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From Ritual to Romance

J >> Jessie L. Weston >> From Ritual to Romance




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.

Now in face of this group of parallels, whose close
correspondence, if we consider their separation in point of time (3000
B.C.; 1200 A.D.; and the present day), is nothing short of
astonishing, is it not absolutely and utterly unreasonable to admit
(as scholars no longer hesitate to do) the relationship between the
first and last, and exclude, as a mere literary invention, the
intermediate parallel?

The ground for such a denial may be mere prejudice, a reluctance to
renounce a long cherished critical prepossession, but in the face of
this new evidence does it not come perilously close to scientific
dishonesty, to a disregard for that respect for truth in research
the imperative duty of which has been so finely expressed by the late
M. Gaston Paris.--"Je professe absolument et sans réserve cette doctrine,
que la science n'a d'autre objet que la vérité, et la vérité pour
elle-même, sans aucun souci des conséquences, bonnes ou mauvaises,
regrettables ou heureuses, que cette vérité pourrait avoir dans
la pratique."[17] When we further consider that behind these three
main parallels, linking them together, there lies a continuous chain of
evidence, expressed alike in classical literature, and surviving Folk
practice, I would submit that there is no longer any shadow of a doubt
that in the Grail King we have a romantic literary version of that
strange mysterious figure whose presence hovers in the shadowy
background of the history of our Aryan race; the figure of a divine
or semi-divine ruler, at once god and king, upon whose life, and
unimpaired vitality, the existence of his land and people directly
depends.

And if we once grant this initial fact, and resolve that we will no
longer, in the interests of an outworn critical tradition, deny the
weight of scientific evidence in determining the real significance of
the story, does it not inevitably follow, as a logical sequence, that
such versions as fail to connect the misfortunes of the land directly
with the disability of the king, but make them dependent upon the
failure of the Quester, are, by that very fact, stamped as secondary
versions. That by this one detail, of capital importance, they
approve themselves as literary treatments of a traditional theme,
the true meaning of which was unknown to the author?

Let us for a moment consider what the opposite view would entail;
that a story which was originally the outcome of pure literary invention
should in the course of re-modelling have been accidentally brought
into close and detailed correspondence with a deeply rooted sequence
of popular faith and practice is simply inconceivable, the
re-modelling, if re-modelling there were, must have been intentional,
the men whose handiwork it was were in possession of the requisite
knowledge.

But how did they possess that knowledge, and why should they undertake
such a task? Surely not from the point of view of antiquarian
interest, as might be done to-day; they were no twelfth century
Frazers and Mannhardts; the subject must have had for them a more
living, a more intimate, interest. And if, in face of the evidence we
now possess, we feel bound to admit the existence of such knowledge,
is it not more reasonable to suppose that the men who first told the
story were the men who knew, and that the confusion was due to those
who, with more literary skill, but less first-hand information,
re-modelled the original theme?

In view of the present facts I would submit that the problem posed in
our first chapter may be held to be solved; that we accept as a fait
acquis the conclusion that the woes of the land are directly dependent
upon the sickness, or maiming, of the King, and in no wise caused by
the failure of the Quester. The 'Wasting of the land' must be held to
have been antecedent to that failure, and the Gawain versions in which
we find this condition fulfilled are, therefore, prior in origin to
the Perceval, in which the 'Wasting' is brought about by the action of
the hero; in some versions, indeed, has altogether disappeared from
the story.

Thus the position assigned in the versions to this feature of the
Waste Land becomes one of capital importance as a critical factor.
This is a point which has hitherto escaped the attention of scholars;
the misfortunes of the land have been treated rather as an accident,
than as an essential, of the Grail story, entirely subordinate in
interest to the dramatis personae of the tale, or the objects, Lance
and Grail, round which the action revolves. As a matter of fact I
believe that the 'Waste Land' is really the very heart of our problem;
a rightful appreciation of its position and significance will place us
in possession of the clue which will lead us safely through the most
bewildering mazes of the fully developed tale.



