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From Ritual to Romance

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




The entire poem consists of 23 verses of four lines each, and is
divided by the translator into three distinct sections; the first is
devoted to the praise of herbs in general, their power to cure the
sick man before them, and at the same time to bring riches to the
Healer--the opening verses run:

"Die Kräuter alt, entsprossen einst
Drei Alter vor den Göttern noch,
Die braunen will Ich preisen jetzt!
Hundert und sieben Arten sinds.

"Ja, hundert Arten, Mütterlein,
Und tausend Zweige habt ihr auch,
Ihr, die ihr hundert Kräfte habt,
Macht diesen Menschen mir gesund.

"Ihr Kräuter hört, ihr Mütterchen,
Ihr göttlichen, das sag ich euch:
Ross, Rind und Kleid gewänn' ich gern
Und auch dein Leben, lieber Mann!

.................................

Fürwahr ihr bringt mir Rinder ein,
Wenn ihr ihn rettet diesen Mann."


He then praises the power of all herbs:

"Vom Himmel kam der Kräuter Schar
Geflogen, und da sprechen sie;
Wen wir noch lebend treffen an
Der Mann soll frei von Schaden sein."


Finally the speaker singles out one herb as superior to all others:

"Die Kräuter viel in Soma's Reich
Die hundertfach verständigen,
Von denen bist das beste du
Erfüllst den Wunsch, und heilst das Herz."


He conjures all other herbs to lend their virtue to this special
remedy:

"Ihr Kräuter all' in Soma's Reich
Verbreitet auf der Erde hin,
Ihr, von Brihaspati erzeugt,
Gebt diesem Kraute eure Kraft!

"Nicht nehme Schaden, der euch gräbt,
Noch der, für Welchen Ich euch grub!
Bei uns soll Alles, Mensch, und Vieh,
Gesund und ohne Schaden sein.

"Ihr, die ihr höret dies mein Wort,
Ihr, die ihr in der Ferne seid,
Ihr Pflanzen all', vereignet euch,
Gebt diesem Kraute eure Kraft!"

And the herbs, taking counsel together with Soma their king, answer:

"Für Wen uns ein Brahmane braucht
Den, König, wollen retten wir,"

a line which throws a light upon the personality of the speaker; he is
obviously a Brahmin, and the Medicine Man here, as elsewhere, unites
the functions of Priest and Healer.

Professor von Schroeder suggests that this Dramatic Monologue formed
part of the ceremonies of a Soma feast, that it is the Soma plant from
which the heavenly drink is brewed which is to be understood as the
first of all herbs and the curer of all ills, and the reference to
Soma as King of the herbs seems to bear out this suggestion.

In a previous chapter[3] I have referred to a curious little poem,
also found in the Rig-Veda, and translated by von Schroeder under the
title A Folk-Procession at a Soma-Feast, the dramatis personae of the
poem offering, as I pointed out, a most striking and significant
parallel to certain surviving Fertility processions, notably that of
Värdegötzen in Hanover. In this little song which von Schroeder places
in the mouth of the leader of the band of maskers, the Doctor is twice
referred to; in the opening lines we have the Brahmin, the Doctor, the
Carpenter, the Smith, given as men plying different trades, and each
and all in search of gain; in the final verse the speaker announces,
"I am a Poet (or Singer), my father a Doctor." Thus of the various
trades and personages enumerated the Doctor alone appears twice over,
an indication of the importance attached to this character.

Unfortunately, in view of the fragmentary condition of the survivals
of early Aryan literature, and the lack of explanatory material at our
disposal, it is impossible to decide what was the precise rôle
assigned to the 'Medicine Man'; judging from the general character of
the surviving dramatic fragments and the close parallel which exists
between these fragments and the Medieval and Modern Fertility
ceremonies, it seems extremely probable that his original rôle was
identical with that assigned to his modern counterpart, i.e., that of
restoring to life or health the slain, or suffering, representative of
the Vegetation Spirit.

This presumption gains additional support from the fact that it is in
this character that the Doctor appears in Greek Classical Drama. Von
Schroeder refers to the fact that the Doctor was a stock figure in the
Greek 'Mimus'[4] and in Mr Cornford's interesting volume entitled The
Origin of Attic Comedy, the author reckons the Doctor among the stock
Masks of the early Greek Theatre, and assigns to this character the
precise rôle which later survivals have led us to attribute to him.

