bonds of winter, it equally pictures a victory of the lord of light and heat and life over the powers of darkness, cold, and death. ”

“ As in Gerbert and the Highland Tale the hero meets his uncle and cousins; there is the same fight with the mother of the enemy of his kin, the hideous carlin, but it precedes, as does also the slaying of that enemy, the meeting of uncle and nephews. There is thus no room for the healing motif for which the unconscious avenging of the father’s death is substituted. These differences bear witness both to the popular and shifting nature of the traditions upon which the romances are based, and to the fact that the avenging of a blood feud was the leading incident of its earliest form. ”

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

“ After praying in a chapel, in which he beholds a light on the altar quenched by a black hand, he rides through Brittany and Normandy, and comes to a castle where, owing to his armour, he is at first hailed as lord. In one of the rooms stands a bier, whereon lies a knight, cross and broken sword upon his body, his left hand bleeding. A crowned knight enters and goes to battle with Gauvain; canons and clerks come and perform the Vigil of the Dead; whilst at table Gauvain sees the rich Grail serving out bread and wine to the knights. ”

“ From out a world of human endeavour, human motive, we have stepped into one wholly ascetic and symbolical. The love of man for woman only appears in the guise of forbidden desire; the aims and needs of this world are not even thought of. Every incident has been remoulded in accord with Christian tradition. Wagner fully accepts the sacramental nature of the Grail, and the Grail feast is with him a faithful reproduction of the Last Supper. ”

“ In the great tragic tale of ancient Ireland, the Fate of the Sons of Usnech, Deirdre—born like Helen or Gudrun, to be a cause of strife among men, of sorrow and ruin to whomsoever she loves—Deirdre takes her fate into her own hands, and woos Noisi with outspoken passionate frankness. The whole story is conceived and told in a far more “romantic” strain than is the case with parallel stories from Norse tradition, the loves of Helgi and Sigrun, or those of Sigurd and Brunhild-Gudrun. ”

“ The brethren eat heart and liver of the gold bird and thereby get infinite riches, are schemed against by a goldsmith, who would have kept the gold bird for himself, seek their fortunes throughout the world accompanied by helping beasts, part at crossways, leaving a life token to tell each one how the other fares; the one delivers a princess from a dragon, is cheated of the fruit of the exploit by the Red Knight, whom after a year he confounds, wins the princess, and, after a while, hunting a magic hind, falls victim to a witch. ”

“ Other damsels then show themselves, disarm and tend the hero, and lead him through a splendid hall into a still more splendid one, wherein a hundred fair and courteous maidens, all of like age and mien, and richly dressed, rise at his approach and hail him as lord. ”

“ Brandan, a servant of God, seeks out marvels in rare books, he finds that two paradises were on earth, that another world was situated under this one, so that when it is here night it is day there, and of a fish so big that forests grew on his back, also that the grace of God allowed some respite every Saturday night to the torments of Judas. ”

“ Parzival and Conduiramur—The Parzival Quest and Faust—Wagner’s Parsifal—The Christian element in the Legend—Ethical Ideas in the folk-tale originals of the Grail Romances: the Great Fool, the Sleeping Beauty—Conclusion.
Few legends have attained such wide celebrity, or been accepted as so thoroughly symbolical of one master conception, as that of the Holy Grail. Poets and thinkers from mediæval times to our own days have used it as a type of the loftiest goal of man’s effort. ”

“ Then comes a sick knight on a bier drawn by two horses, dolourously lamenting. He looks at Lancelot, but says no word, thinking him asleep, nor does Lancelot say aught, but remains half asleep. And the sick knight laments, “When may I have solace from the holy vessel for the pain I suffer for such a small fault (was ever so much pain as is upon me who have done no evil at all) ?” [22] But Lancelot says no word, nor when the candlestick comes towards the cross and the Holy Grail approaches the sick knight, who prays he may be made whole to join likewise the quest. ”

“ By his question Gawain has delivered from long waiting and suffering both those which are dead and those which live. The old man himself and his companions are really dead, though they seem it not, but the lady and her damsels are living; for their unstained womanhood God has granted them to have the Grail, and therewith yearly to feed the old man. All Gawain’s adventures latterly have come from the Grail. Now he has ended all, he is to take as prize of his knighthood the sword which will help him in every danger. After him no man shall see the Grail ”

“ Gerbert’s finish to the Conte du Graal is, perhaps, the strangest outcome of the double set of influences to which the later writers were exposed. Without doubt his model differed from the version used by Gautier and Manessier. It is more Celtic in tone, and is curiously akin to the hypothetical lost source of Wolfram von Eschenbach. The hero’s absence from his lady-love is insisted upon, and the need of returning to her before he can find peace. ”

“ We may here note an admirable example of the inevitable, spontaneous character of the growth of certain conceptions, especially of such as have been partly shaped by the folk-mind. There is nothing in Wolfram or in the French romances to show that the fortunes of the loathly damsel (Wagner’s Kundry) are in any way bound up with the success of the Quest. But we have seen that the Celtic folk-tales represent the loathly damsel as the real protagonist of the story. She cannot be freed unless the hero do his task. ”

“ The Holy Grail, the Cup of the Last Supper, the Sacramental Chalice is still when it appears the magic food-producing vessel of the old Pagan sagas. What is the author’s idea? Undoubtedly to show that the attainment of the highest spiritual good is not a thing of this world; only by renouncing every human desire, only by passing into a land intermediary between this earth and heaven, is the Quest achieved. ”

“ So long as she lives, Perceval shall be powerless to achieve his Quest. She wars against Gonemant by order of the King of the Waste City, who ever strives against all who uphold the Christian faith, and whose chief aim it is to hinder Perceval from attaining knowledge of the Grail. Perceval gets possession of somewhat of the wonder-working balm, brings to life the most valiant of his adversaries, slays him afresh after a hard struggle, in which he himself is wounded, heals his own hurt, and likewise Gonemant’s, with the balsam. ”

“ There is nothing surprising in swanmaids being the object of a taboo, this is so invariably the case in myth and folk-lore that it is needless to accumulate instances; what is unique to my knowledge, I speak under correction, is the fact of these damsels being in possession of the talismans, one of which is so obviously connected with the Grail. It may be noted that the obligation laid upon the hero is the direct opposite of that in the Grail romances, in the one case a question must not be asked, in the other it must. ”

“ Little invention, properly so called, of incident can be traced in the Parzival. The part common to it and Chrestien is incomparably fuller and more interesting in the German poet, but the main outlines are the same. Wolfram has, however, been at some pains to let us know what was his conception of the legend. That much is allowed to remain at variance therewith is a clear proof of his timidity of invention.
Doubt, he says, is the most potent corrupter of the soul. Whoso gives himself over to unfaith and unsteadfastness treadeth in truth the downward path. God Himself is very faithfulness. ”

“ The foregoing examples have been akin to the incident of the Maiden Castle. We have seen the race of immortals caring for the sons of men, signalling out and alluring to themselves the brave and wise hero. In the tales we are now about to examine the benefit conferred by the visitor upon the inmates of the Magic Castle is insisted upon. But we must first notice a tale which presents many of the incidents of the Grail romances, without actually belonging to the same story group as they. ”

“ That literature was the outcome of the age, and something akin to it would have sprung up had Celtic tradition remained unknown to the Continent. The conception of feudal knighthood as a favoured class, in which men of different nations met on a common footing; the conception of knightly love as something altogether disassociated from domestic life, must in any case have led to the constitution of such a society as we find portrayed in the romances. What is claimed is that the spirit of the age, akin to the Celtic, recognised in Celtic tales the food it was hungering for. ”