Since the above pages were written Dr Frazer has notified the
discovery of a second African parallel, equally complete, and
striking. In Folk-Lore (Vol. XXVI.) he prints, under the title
A Priest-King in Nigeria, a communication received from Mr P. A. Talbot,
District Commissioner in S. Nigeria. The writer states that the
dominant Ju-Ju of Elele, a town in the N.W. of the Degema district,
is a Priest-King, elected for a term of seven years. "The whole
prosperity of the town, especially the fruitfulness of farm, byre,
and marriage-bed, was linked with his life. Should he fall sick it
entailed famine and grave disaster upon the inhabitants." So soon as
a successor is appointed the former holder of the dignity is reported
to 'die for himself.' Previous to the introduction of ordered
government it is admitted that at any time during his seven years'
term of office the Priest might be put to death by any man
sufficiently strong and resourceful, consequently it is only on the
rarest occasions (in fact only one such is recorded) that the Ju-Ju
ventures to leave his compound. At the same time the riches derived
from the offerings of the people are so considerable that there is
never a lack of candidates for the office.

From this and the evidence cited above it would appear that the
institution was widely spread in Africa, and at the same time it
affords a striking proof in support of the essential soundness of
Dr Frazer's interpretation of the Priest of Nemi, an interpretation
which has been violently attacked in certain quarters, very largely
on the ground that no one would be found willing to accept an office
involving such direct danger to life. The above evidence shows
clearly that not only does such an office exist, but that it is by no
means an unpopular post.



CHAPTER VI

The Symbols

In the previous chapters we have discussed the Grail Legend from a
general, rather than a specific, point of view; i.e., we have
endeavoured to ascertain what was the real character of the task
imposed upon the hero, and what the nature and value of his
achievement.

We have been led to the conclusion that that achievement was, in the
first instance, of an altruistic character--it was no question of
advantages, temporal or spiritual, which should accrue to the Quester
himself, but rather of definite benefits to be won for others, the
freeing of a ruler and his land from the dire results of a punishment
which, falling upon the King, was fraught with the most disastrous
consequences for his kingdom.

We have found, further, that this close relation between the ruler and
his land, which resulted in the ill of one becoming the calamity of
all, is no mere literary invention, proceeding from the fertile
imagination of a twelfth century court poet, but a deeply rooted
popular belief, of practically immemorial antiquity and inexhaustible
vitality; we can trace it back thousands of years before the Christian
era, we find it fraught with decisions of life and death to-day.

Further, we find in that belief a tendency to express itself in
certain ceremonial practices, which retain in a greater or less degree
the character of the ritual observances of which they are the
survival. Mr E. K. Chambers, in The Mediaeval Stage, remarks: "If the
comparative study of Religion proves anything it is, that the
traditional beliefs and customs of the mediaeval or modern peasant are
in nine cases out of ten but the detritus of heathen mythology and
heathen worship, enduring with but little external change in the
shadow of a hostile faith. This is notably true of the village
festivals and their ludi. Their full significance only appears when
they are regarded as fragments of forgotten cults, the naïve cults
addressed by a primitive folk to the beneficent deities of field
and wood and river, or the shadowy populace of its own dreams."[1]
We may, I think, take it that we have established at least the
possibility that in the Grail romances we possess, in literary form,
an example of the detritus above referred to, the fragmentary record
of the secret ritual of a Fertility cult.

Having reached this hypothetical conclusion, our next step must be
to examine the Symbols of this cult, the group of mysterious objects
which forms the central point of the action, a true understanding of
the nature of these objects being as essential for our success as
interpreters of the story as it was for the success of the Quester in
days of old. We must ask whether these objects, the Grail itself,
whether Cup or Dish; the Lance; the Sword; the Stone--one and all
invested with a certain atmosphere of awe, credited with strange
virtues, with sanctity itself, will harmonize with the proposed
solution, will range themselves fitly and fairly within the framework
of this hypothetical ritual.