The significance of Mr Cornford's work lies in the fact that, while he
accepts Sir Gilbert Murray's deeply interesting and suggestive theory
that the origins of Greek Tragedy are to be sought in "the Agon of the
Fertility Spirit, his Pathos, and Theophany," he contends that a
similar origin may be postulated for Attic Comedy--that the stock
Masks (characters) agree with a theory of derivation of such Comedy
from a ritual performance celebrating the renewal of the seasons.[5]
"They were at first serious, and even awful, figures in a Religious
Mystery, the God who every year is born, and dies, and rises again;
his Mother and his Bride; the Antagonist who kills him; the Medicine
Man who restores him to life."[6]

I would submit that the presence of such a character in the original
ritual drama of Revival which, on my theory, underlies the romantic
form of the Grail legend, may, in view of the above evidence, and of
that brought forward in the previous chapters, be accepted as at least
a probable hypothesis.

But, it may be objected, granting that the Doctor in these Fertility
processions and dramas represents a genuine survival of a feature of
immemorial antiquity, a survival to be traced alike in Aryan remains,
in Greek literature, and in Medieval ceremony, what is the precise
bearing upon the special subject of our investigations? There is no
Doctor in the Grail legend, although there is certainly abundant scope
for his activities!

There may be no Doctor in the Grail legend to-day, but was there never
such a character? How if this be the key to explain the curious and
persistent attribution of healing skill to so apparently unsuitable a
personage as Sir Gawain? I would draw the attention of my readers to a
passage in the Perceval of Chrétien de Troyes, where Gawain, finding a
wounded knight by the roadside, proceeds to treat him:

"Et Mesire Gauvain savoit
Plus que nuls homs de garir plaie;
Une herbe voit en une haie
Trop bonne pour douleur tolir
De plaie, et il la va cueillir."[7]

Other MSS. are rather fuller:

"Et Messires Gauvain savoit
Plus que nus hons vivant de plaies,
Unes herbe voit les une haies
Qu'il connoissoit lonc temps avoit
Que son mestre apris li avoit
Enseigniee et bien moustree,
Et il l'avoit bien esgardee
Si l'a molt bien reconneue."[8]

We find reference to Gawain's possession of medical knowledge
elsewhere. In the poem entitled Lancelot et le cerf au pied blanc,
Gawain, finding his friend desperately wounded, carries him to a
physician whom he instructs as to the proper treatment.[9]

"Ende Walewein wiesde den Ersatere mere
Ene const, die daertoe halp wel sere."[10]

In the parallel adventure related in Morien Gawain heals Lancelot
without the aid of any physician:[11]

"Doe was Walewein harde blide
Ende bant hem sine wonden ten tide
Met selken crude die daer dochten
Dat si niet bloden mochten."[12]

They ride to an anchorite's cell:

"Si waren doe in dire gedochten
Mochten sie daer comen tier stont
Datten Walewein soude maken gesont."[13]

The Dutch Lancelot has numerous references to Gawain's skill in
healing. Of course the advocates of the originality of Chrétien
de Troyes will object that these references, though found in poems
which have no connection with Chrétien, and which are translations
from lost French originals of an undetermined date, are one and all
loans from the more famous poem. This, however, can hardly be
contended of the Welsh Triads; there we find Gwalchmai, the Welsh
Gawain, cited as one of the three men "To whom the nature of every
object was known,"[14] an accomplishment exceedingly necessary for
a 'Medicine Man,' but not at first sight especially needful for the
equipment of a knight.[15] This persistent attribution of healing
skill is not, so far as my acquaintance with medieval Romance goes,
paralleled in the case of any other knight; even Tristan, who is
probably the most accomplished of heroes of romance, the most
thoroughly trained in all branches of knightly education, is not
credited with any such knowledge. No other knight, save Gawain,
has the reputation of a Healer, yet Gawain, the Maidens' Knight,
the 'fair Father of Nurture' is, at first sight, hardly the personage
one might expect to possess such skill. Why he should be so
persistently connected with healing was for long a problem to me;
recently, however, I have begun to suspect that we have in this
apparently motiveless attribution the survival of an early stage
of tradition in which not only did Gawain cure the Grail King,
but he did so, not by means of a question, or by the welding of
a broken sword, but by more obvious and natural means, the
administration of a healing herb. Gawain's character of Healer
belongs to him in his rôle of Grail Winner.

