Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 2, 1891.djvu/218

 210 for the meaningless stone mentioned there; the other connected it with other apocryphal tales and legends, and formed the famous Golubinaya Kniga of the Russian epos.

The legend of the Holy Grail had still to pass another stage of development, before it became what it is in some at least of the romances. It had to be entirely spiritualised. The Christian element so prominent in the Crusades pervaded the poem so thoroughly that to some it was nothing but the outcome of purely Christian canonical and non-canonical writings. By leaving the classical and local elements out of account, the Grail had still remained a puzzle to be solved.

I do not even attempt now to show all the parallels to the Christian apocryphal literature which we meet with in the different versions of the romance. The whole early history gives itself as such a tale; later on I may be permitted to show how inextricably interwoven with it are the apocryphal legends of Adam and Seth, the history of the Cross, a peculiar legend of Solomon and the Queen of Sheba, the legend of Sunday, and ever so many more allusions to such and similar apocryphal tales.

But there still remains the liturgical character which is given to the Grail in some of the versions of the romance. It serves to bring home to the reader or hearer a certain dogmatic teaching about the mystery of the Eucharist. The mystical procession, with the description of everything that occurred, points clearly to the fact of the transubstantiation of the sacrament, as a thing that did occur in the sight of the bystanders, as if it were a proof more to the truth and accuracy of this dogmatic teaching.

Has the author of the romance evolved it out of his own fancy, or does he follow here also some legend, which he adapts to his purposes?

There is no doubt that the question of the reality or non-reality of transubstantiation was at the time a burning one. The author or authors have shown themselves well