That they should do so is a matter of capital importance; were it
otherwise the theory advanced might well, as some of my critics have
maintained, 'never get beyond the region of ingenious speculation,'
but it is precisely upon the fact that this theory of origin, and so
far as criticism has gone, this theory alone, does permit of a
natural and unforced interpretation of these related symbols that I
rely as one of the most convincing proofs of the correctness of my
hypothesis.

Before commencing the investigation there is one point which I would
desire to emphasize, viz., the imperative necessity for treating the
Symbols or Talismans, call them what we will, on the same principle as
we have treated the incidents of the story, i.e., as a connected
whole. That they be not separated the one from the other, and made
the subject of independent treatment, but that they be regarded in
their relation the one to the other, and that no theory of origin be
held admissible which does not allow for that relation as a primitive
and indispensable factor. It may be the modern tendency to specialize
which is apt to blind scholars to the essential importance of
regarding their object of study as a whole, that fosters in them a
habit of focussing their attention upon that one point or incident of
the story which lends itself to treatment in their special line of
study, and which induces them to minimize, or ignore, those elements
which lie outside their particular range. But, whatever the cause, it
is indubitable that this method of 'criticism by isolation' has been,
and is, one of the main factors which have operated in retarding the
solution of the Grail problem.

So long as critics of the story will insist on pulling it into little
pieces, selecting one detail here, another there, for study and
elucidation, so long will the ensemble result be chaotic and
unsatisfactory. We shall continue to have a number of monographs,
more or less scholarly in treatment--one dealing with the Grail as a
Food-providing talisman, and that alone; another with the Grail as a
vehicle of spiritual sustenance. One that treats of the Lance as a
Pagan weapon, and nothing more; another that regards it as a Christian
relic, and nothing less. At one moment the object of the study will
be the Fisher King, without any relation to the symbols he guards, or
the land he rules; at the next it will be the relation of the Quester
to the Fisher King, without any explanation of the tasks assigned to
him by the story. The result obtained is always quite satisfactory to
the writer, often plausible, sometimes in a measure sound, but it
would defy the skill of the most synthetic genius to co-ordinate the
results thus obtained, and combine them in one harmonious whole. They
are like pieces of a puzzle, each of which has been symmetrically cut
and trimmed, till they lie side by side, un-fitting, and un-related.

And we have been pursuing this method for over fifty years, and are
still, apparently, content to go on, each devoting attention to the
symmetrical perfection of his own little section of the puzzle, quite
indifferent to the fact that our neighbour is in possession of an
equally neatly trimmed fragment, which entirely refuses to fit in with
our own!

Is it not time that we should frankly admit the unsatisfactory results
of these years of labour, and honestly face the fact that while we now
have at our disposal an immense mass of interesting and suggestive
material often of high value, we have failed, so far, to formulate a
conclusion which, by embracing and satisfying the manifold conditions
of the problem, will command general acceptance? And if this failure
be admitted, may not its cause be sought in the faulty method which
has failed to recognize in the Grail story an original whole, in which
the parts--the action, the actors, the Symbols, the result to be
obtained, incident, and intention--stood from the very first in
intimate relation the one to the other? That while in process of
utilization as a literary theme these various parts have suffered
modification and accretion from this, or that, side, the problem of
the ultimate source remains thereby unaffected?

Such a reversal of method as I suggest will, I submit, not only
provide us with a critical solution capable of general acceptance, but
it will also enable us to utilize, and appreciate at their due value,
the result of researches which at the present moment appear to be
mutually destructive the one of the other. Thus, while the purely
Folk-lore interpretation of the Grail and Lance excludes the Christian
origin, and the theory of the exclusively Christian origin negatives
the Folk-lore, the pre-existence of these symbols in a popular ritual
setting would admit, indeed would invite, later accretion alike from
folk belief and ecclesiastical legend.

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