Some years ago, in the course of my reading, I came across a passage
in which certain knights of Arthur's court, riding through a forest,
come upon a herb 'which belonged to the Grail.' Unfortunately the
reference, at the time I met with it, though it struck me as curious,
did not possess any special significance, and either I omitted to
make a note of it, or entered it in a book which, with sundry others,
went mysteriously astray in the process of moving furniture. In
any case, though I have searched diligently I have failed to recover
the passage, but I note it here in the hope that one of my reader
may be more fortunate.

It is perhaps not without significance that a mention of Peredur
(Perceval) in Welsh poetry may also possibly contain a reference to
his healing office. I refer to the well-known Song of the Graves in
the Black Book of Carmarthen where the grave of Mor, son of Peredur
Penwetic, is referred to. According to Dr G. Evans the word penwedic,
or perfeddyg, as it may also be read, means chief Healer. Peredur,
it is needless to say, is the Welsh equivalent of Perceval, Gawain's
successor and supplanter in the rôle of Grail hero.

I have no desire to press the point unduly, but it is certainly
significant that, entirely apart from any such theory of the evolution
of the Grail legend as that advanced in these pages, a Welsh scholar
should have suggested a rendering of the title of the Grail hero which
is in complete harmony with that theory; a rendering also which places
him side by side with his compatriot Gwalchmai, even as the completely
evolved Grail story connects him with Gawain. In any case there is
food for reflection in the fact that the possibility of such an
origin once admitted, the most apparently incongruous, and
inharmonious, elements of the story show themselves capable of a
natural and unforced explanation.

In face of the evidence above set forth it seems impossible to deny
that the Doctor, or Medicine Man, did, from the very earliest ages,
play an important part in Dramatic Fertility Ritual, that he still
survives in the modern Folk-play, the rude representative of the early
ritual form, and it is at least possible that the attribution of
healing skill to so romantic and chivalrous a character as Sir Gawain
may depend upon the fact that, at an early, and pre-literary stage of
his story, he played the rôle traditionally assigned to the Doctor,
that of restoring to life and health the dead, or wounded,
representative of the Spirit of Vegetation.

If I am right in my reading of this complicated problem the
mise-en-scène of the Grail story was originally a loan from a ritual
actually performed, and familiar to those who first told the tale.
This ritual, in its earlier stages comparatively simple and
objective in form, under the process of an insistence upon the inner
and spiritual significance, took upon itself a more complex and
esoteric character, the rite became a Mystery, and with this change
the rôle of the principal actors became of heightened
significance. That of the Healer could no longer be adequately
fulfilled by the administration of a medicinal remedy; the relation
of Body and Soul became of cardinal importance for the Drama, the
Medicine Man gave place to the Redeemer; and his task involved more
than the administration of the original Herbal remedy. In fact in
the final development of the story the Pathos is shared alike by the
representative of the Vegetation Spirit, and the Healer, whose task
involves a period of stern testing and probation.

If we wish to understand clearly the evolution of the Grail story
we must realize that the simple Fertility Drama from which it sprung
has undergone a gradual and mysterious change, which has invested it
with elements at once 'rich and strange,' and that though Folk-lore
may be the key to unlock the outer portal of the Grail castle it will
not suffice to give us the entrance to its deeper secrets.



APPENDIX TO CHAPTER VIII

While having no connection with the main subject of our study, the
Grail legend, I should like to draw the attention of students of
Medieval literature to the curious parallel between the Rig-Veda poem
of the Medicine Man or Kräuter-Lied as it is also called, and
Rusteboeuf's Dist de l'Erberie. Both are monologues, both presuppose
the presence of an audience, in each case the speaker is one who
vaunts his skill in the use of herbs, in each case he has in view the
ultimate gain to himself. Here are the opening lines of the Medieval
poem:[1]

"Seignor qui ci estes venu
Petit et grant, jone et chenu,
Il vos est trop bien avenu
Sachiez de voir;
Je ne vos vueil pas deçevoir
Bien le porroz aperçevoir
Ainz que m'en voise.
Asiez vos, ne fetes noise
Si escotez s'il ne vos poise
Je sui uns mires."

He has been long with the lord of Caire, where he won much gold;
in Puille, Calabre, Luserne.

"Ai herbes prises
Qui de granz vertuz sont enprises
Sus quelque mal qu'el soient mises
Le maus s'enfuit."

There is no reference in the poem to a cure about to be performed in
the presence of the audience, which does not however exclude the
possibility of such cure being effected.

It would be interesting to know under what circumstances such a poem
was recited, whether it formed part of a popular representation. The
audience in view is of a mixed character, young and old, great and
small, and one has a vision of the Quack Doctor at some village fair,
on the platform before his booth, declaiming the virtues of his
nostrums before an audience representative of all ranks and ages. It
is a far cry from such a Medieval scene to the prehistoric days of the
Rig-Veda, but the mise-en-scène is the same; the popular 'seasonal'
feast, the Doctor with his healing herbs, which he vaunts in skilful
rhyme, the hearers, drawn from all ranks, some credulous, some amused.
There seems very little doubt that both poems are specimens, and very
good specimens, of a genre the popularity and vitality of which are
commensurate with the antiquity of its origin.[2]



CHAPTER IX

The Fisher King

The gradual process of our investigation has led us to the conclusion
that the elements forming the existing Grail legend--the setting of
the story, the nature of the task which awaits the hero, the symbols
and their significance--one and all, while finding their counterpart
in prehistoric record, present remarkable parallels to the extant
practice and belief of countries so widely separate as the British
Isles, Russia, and Central Africa.

The explanation of so curious a fact, for it is a fact, and not
a mere hypothesis, may, it was suggested, most probably be found
in the theory that in this fascinating literature we have the,
sometimes partially understood, sometimes wholly misinterpreted,
record of a ritual, originally presumed to exercise a
life-giving potency, which, at one time of universal observance,
has, even in its decay, shown itself possessed of elements of the
most persistent vitality.

That if the ritual, which according to our theory lies at the root
of the Grail story, be indeed the ritual of a Life Cult, it should,
in and per se, possess precisely these characteristics, will, I think,
be admitted by any fair-minded critic; the point of course is, can
we definitely prove our theory, i.e., not merely point to striking
parallels, but select, from the figures and incidents composing our
story, some one element, which, by showing itself capable of
explanation on this theory, and on this theory alone, may be held to
afford decisive proof of the soundness of our hypothesis?

It seems to me that there is one such element in the bewildering
complex, by which the theory can be thus definitely tested, that is
the personality of the central figure and the title by which he is
known. If we can prove that the Fisher King, qua Fisher King, is an
integral part of the ritual, and can be satisfactorily explained alike
by its intention, and inherent symbolism, we shall, I think, have
taken the final step which will establish our theory upon a sure
basis. On the other hand, if the Fisher King, qua Fisher King, does
not fit into our framework we shall be forced to conclude that, while
the provenance of certain elements of the Grail literature is
practically assured, the ensemble has been complicated by the
introduction of a terminology, which, whether the outcome of serious
intention, or of mere literary caprice, was foreign to the original
source, and so far, defies explanation. In this latter case our theory
would not necessarily be manqué, but would certainly be seriously
incomplete.

We have already seen that the personality of the King, the nature of
the disability under which he is suffering, and the reflex effect exercised
upon his folk and his land, correspond, in a most striking manner, to
the intimate relation at one time held to exist between the ruler and
his land; a relation mainly dependent upon the identification of the
King with the Divine principle of Life and Fertility.

This relation, as we have seen above, exists to-day among certain
African tribes.

If we examine more closely into the existing variants of our romances,
we shall find that those very variants are not only thoroughly dans le
cadre of our proposed solution, but also afford a valuable, and
hitherto unsuspected, indication of the relative priority of the
versions.

In Chapter I, I discussed the task of the hero in general, here I
propose to focus attention upon his host, and while in a measure
traversing the same ground, to do so with a view to determining
the true character of this enigmatic personage.

In the Bleheris version,[1] the lord of the castle is suffering
under no disability whatever; he is described as "tall, and strong
of limb, of no great age, but somewhat bald." Besides the King there
is a Dead Knight upon a bier, over whose body Vespers for the Dead
are solemnly sung. The wasting of the land, partially restored by
Gawain's question concerning the Lance, has been caused by the
'Dolorous Stroke,' i.e., the stroke which brought about the death
of the Knight, whose identity is here never revealed. Certain
versions which interpolate the account of Joseph of Arimathea and
the Grail, allude to 'Le riche Pescheur' and his heirs as Joseph's
descendants, and, presumably, for it is not directly stated,
guardians of the Grail,[2] but the King himself is here never
called by that title. From his connection with the Waste Land it
seems more probable that it was the Dead Knight who filled that rôle.

In the second version of which Gawain is the hero, that of Diû
Crône,[3] the Host is an old and infirm man. After Gawain has asked
the question we learn that he is really dead, and only compelled to
retain the semblance of life till the task of the Quester be achieved.
Here, again, he is not called the Fisher King.

In the Perceval versions, on the contrary, we find the name invariably
associated with him, but he is not always directly connected with the
misfortunes which have fallen upon his land. Thus, while the Wauchier
texts are incomplete, breaking off at the critical moment of asking
the question, Manessier who continues, and ostensibly completes,
Wauchier, introduces the Dead Knight, here Goondesert, or Gondefer
(which I suspect is the more correct form), brother of the King, whose
death by treachery has plunged the land in misery, and been the direct
cause of the self-wounding of the King.[4] The healing of the King
and the restoration of the land depend upon Perceval's slaying the
murderer Partinal. These two versions show a combination of Perceval
and Gawain themes, such as their respective dates might lead us to
expect.

Robert de Borron is the only writer who gives a clear, and tolerably
reasonable, account of why the guardian of the Grail bears the title
of Fisher King; in other cases, such as the poems of Chrétien and
Wolfram, the name is connected with his partiality for fishing, an
obviously post hoc addition.

The story in question is found in Borron's Joseph of Arimathea.[5]
Here we are told how, during the wanderings of that holy man and his
companions in the wilderness, certain of the company fell into sin.
By the command of God, Brons, Joseph's brother-in-law, caught a Fish,
which, with the Grail, provided a mystic meal of which the unworthy
cannot partake; thus the sinners were separated from the righteous.
Henceforward Brons was known as 'The Rich Fisher.' It is noteworthy,
however, that in the Perceval romance, ascribed to Borron, the title
is as a rule, Roi Pescheur, not Riche Pescheur.[6]

In this romance the King is not suffering from any special malady, but
is the victim of extreme old age; not surprising, as he is Brons
himself, who has survived from the dawn of Christianity to the days of
King Arthur. We are told that the effect of asking the question will
be to restore him to youth;[7] as a matter of fact it appears to bring
about his death, as he only lives three days after his restoration.[8]

When we come to Chrétien's poem we find ourselves confronted with a
striking alteration in the presentment. There are, not one, but two,
disabled kings; one suffering from the effects of a wound, the other
in extreme old age. Chrétien's poem being incomplete we do not know
what he intended to be the result of the achieved Quest, but we may I
think reasonably conclude that the wounded King at least was
healed.[9]

The Parzival of von Eschenbach follows the same tradition, but is
happily complete. Here we find the wounded King was healed, but what
becomes of the aged man (here the grandfather, not as in Chrétien the
father, of the Fisher King) we are not told.[10]

The Perlesvaus is, as I have noted above,[13] very unsatisfactory.
The illness of the King is badly motivated, and he dies before the
achievement of the Quest. This romance, while retaining certain
interesting, and undoubtedly primitive features, is, as a whole, too
late, and remaniée a redaction to be of much use in determining the
question of origins.

The same may be said of the Grand Saint Graal and Queste versions,
both of which are too closely connected with the prose Lancelot, and
too obviously intended to develope and complete the données of that
romance to be relied upon as evidence for the original form of the
Grail legend.[12] The version of the Queste is very confused: there
are two kings at the Grail castle, Pelles, and his father; sometimes
the one, sometimes the other, bears the title of Roi Pescheur.[13]
There is besides, an extremely old, and desperately wounded, king,
Mordrains, a contemporary of Joseph, who practically belongs, not to
the Grail tradition, but to a Conversion legend embodied in the Grand
Saint Graal.[14] Finally, in the latest cyclic texts, we have three
Kings, all of whom are wounded.[15]

The above will show that the presentment of this central figure is much
confused; generally termed Le Roi Pescheur, he is sometimes described
as in middle life, and in full possession of his bodily powers.
Sometimes while still comparatively young he is incapacitated by the
effects of a wound, and is known also by the title of Roi Mehaigné, or
Maimed King. Sometimes he is in extreme old age, and in certain
closely connected versions the two ideas are combined, and we have a
wounded Fisher King, and an aged father, or grandfather. But I would
draw attention to the significant fact that in no case is the Fisher
King a youthful character; that distinction is reserved for his
Healer, and successor.

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